We've all seen them, those square images by people's names in forums or on website updates. Those are avatars - an image used as an identity. But how do you make them? Well, TGL is about to teach you to make simple avvies in his first step-by-step art guide.
What program do I use?
Well, personally, I use GIMP but there are other photo editors availible - GIMP is free to download here though. This guide is perfect for beginners if you're using GIMP but if not, make sure you're familiar with the different tools and functions availible.
Step 1: Subject
You first need to decide what the subject of your avatar is going to be.
When you've decided, find a picture of it on the internet and save it to you computer. Open it with GIMP and then make sure the area around it is transparent - the black and grey checkerboard. I'm going to use a Victreebel from Arkeis.
You'll want something that looks like this:
Step 2: Background
Open up a new image, the size you want the avatar to be - they are usually square; up to around 100px width, 100px height. You should now have a plain white square. If it isn't white, change the background colour to white and foreground to black and do it again.
Now, there are two ways of doing this. You can either make your own bg using brushes - I'd advise downloading some from the web - or, cheat and do what I'm going to do and use the GIMP's Fractal Explorer. Other software may or may not provide this software and my laptop doesn't have the disk space to download it and see so I can't check for you.
Making a background with brushes is reasonably simple - just play about until you have something that looks nice and will suit your subject. Using the fractals (Filters > Render > Fractal Explorer), select a suitable style from the Fractals tab and then, on the Colors tab make sure that you have it set use the colours from the active gradient (black to white). We'll be adding a colour in a moment
Here's mine:
Step 3: Adding Colour
Create a new layer, the same size, and make it transparent. If you aren't sure how to do this, go to the layers tab, right-click on Background and select "Create New Layer". Now, return to your pokemon image and, using the colour picker tool, select a colour from the image - I'm using the brown from stalk.
On your avatar, using the bucket fill tool, fill the whole layer with that colour - don't worry about your hard work on the BG, we aren't done. Go to the layers tab again and you should a dropdown menu entitled Mode; it should say Normal in it. Open it up and select a mode that you think looks good. I'm using Hard light.
Mine now, looks like this:
Step 4: The Image
Now, you may well be asking "When are we going to get to put the image on?!". If so, chillax, we're doing it now! On your pokemon image, edit the size so it will fit on your avatar - click Image > Scale Image and then change the sizes so both height and width are less than or equal to the size of your avatar, making sure to keep it in proportion. Then, select it all (Ctrl+A) and copy it (Ctrl+C).
Create a new layer on your avatar and paste (Ctrl+V) your pokemon image. On the layers tab, right click on this new layer and anchor it to the blank one below. Your image is now in place. If it doesn't look right, repeat Step 3 by adding a new layer over the top and filling it with the same colour as before.
You should now have something a little like this:
Step 5: Text
All that's left to do is put your name on it - use a colour that suits the image - if it's quite dark, use a dark colour, if it's light, use a light colour: I'm using the same brown as I used for Step 3.
Create a new layer, then using the text tool, type in the text you want, get it the right size and font and then move it to the place you want. When satisfied, right click the text layer and merge down, onto the blank layer you created.
If you've done this correctly, the text should be a little tricky to read - never mind, we're going to make it stand out more now! Go back to your subject image and select a contrasting colour to the one you picked earlier - for this Victreebel, I'm using the green of the leaves. Use the select-by-colour tool (not colour picker) , select the text, then, Edit > Stroke selection and set the thickness to something reasonably thing - 1 or 2 pixels depending on how thick your text is.
You should now have a finished avatar:
Step 6: Experimenting
Now you can make the basic, simple avvy, you can experiment by using other techniques to enhance the image or text, as well as adding borders, scan lines or other effects to the whole avatar. Use this guide as a basis to develop your own unique style and we'll make a great artist out of you yet!
If you have found this guide helpful, please, email us your avatars and we can put together a cool gallery of all of your work for everyone to enjoy!