Civilization V-style Icons with Gimp

Damn I before E. Thanks for spotting that, I'll just go ahead and fix that, then pretend like it never happened...

 

Ah, smart It's sometimes better to draw a custom sunburst, since not all images may fit. I don't think it's very difficult, though I found that it doesn't always work with all colours, and with all images. If there's a rather complicated background image, I usually airbrush a colour over my 'drawn' sunburst first. A couple of GIFs might make it all clear, but I've no idea how to make a GIF, or how to record what I'm doing on-screen. Still have to tweak this guide, as well I've learnt some new things on the way.

No problem

 

Updated OP with links to 2 vids, hope that'll help. First one is messy, but some parts are still useful for the second vid (parts which were left out in the second one), namely: the adjustment of the leader image and adding the gloss in the last past of the vid, using airbrush and dodge/burn.

 

I always go back to this guide when making icons. The icons I tried to follow your exact instructions but they still didn't turn out as good as yours! I'll keep trying though.

 

Great, practice is important

 

Inevitably, you're bound to get it down to the point where it looks good. I'm happy with the results.

 

Good Always aim for improvement when making new icons; that's what I always try.

 

This helped me quite a bit! Would love some feedback if anyone can provide

Spoiler :

 

I don't know how long it is in the full image, but if not much, it'd probably look nice if you made the gun stick out of the circle.

 

I see that the right 'ray' doesn't diverge. They usually do, if only slightly. Also, if you used the free select tool, consider setting the 'feather' (or whatever it's called in Photoshop) to 2 or 3, so the edges will look smoother. Looking at the background, I see the guy is covering one ray. In this light it's useful to work in layers (if you didn't), something that's not addressed here, so you can first copy/paste the dude on the background, then select just the background, so you do a better job 'drawing' the sunburst. Lastly, the actual shiny 'sun' of the icon is usually brighter, especially near the edges of the guy/object, for example:

True, but it looks like it's too long. Or it's a weird rifle

 

Here's a new one of Leopold II of Belgium. Still can't get the effects perfectly right for some reason, but I'm satisfied with this result.

 

Yeah, it's quite annoying if it's just not exactly what you were aiming for, right? But that's also good, because you'll keep aiming for improvement! I'm never fully satisfied with the art I make too.

Sometimes desaturating and/or making the background image darker will make adding the shiny stuff easier.