How to get into Icon/graphics Making!

[tinyumbrella]

I know that some of you are probably already icon makers, and have no need for this guide, and some might be just verging out into icon making or graphics and could use some more tips and tricks!! If you've every wanted another reasonably lax hobby (I mean sometimes it's not so lax LOL) or want to be able to make icons for yourself, others or just do more fandom....follow on! If you have anything to add, feel free in the comments! :)





1. Software.

There is quite a range of software you can use, and the good news is that you don't have to buy or even download software if you don't want to - or you can go full on photoshop which has a monthly subscription.

ONLINE SOFTWARE
https://www.photopea.com/ is an online photo editor which you can use absolutely pretty much like photoshop - in fact that's what it was designed for!
https://www.canva.com/ might be useful, but it doesn't have the full functionality that other software has - if you want to put text on an image, you absolutely could though.

FREE SOFTWARE
https://www.gimp.org/ is free software that plently of people have used in the icon making world, and there are tutorials and lovely icons that have been made using it! It's a great option if you don't want to spend any money or try before you buy....

PAID SOFTWARE
https://www.paintshoppro.com/ is one of your options, and i have used paint shop pro in the past. I'm not sure what it's like now, but likely a good choice!
https://www.adobe.com/nz/products/photoshop.html Photoshop is what many people use, and i do recommend it. It's not cheap - and a monthly subscription, but you could just get one month and see how it goes
https://www.inpixio.com/ I haven't used this, but it does advertise itself as a cost-effective photoshop, so that could be quite good!

You can also sail the seas and get a version that suits you, or there are some boxed options that you can buy as well.

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1. Resources.

Some of the hard work is actually finding caps, fonts, textures, and anything else you wanna use to make art.

Comms
icon_resources for textures etc
capshare for small screencap batches
capspiration for random screencap sharin
icontalking for all sorts of icon-related info!
cdramacaps for c drama caps!
dwresources - DW resources
resourcelove - more resources!

Sites
https://www.dafont.com/ - for a LOT of fonts. Download your font, and drag into your fonts folder.
https://creativemarket.com/ - Yes, lots of paid content - however there are free weekly fonts and things at https://creativemarket.com/free-goods. I also sometimes just use the display images to make textures lol.
https://www.pexels.com/ - completely free stock images

Screencaps
https://hd-screencaps.tumblr.com/
https://hq-screencaps.tumblr.com/
https://www.cap-that.com/tv/
Also i highly recommend checking out this comm's list which is super specific and helpful: https://tvmovie20in20.dreamwidth.org/3321.html?style=mine#cutid1

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Tutorials!
Here is a couple of beginner tutorials i've done:
Icon Making Basics 1 - https://oh-crime.dreamwidth.org/32276.html
Icon Making Basics 2 - https://oh-crime.dreamwidth.org/32926.html
Icon Cut outs - https://oh-crime.dreamwidth.org/32608.html
Icon Composition - https://oh-crime.dreamwidth.org/36338.html
Here is a masterlist on LJ - https://fan-cicons.livejournal.com/6627.htmls
Check out the ask-the-maker tag at icontalking https://icontalking.dreamwidth.org/tag/ask+the+maker

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But...what to do?

You can definitely get into making graphics for tumblr (gifs & picspams are most common there) or icon comms here at DW, or land-comms and other challenge communities. For those of you that do fic, making corresponding images might be something you want to do!

icontalking has a complete list of all the icon making communities on DW - https://icontalking.dreamwidth.org/46317.html

Some of these are voting comms, where people enter and vote on their faves, others are just enter for the fun of it comms, such as battles or iconcolors which are a great place to start and get feedback!

There are also communities to share your icons - for people to use as userpics :) eg. icons

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ASK AWAY!

Do you have a question?
Are you looking for tips on a certain technique? (I mean, don't get carried away i still count myself as intermediate as a graphics maker, there are lots of techniques that baffle me LOL)
Are you looking for something?
Do you want icon recs?
Do you want to give me a cap and i'll make an icon?

There are no silly questions!! :)

Comments

[lilly_c]

Photoscape/Photoscape X is also a good free software.

[goodbyebird]

This is a wonderful post ❤️

[impala_chick]

Yay, thanks for this! I want to try icon making for Lands of Magic. How do you make those icon tables that people use to post?

[tinyumbrella]

Yay! Do :)

There is actually a generator: https://chlorophylls.github.io/Dreamwidth-Icon-Table-Generator/

I don't usually make tables, i just number things 01.< img src= "" > 02. etc.
There are a lot of profile tables you could learn the code for tables yourself though.

[impala_chick]

Oh perfect, thanks so much!

[mekare]

This is so good thank you! I make icons a couple of times a year and now I can bookmark this post to remember how to do it.

[tinny]

Oooh, cool! I found this through smallbatchicons, but I'd be very happy if you'd posted a link to this to icontalking, as well. Or I could promote it there, if you prefer.