custom emoticons

[sdh]

hiyall.
im thinking of making a series of custom emoticons, is there anything i should know to make the production easier/better?

here is a first i made today (BIG one):

[Son of a Preacher Man]

You're pretty handy at the old graphic arts thing.

Emoticon packs are dead simple to make, really. I assume you've opened one up and had a peek inside?

There's no reason my opinions are any more valid than someone else's, but I'm going to give them to you anyway because I'm that kind of person!:

• I like it when artists stick to the standard emoticons used in a particular service, eg msn - so then I get to see the artwork regularly, and people don't go "huh?" when I use my custom :omgwtfbbq: pictures and they can't see them.

• I find it quite important that they're consistent in their style - as you're obviously designing them all, that's not really going to be a problem here.

• Not too big! They mess up the text spacing.

[sdh]

You're pretty handy at the old graphic arts thing.

Emoticon packs are dead simple to make, really. I assume you've opened one up and had a peek inside?

There's no reason my opinions are any more valid than someone else's, but I'm going to give them to you anyway because I'm that kind of person!:

• I like it when artists stick to the standard emoticons used in a particular service, eg msn - so then I get to see the artwork regularly, and people don't go "huh?" when I use my custom :omgwtfbbq: pictures and they can't see them.

• I find it quite important that they're consistent in their style - as you're obviously designing them all, that's not really going to be a problem here.

• Not too big! They mess up the text spacing.

"You're pretty handy at the old graphic arts thing."
- what does that "old" mean? what is the "new" graphics thing?

yeah, im making all the basic smileys. ill maybe add some of my own ideas later, only maybe.

[Son of a Preacher Man]

Hehe. I have a penchant for strange phraseology, old bean.

[sdh]

is there a way to get the smileys small without them blurring so terribly?
i just cant do any "pixelart" : /

[Adam Iser]

is there a way to get the smileys small without them blurring so terribly?
i just cant do any "pixelart" : /

Smileys are a major pain in that regard.

[Son of a Preacher Man]

Some programs appear to be better at scaling things down than others, so perhaps try a few different ones. You'll probably need to touch a lot of them up, though

[sdh]

my interest in making the emoticons just fell by 50%..
sigh

[The_Tick]

my interest in making the emoticons just fell by 50%..
sigh

What I do is just setup the image to the size needed, and then I zoom in like 1000 percent. That usually helps

Graphic Converter (or is it image?) seems to work better for scaling.

[zaudragon]

my interest in making the emoticons just fell by 50%..
sigh

What I do is just setup the image to the size needed, and then I zoom in like 1000 percent. That usually helps

Graphic Converter (or is it image?) seems to work better for scaling.

Graphic Converter is right

Graphic Converter is just good for what it's name says: Converting.

[Son of a Preacher Man]

Graphic Converter's ok, its .gif support is rather suspicious though.

Photoshop often blurs things when shrinking, in my experience.

Preview can be surprisingly good though.

[The_Tick]

You can shrink images in preview?!

[zaudragon]

You can shrink images in preview?!

I think zoom will work

[sdh]

if you mean zoom and then save it in preview - it doesnt work. it still staves it in 528x528

but is there a way to make the picture a vector? then shrink it?

[sdh]

tried with graphic converter, 19x19 is just too small for the icons, itll never work!

[The_Tick]

Part of the problem is that you have the thicker outline on the smiley.

[sdh]

you mean i should make the outline thinner and then make the smiley a little bigger? - i could do that, dont think itll make a big difference though.

[The_Tick]

Do it, that's part of the problem.

[sdh]

ok, will be done.
what more could i do?

[The_Tick]

Bah, just played with it. Seriously not going to look good at anything under 32x32