Irkalla's "Firaxis-Like" Civilization Icon Tutorial

[Craig_Sutter]

Gimphoto is free.

I was exactly where you are 6 months ago.

Never did a tutorial but did searches whenever I could not figure out how to do a specific task.

For example, if I did not know how to select something using fuzzy select I would google "how do I use fuzzy select" and see what answers I got.

That being said, I am sure there are many tutorials out there.

 

[abandag]

Cool. Thanks again. I pretty much gave up on it after my first attempt led nowhere, but I might give it another try at some point. It'll have to wait because I'm in the process of trying to learn lua right now.

 

[TPangolin]

I think the best you can do for somebody at your level is to essentially be handed a PSD file and open it up using some program that can support PSDs (i.e PS Elements). Worry about the icon creation first before the .dds formatting - as somebody else can do that for you if you are confused. Icons can be readily found online under Google Images -> Search Tool -> Line Drawings.

Alternatively - you can just ask someone like yours truly to make your desired image for you. What exactly are you after?

 

[abandag]

Currently I'm not looking for anything specific. I would really just like to learn how to do it, but I'm in no rush. I'm working on a project by myself that uses a bunch of new civs. So far I've just been recycling existing civ's icons, which is fine by me because eventually I'll delete all the existing civs and just use my made-up ones for this project. The art aspect of designing a new civ is the least important to me personally, so I've got no problem pushing that off to the side for now. But eventually I would like to learn how to make my own icons and stuff so everything looks better. I also have no problem stealing other people's work, especially since I don't plan on publishing or sharing my work with anyone. That's also part of the reason I don't care about the art stuff--this is just for me. Anyway, thanks for the offer.

 

[Wolfenmaus]

I notice that the last post was in September, so I don't know if this is okay to do, but I'd like to thank you for this tutorial, and I'd like to show the two icon's I made from it, Romania and Ghana:



I know they don't have borders, and I apologize for that. I simply couldn't understand the steps in that part of the tutorial. But, as someone who has never made something in Photoshop before today, I think I did pretty well. What do you guys think? Do they look decent?

 

[Craig_Sutter]

The Ghana one is very nice. The Rumanian icon may be too detailed to show up clearly at smaller sizes.

The outside rings are relatively simple although I would set them at half the suggested width... if you cannot figure those out I could give it a shot.

 

[Wolfenmaus]

Please do.

Incidentally, I also managed to do these last night. Any good?



I'm less proud of these ones. The Nigerian horse turned out too small, and the Antarctican symbol is a little choppy.

 

[Wolfenmaus]

I like this one the most, really. Maybe it's the way I layered the shading.

 

[yorkgrass]

This is like the best tutorial for brainless people like me! Even I can do it, everybody can~

 

[Pouakai]

So I was finally giving this a shot, got to the end of the first post and decided that would be a good place to end for the night, and absent-mindedly closed without saving. I'll try again tomorrow, but it seemed to be not looking that bad

 

[TPangolin]

Might as well share my creations here:

Spoiler :

Hit me up if anyone wants one!

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Brilliant work, TPangolin! It would be great to see your own icons thread with these downloadable (especially if they include the white civ symbols required for modding, so that you can see the icon in opponents' cities). That would prove very popular.

 

[TPangolin]

Brilliant work, TPangolin! It would be great to see your own icons thread with these downloadable (especially if they include the white civ symbols required for modding, so that you can see the icon in opponents' cities). That would prove very popular.

I'll go ahead and make one in the Graphics section

White symbols shouldn't be too hard to extract however to make alphas from.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

I'll go ahead and make one in the Graphics section

Great stuff!!

White symbols shouldn't be too hard to extract however to make alphas from.

They're not; the only reason I suggested it is to make them more accessible to new modders and those modders not versed in graphics; it also saves on the "how do I create the alphas for these?" questions which are likely to crop up.

 

[TPangolin]

Great stuff!!
it also saves on the "how do I create the alphas for these?" questions which are likely to crop up.

I don't actually convert any of this stuff into the dds/alpha files. That stuff winkles my brain. I outsource all that

I'll make a thread for it though.

 

[bane_]

Using this awesome tutorial, I've got these.
Unfortunately, the first one is based on a family's symbol that is just a purple circle, so not much to do there.

 

[Korallikemu]

Thank you for this awesome guide! I so had to try this myself and I made this little emblem of my fictional country called Korallia.

Sorry, I have problems uploading it to this page, but it can found in this link: http://sta.sh/0wljlokfws3

 

[Wolfenmaus]

Welp, it's been a while, and I'd like some critiques on my icons. I'd also like comments on their color schemes, and whether or not they should be changed to better fit the civ.

Colombia

Spoiler :

Finland

Spoiler :

Mexico

Spoiler :

The Philippines

Spoiler :

Quebec

Spoiler :

Republic of Texas

Spoiler :

The Algonquin

Spoiler :

 

[Homusubi]

The actual icon design is great, although there are a few issues with colours:

Colombia - too similar to Persia. If you are not intending to use it alongside Leugi's Gran Colombia, then I'd use yellow-on-dark-blue or light-blue-on-dark-yellow.
Finland - the lion is a bit too small. Also, it is ANOTHER rampant lion, which is kind of generic and is already being used for Netherlands.
Mexico - the icon is a bit too stretched out, so it would look a bit weird next to a city as an alpha.
Philippines - providing you can make the colour scheme different to Sweden's, it looks good.
Quebec - Good icon choice. their colours are blue and white. How about white on bright blue? (darker and slightly more saturated than America's)
Texas - Again, good icon choice. Black-on-bright-blue is hard to read though.
Algonquin - my personal favourite out of the seven you posted. I can't see much wrong with it, other than the bird being a bit small.

 

[Wolfenmaus]

Quebec - Good icon choice. their colours are blue and white. How about white on bright blue? (darker and slightly more saturated than America's)

How's this?