The Noobs Guide to Icon Art

[Dentothor]

Hello Future Icon artists!
In this tutorial we will learn the basics of icon art and all about the art tool GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) This tutorial MAY be used for photoshop as well but take note that the toolbox may not be in the same order.

Tools You Will Need

• GIMP 2.6.6 (Any other image editing tool will work. (PREFERABLY NOT PAINT))
• Shadow_Deamon's Button Manager Tool

Table of Contents:
1:Getting to Know Your Toolbox
2:Creating Your First Icon
3:Finalizing

---

1:Getting to Know Your Toolbox

Your toolbox is your greatest ally. Get to know it and you can master all types of techniques used to make the perfect icon.

Transform Tools

Selection Tools

Brush Tools

Colour Tools

Other Tools

---

2:Creating Your First Icon

Now that you know your toolbox, you can start making your own icon.

STEP 1:

You Want to start with a basic background. (BG) So i have started with the simplest of all backgrounds, the plain black BG

STEP 2:

After that, you want to make sure you have your basic shape. Start a new layer. I like drawing it with solid colours without bothering to do an outline. But if you want to do a basic outline and then fill in your basic colours, you may.

STEP 3:

After that, you want to get some basic shape out of the item(s)/object(s) Try out some shading and highlights that work for your icon. Such as; I use scratchy highlights to give it a more worn out texture. Smoother highlights will lead to a smoother object and scratchy highlights will give you a more worn out feeling. Also, be sure to not just put highlights randomly. It is key to have a sense of light coming from some direction. Make sure your highlights follow this path of light. Such as how i have done with putting the highlights along the top of the metal.

STEP 4:

Next, you want to add some basic shadows to the object. Try either using the burn tool or a darker version of the base colour. Putting it along the parts that are lower than than some of the higher ones, is very good for the full feel of the icon. Also, that light path we talked about, try doing some of the shadows along the opposite side.

STEP 5:

Add some more highlights to the rest of the icon. Once again following the path of light we talked about, to give the icon a whole lot more realism. A good way to do this, is with white at 15% opacity.

STEP 6:

And finalize the icon by adding a few more highlights and shadows here and there. Give the icon an even better impression of realism.

STEP 7:

Size Down to 64 x 64... And you're done!

---

3:Finalizing

Now that you've constructed your icon,
It is time to put borders on the icon and convert it to .blp

Open up your button manager tool and select the icon wizard.

Once you've selected your Input folder (red)
And your output folder (green)
Choose what Borders you want, and select the Create Icons button (blue)
Make sure the Icon is in a format that the program recognizes (JPG, BMP, TGA, PNG, Bitmap)

your icons should come out in your output folder in .blp format.

Well Done! You've created your first icon!

---

~Dentothor

 

[Xezko]

Can`t see the images of "Creating Your First Icon"... D:

 

[Dentothor]

:/ ill fix that in a sec

 

[Slaydon]

/facepalm

 

[Dentothor]

srry i have to do it all over again

 

[Pyritie]

I can't see them either

 

[Dentothor]

Fixed.

 

[TheHunterKiller]

Thanks. Helped me.

 

[Pyritie]

Attach the other images to your post as well

 

[Dentothor]

the toolbox?

 

[Pyritie]

Yes, everything. That's part of the tutorial submission rules.

 

[Dentothor]

done

 

[Pyritie]

1) Use

,

,

tags for the headings
2) In the "getting to know your tools" section, you can get rid of all of the nested hidden tags and just have the one overall.
3) The finished icon could use some work. The "middle" bit of it is just solid red. It needs more shading in there.
4) Use a sharpen filter at the end!
5) Use [hr]200[/hr] instead of ____________________________ for the dividers
6) In the table of contents, add [goto] and

 

[Dentothor]

Fixed

i did everything you asked

 

[Devine]

there's a much nicer way to color in your outlines than that D=
seriously, there was black beteen the gray and the red parts.

 

[Elfsilver Lord]

Dude, you are using way to scratchy of a brush, and you have no prospect of shading. If you want to make a Noobs guide, you need to actually be out of the noob state.

If you wanted to create a quality icon (That noobs would actually learn to do), you'd do something like this. It retraced and drawn with the Pen Tool, Paintbrush, and Liquify from your icon, then resized to proper size for bordering. All in 5 minutes.

 

[Pyritie]

If you wanted to create a quality icon (That noobs would actually learn to do), you'd do something like this. It retraced and drawn with the Pen Tool, Paintbrush, and Liquify from your icon, then resized to proper size for bordering. All in 5 minutes.

You seem to be stuck in the noob state as well -- your icon isn't much better than his.

 

[Xezko]

I agree. Let's the pro ones make tuts. We are here to learn. ^^

 

[Dentothor]

Wayy in the noob state elf. And this is just
my way of designing. This tut was just more or less made for noobs to get to know the tools. They don't HAVE to draw my way.

And what? Am I not pro enough for you Xezko? XD

 

[Xezko]

I'm not pro. If what are you thinking.
When i said pro i said... 67Chrome, Dionessist, Afronight, etc. You know who? Pro pleople.

 

[Dentothor]

You forgot CRAZYRUSSIAN he was the king of this stuff. But yes I kno exactly what you mean

 

[Devine]

• GIMP 2.6.6 (Any other image editing tool will work. (PREFERABLY NOT PAINT))

wtf? what's wrong with paint?

 

[Pyritie]

paint is teh suck

 

[.Ragnaros]

This tutorial is pretty useful, but I still stuck on the drawing, I paint very well with a REAL pen and pencil, but with my computer's mouse I suck, I guess I'll have to get a pen and a pad in order to make better drawings ^^ - 7/10 (Not 10/10 because I didn't like your final result that much, but the tutorial is good)

 

[Dentothor]

you just need a steady hand, thats all. i use my scroll pad on my laptop an i do just fine.
amd in the case of the final result, the actual icon set was much better. its a weird thing i have. i cant draw the same thing twice :S

and is this not getting approved r sumthing? i fixed everything you said Pyrite

 

[Pyritie]

I'm not sure whether I like the result enough D:

 

[Dentothor]

as i said, it wasnt nessicarily for the icon but to get to know the tools and how to do proper stuff

 

[arthas_king]

Thanks Dento, that will help me much

 

[Chief-Oblivion]

I like how it explained the tools and stuff, but the icon creation part of it lacked detail and tips. In that part of the tutorial you pretty much said, go get it and hope it turns out good.

The tool part was sweet though, it encouraged me to upgrade from photoshop cs to gimp. ;D Maybe.

 

[Dentothor]

i did an even further update. i added more detail to the step by step tutorial, and fixed the final product.

 

[adrianwho]

Hi,
i have made an laser ball with the tool gimp. then i opened the botton manager and i tried to get the icon to get to turn to a warcraft booton. but it could not search for it. why?

replay please.

 

[TheHunterKiller]

Hi,
i have made an laser ball with the tool gimp. then i opened the botton manager and i tried to get the icon to get to turn to a warcraft booton. but it could not search for it. why?

replay please.

Buttonmanager doesn't show stuff like ''GIMP files'', you have to turn it to png or something.

 

[Dentothor]

I guess i should put that in the tut as well...

k fixed

 

[XenoStalker]

I think this tutorial is pretty good for someone just getting into creating icons - especially incoorporating a tool to create all the icon types easily.

Good job.

 

[Pyritie]

the end result isn't all that great but the tutorial itself is good.

approved l0lz

 

[tastywater]

Nice guide! Helped me make my first decent icon.

 

[Fummy]

Can someone tell me a way to turn tga into blp that isnt Wc3 image extractor or Wc3 Viewer, neither are working for me.

 

[HuanJuan]

I wonder if I can find anybody, who is a mad lad as me, using gimp to do stuff.
Thank you for the tutorial by the way!