Ok. You've seen my custom smileys. Some people like them and some people think they are cool (thus making me cool by association :D). But since they are just your regular animated GIFs, they are pretty much easy to make, ideally. Just whip out your favorite graphic editor, use a GIF animator and you have a smiley or emoticon. But looking at the regular IM and site forum/message board emoticons, I can say that my smileys/emoticons (let's just refer to them as smileys to make it easier) are unique in themselves especially the animations, or even the personalization for each one. So for the curious, I wrote a little walkthrough on my methods on making an animated smiley. Again, you may not agree with my methods in terms of graphic programs or just the actual method itself, but it's how I do it, I'm used to it, I'm comfortable with it, and I find it much easier.

To start, here are the stuff I use:

Microangelo Animator

- I'm currently using Microangelo 2.1. Rather old but it does the job. I'm using Microangelo Animator to be exact. You can use Microangelo Studio for a bigger range of pic sizes but since you're gonna animate it, use Animator so you can draw each frame there and test your draft animation. Just like cartooning, it's much better to see your animations with being able to see each frame progression so you can edit accordingly. Plus it's easier to paint and delete in it. I'll explain later.

Adobe Photoshop

- Now, I use Photoshop (version 5.5) to create the transparencies, finally color the frames, and do some additional touches. Setting transparencies here is much easier than setting the transparent color on your GIF editor or whatever. But that's just my opinion. Each frame will have a separate layer.

Adobe Image Ready

- I have version 2.0, the one that came with PS v5.5. This is where the magic is finalized. The good thing about this, you can open the .PSD file you saved from the frames you created and set the animation frames with ease. You can test the finalized frame timings, add the necessary extra graphics and save the GIF file.

Next >>