Forgotten Angel

Is it just me, or does there seem to be a lack of party joinable thieves in BG2?  Insofar as I remember, there's only Jan you can keep who can advance his thieving propensities (and if I have to listen to one more turnip story, I'm going to start shoving vegetables where the sun don't shine   ).  As far as mods go, I can think of only Chrysta, Amber and Fade who have talents for theivery.  And while I'm at it, why on earth isn't there a single evil rogue?  Heck, even a neutral one that didn't tend towards crazy would work.   

I guess the question is, would anyone besides me, myself and I be interested in a not so happy-go-lucky roguish type character?  'Twould have to be female; I've a bit of a hard time putting myself in a male character's shoes enough to write convincingly as one.  Ideas I have, but is there anything the community would like to see before I get too caught up in my 'perfect' picture?

We're talking the most basic of basic here. I have DLTCEP. I have tutorials on using that beast, which, by the way, I think I will love once I learn it somewhat. I have Photoshop and more than a little experience playing with it. Heck, I even have 3DS Max and have played with that a little. However, I'd like to be able to extract areas from within the IE games and use those bitmaps as a basis for my modifications. I know darn well it's possible, but I'm not quite sure how to go about it. Any tips for a raw beginner on simply extracting the bitmaps from the ARE files?

Thanks!