EmoticonTutorial

2 days and 1 hour after making my very first emoticon (my weekend is in the middle of the week ...and i went sleep deprived) and after 7 hours of consecutive work, i am proud to bring you my 1st tutorial ^^

please full view this (its very VERY different than the preview)

hopefully this will give some of you a place to start, and then you can grauate onto more complicated smileys later on (that is why the background is pink, because on animated smilies you have to have the transparencies set as a single colour preferably one easy to pick out when viewing your palette)

if you follow the steps, you should end up with this [link] this is the actual smiley that resulted from creating my tutorial

ill write out the steps so after you view it, you dont have to wait the entire cycle to view each step again

step 1
make a circle for your smiley's head
(my smiley is 15x15)

i use mspaint 4 this b/c photoshop
annoys me when i try to make shapes
---
step 2
in photoshop, make your background
a unique colour

and then paste your circle over it
---
step 3
select the outer edges of your smiley
and delete them

select the inner head of your smiley
and cut it (ctrl+x)
---
step 4
paste your cutout two times (ctrl+v)

and move both of the new layers under
the layer containing the outline of your
smiley's head
---
step 5
on the layer directly under youre head
out line, select the colour you want
your smiley to be

and use the paintbrush to give him
some nice shading in that colour
---
step 6
give your painted layer some
transparency so it blends
a little smoother
---
step 7
on the layer containing your head
outline, select the edges again

keep your selection, go to the layer
containing your shading and press
delete to remove the excess
---
step 8
on the layer containing your head
outline, use the pencil tool to add
eyes and a mouth
---
step 9
in the layer options,
flatten your image
---
step 10
on the image menu
select mode
and then indexed color

make sure transparency is forced
and hit ok
---
step 11
select your background edges
and delete them

(they should now be transparent)
---
step 12
now choose save as from the file menu

give your smile the name of your choice

and format it as a compuserve GIF
with your preferance of interlacing

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if you would like to post this tutorial elsewhere, you are free to do so providing the following:
-you host it elsewhere and dont link to deviantart's image and use up their bandwidth. (ive found a good host to be imageshack [link])
-you send me a note so that i can see what kind of feedback my tutorial is getting elsewhere

if you would like to edit this tutorial, you are free to do so providing the following:
-you dont remove or alter the initial splash screen that gives me credit (i spent 7+ consecutive hours working on this, pls dont say you made it)
-you send me a note so i can see what kind of edits other people wanted, and what kind of feedback they got

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thanks a bunch
-angel