putting binary data into a blob

[wardisgod]

I am trying to upload an icon from a client to a server and then to 
other clients over tcp/ip. the icon data will be stored in mysql on the 
server. the column is defined as a mediumblob field. once on the 
server, i escape the string and then put it into a mysql statement to 
insert it into the database, but only 10 or so of the 15000  characters 
are put in. code looks like this -

    stringstream query;
    char *iconNotMySQL=(char*)malloc(icon.length());    // icon is a 
c++ stl string of the icons data
    char *iconMySQL=(char*)malloc((icon.length() * 2) + 1);
    memcpy(iconNotMySQL, icon.c_str(), icon.length());

    mysql_real_escape_string(&mysql, iconMySQL, iconNotMySQL, 
icon.length());

    query << "UPDATE members SET email = \"" << email << "\", "
          << "location = \"" << loc << "\", "
          << "bio = \"" << bio << "\", "
          << "showemail = \"" << showemail << "\", "
          << "icon = \"" << iconMySQL << "\" "
          << "WHERE username = \"" << name << "\"";
    MaGmysql_query(query.str());
when I check the length of query.str() it looks exactly as it should, 
but not all the data is inserted into the database. can anyone help me 
out?

thanks
chris