The portraits are just snapshots of your character. I don't think you can have it show "no gear" as what the cameras see is how your character looks atm in-game. As for facing forward, that may be doable, though I'm not sure how - I'm not much of a coder either.
![Wink](//cdn-wow.mmoui.com/images/style_mmoi_wowi2/smilies/wink.gif)