How to Create an Avatar Base

Have you ever seen those bright, sparkly, beautiful avatars that people have created? Have you ever wandered how they make them? Have no more worries, I will be teaching you how to create them. It's very simple. It's not as difficult as it may look. All you need is patience, and your paint program that will be using. . For this tutorial I am using Adobe Photo shop CS2. A wonderful program that is very easy to use.

We're going to learn how to create that simple avatar base in this tutorial. An avatar is also considered an icon, which can be used on any website, blog/journal, myspace. I use most of mine on Greatestjournal. First thing first is you will need to open up your Photo shop program, or any other program you may be using

I've included a screen shot of the tools you will be using in this tutorial; please refer to Photo 1 in the slide show. You will need to go to File-New and create a new document. Once the screen has popped up please change your width and height to 100x100 PX. Next you will need to go over to your Tools Palette and select a color you'd like to use. I am using a very pretty pink as my example. Once you've selected your color, click your Paint bucket tool on the Tools Palette and click in the center of your 100x100 document and now your background should be the color you've selected to use! [Photo 2]

Create a new layer on your Layers Palette by going to Layers-New-Layer or by holding down Shift-Ctrl-N and go back to your Tools Palette and change your color to White [Photo 3]. I am using 3 Brushes in White and set them at 100% Opacity. [Photo 4] You will need to put these on the New Layer you just created. I am most positive that these brushes are from Hybrid-Genesis. After you have your sparkle brushes set on your document, you will use a grid Brush at 15% Opacity. [Photo 5] You can play around with the Opacity, until you like how the final outcome looks. The grid brush has been floating around various websites such as Greatestjournal and Livejournal.

Your Layers Palette should look exactly how I have mine [Photo 6]. If you Layers Palette looks how mine is, you are all done and have completed your finished product. Now you know how to make beautiful avatar bases. [Photo 7]