GIMP Version: 2.6.11
Operating System: Mac OS
OS Version: XP - SP3
GIMP Experience: Basic Level

---

I have looked via search with no luck, and have googled but haven't found exactly what I hoped. Does anyone know of tutorials on how to make smilies...I can make a basic one but wanted to try to make some a bit fancy like the little artist one...both plain and gif types. I tried but they look ugly and I cannot really tell what they would look like in a message. I was also wondering about the sizing, anti-aliasing or not, if they need a special extension on the file like icons, how to name them so you can type in emoticons and the smilie would show up in a post, how to make the same on in two sizes with the same detail...anyone have some hints for me?
p.s. I thought I asked this yesterday but I must have forgotten to hit the submit button.

I don't have any advice on making smilies, but there is a feature of GIMP that is rarely discussed which might be helpful. That feature is the ability to show simultaneous multiple views of the same image with, for example, one view being at actual size, another being zoomed in a bit, and yet another zoomed right in to the pixel level. You can edit your image in any of the views you wish and the changes will appear in all of them (painting will only appear in the active view during the brush stroke, but the other views will get updated once you release the mouse button).



When you create your new views, I'd recommend using the tearoff menu feature. Tearoff menus are available by clicking on the little triangle in the upper-left corner of the image window. The menu that appears is just like the one in the menu bar across the top, except that each of the submenus has a dotted line across the very top. Clicking on this dotted line will create a new window containing just that submenu. By tearing off the View Menu, you can quickly add your new views and adjust the settings to each of them as you prefer (for example, for the "actual size" view in the above screenshot, I disabled the menu bar, the rulers, the status line, the scroll bars, and the layer boundary). After you've set your view preferences, you can close the tearoff menu by clicking on the dotted line. NOTE: you can also access tearoff menus by right-clicking in the image window.

I also don't know any tutorials, would say download/save an existing emoticon for its size or dimensions and modify it for practice.

Also, smilies are just PNG or GIF images. When you type something and it turns into an emoticon, that's something that's programmed into the forum you're using. There are defaults for many forums (with :) almost always being a simple smiley face) to custom/forum-specific ones.

Making a text emoticon turn into an image emoticon is not something you could do yourself, unless you ran your own message board. If you want to insert an emoticon that's not available in the smiley list, you'll have to find one and use the IMG tags around it.

If it's an emoticon from another website, you can right-click it and copy the image location (in Properties). If you make one yourself, you'll have to upload it to a hosting site (like Photobucket) and then use the IMG tags around the URL it will generate for your emoticon.

Thanks for all the info....can't wait to get some time to try out the 3 views! And online hosting is fine with me, I'll just make a special folder if I get any good smilies made.

You also might find the Navigation window to be useful.

hmm, not sure how to access nav window...also, how do you undo the anti-aliasing with the paintbrush? I wanted to try it out. I did figure out how to get the three views...that really helps. I still cannot make a decent looking smilie when I try to add extra stuff like hands or hair or a cowboy hat, lol. I'm never sure of the correct pixel count for the face, either. I guess 20x20 might be good?

Use the pencil tool and the standard "Pixel" brush. The pencil tool doesn't anti-alias. Combine that with the 1-pixel "Pixel" brush and you have a tool that is ideal for pixel work. (It even says so in the Gimp manual. )

To access the navigation window you can go to Windows/dockable dialogs and select navigation window.


OR

so much I haven't learned yet! I still need to find some tutorials, I totally suck at trying to make anything but the standard plain smilie. I need to learn how to make "stuff" for a small smilie, like hats, hair, lips, hands with arms, legs with footwear, Sunglasses, all the cool extra stuff.

Might i suggest using Inkscape.As you can create real large icons and scale them down to look just as sharp.
I use Inkscape for all my RocketDock icon sets.
It's free and it's an excellent vector editor.

Much easier to create those intricate details on an icon.

ah, I"ve been tempted to get into Inkscape, but haven't had the nerve to try and learn a new program. I have tried to use the online Raven (forget what the main site is called) but it's a vector program and I cannot get the hang of it.

Here's a couple that I added text into.





O, I remember that you created a good one that was waving and saying "Hey" (I think). Do you still have that one?

I didn't make the smiley part but I added the Hey

lol, I want to add a cowboy hat.

Yeah, that's the one.

It seems when the font gets smaller, there's no room for anti-aliasing. You have to find (or create) a font that minimizes the need for anti-aliasing or doesn't need it at all.

The Y has semiflattening around the ascenders but the other letters don't. All caps seem to work better for smilies most of the time.

O, I tested a number of common fonts recently to see how they behaved at the smaller sizes without anti-aliasing, and also with hinting and forced hinting.

Calibri performed the best overall and Calibri Bold was the clear winner with anti-aliasing turned off.

I have a font called SF Pixelate that is a bitmapped font. It can be scaled down a lot. Bitmap fonts start out smaller than most and anti-aliasing should not be used with them.

There are a lot of bitmapped fonts at daFont that can be utilized for very small text.

http://www.dafont.com/bitmap.php

I've stared at a lot of pixel fonts over the years. They do work very well at certain smaller sizes.

I like Apple ][ because it is mono-spaced like the fonts were way back then.
Grixel Kyrou 9 is a good font with four variations.
PF Tempesta Seven is another nice looking font with multiple variations, but I haven't used it yet.

The draw-back with pixel fonts is they only look good at the sizes they were designed for.

I just looked at SF Pixelate It looks good and it's a 10px font so the letters are slightly larger that the more common 8px fonts. I think I'll add it to my collection. Thanks O!