Smiley creation?

[Beth]

Ok, I have a certain smiley that I want and would like to create it, but how in the blue blazes do I go about it? I do not think I could survive a MS Paint tedium like brave Crumb. Are there any smiley creating freeware programs out there to be had?

[ceptimus]

I use Paint Shop Pro. The main app is a bit like photoshop, but there is a sister application called 'animation shop 3' that is all about animated gifs.

You can get a free trial at Jasc (http://www.jasc.com/en/?)

They seem to have 'enhanced' the product lately, so make sure the animation shop bit is still available, before you bother with the download.

[JoeP]

Old versions of paint shop pro (psp) could be run indefinitely with only nags. I found a link here http://www.pagetutor.com/hosted_sample/psp.html - strangely oldversion.com doesn't carry psp. I can't recall if psp3 has animation shop, but the page I linked mentions a non-expiring version of psp4 which does. Or should.

[livius drusus]

No matter what software you use you still have to do some basic tedious work, I'm afraid. You have to draw a 15x15 circle and color it in. If you're going to animate, you have to make lots of them to create the illusion of movement. I would suggest to start off by making a bunch of empty circles and then playing with fills and paintbrushes to see how different colors work. Once you have a bunch of blanks, you can easily dab a couple of eyes and a mouth onto them.

I use PSP and AS myself.

[Crumb]

you can easily dab a couple of eyes and a mouth onto them.
But don't add a nose. It's just not worth it! :cry:

[Legs]

I used ulead animator 5 for stuff I do - you can get a free trial at ulead.com and buy it for 50 bucks.

I don't actually create smilies though, I butcher exisitng ones :P

[Crumb]

I don't actually create smilies though, I butcher exisitng ones
so do I: :trainrek:

[Legs]

I don't actually create smilies though, I butcher exisitng ones
so do I: :trainrek:

yes, and I butcher & revictimize them
http://img187.echo.cx/img187/7225/hofftrain8wg.gif