I'm pixel artist for quite long time already and I was doing some other art as well but I never figgured out how to make as nice inventory and spell icons as in games like in World of Warcraft. I know everything is made in higher resolution and then minimized somehow but I want to know about whole procedure. With which program they draw icons (draw by hand? Computer?) and how do they resize etc. This is mysterious problem to me, seriously and I want to know more about it (I can't find anything good on net) Examples of what I want: World of Warcraft Inventory Example 1 World of Warcraft Inventory Example 1 Example from Deviant Art

I'm not sure how Blizzard does it, but I've done an icon or two in my day, so I'll give this a shot.

I'm not a fan of sizing-down in general, it often leads to unsatisfactory artifacts if you're not really careful about what you're doing (but then one can draw images in a way that avoids the sort of things that sizing-down destroys; simply a matter of experience). I like working exactly at the size a final icon will appear so that what I draw is exactly what I get.

Then again, from the looks of the examples you provide, they are indeed sized down -- but I wouldn't be surprised if the icons had per-pixel touch-up done on them after resizing. I'd advise, in general, to be aware of what the various resizing methods do to an image by testing out how they look and seeing which gives the most workable results. I've even found the most crude ('nearest neighbor' to preserve the most detail in certain cases.

It also looks like the icons were drawn more by digital painting methods than pixel-by-pixel formalistic pixel-art, though I have no idea if there was a hand-drawn phase (which I personally dismiss as unwieldy, what with all the scanning and getting hands dirty!). There's lots of smooth shading and glow effects in the icons, strong colors and sorta spot-like lighting effects to make the shapes more dramatic. Looks like painterly things.


As for art programs, I've said it before and will say it again: I swear by Photoshop for everything ever ;)

I'd be surprised if they used anything besides Photoshop, although Corel Painter is a possibility. I agree that the style is digital painting, and that they were made larger and sized-down. With sizing-down like that, it's good to know what your target size is going to be so you can make your larger canvas a multiple of that.

But personally I don't make icons that way, I make vector ones because it's faster and easier and they don't have the resizing problems bitmap art does.

I can't say, but they might possibly be in a vector-format, rather than a traditional bitmap.

Quote:

Original post by Ravyne I can't say, but they might possibly be in a vector-format, rather than a traditional bitmap.

Nope, if you zoom in on it the pixelation is clear, plus that art style is basically incompatible with vector art - vector art has a cartoony/geometric flavor that's hard to hide.

Thanks a lot for your answers. I think I'll just go with pixel art at actual size of the icon with combination of photoshop.

Maybe I'll find out true answer that lies behind those amazing made icons someday :)

hmm

You could check Warcraft 3 community icon creation tutorials. After all, most Wc3 icons were used in WoW too and they share same style.

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/2d-art-tutorials-281/how-make-icon-37894/
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/2d-art-tutorials-281/how-make-icons-my-style-130145/
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/2d-art-tutorials-281/icons-crazyrussian-93857/