I've taught you how make the Windows Vista Help Icon, now its time to step back an operating system and make the Windows XP Help Icon!
Step 1.
Create a new document, 512px wide by 512px tall. 72dpi with a white background.
Step 2.
Create a new layer. Get the Elipse Tool, hold down Shift key on the keyboard (this ensures that the elipse is a perfect circle) and draw a large circle on the new layer. Center the circle by doing the following set of keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl + A, Ctrl + X and then Ctrl + V, these select everything on that layer, Cut and Paste respectively. Your document should now look like this, it doesn't matter what colour your circle is:
Step 3.
Its time to add some layer styles to this circle. Right click on the layer for the circle and choose Blending Options. Now select Drop Shadow and use these settings:
Step 4.
This time add an Inner Glow (The colour used is black):
Step 5.
Add a little Bevel Emboss:
Step 6.
Stir in a Gradient Overlay! The dark blue colour is #2f5ead and the light blue colour is #a2c7f8:
Step 7.
Finally, the last layer style to add to the circle is a Stroke with these settings, colour used is white:
Step 8.
We need to add that all important question mark now. Add a question mark in "Arial" font, colour is white and its Regular (not bold or italic). The size I'm using is 328px but just use something which looks similar to this when placed in the center of the circle:
Step 9.
The question mark also needs some layer styles so right click the question mark layer in the layers palette and choose Blending Options. The first layer style we need is Drop Shadow:
Step 10.
Next you need an Inner Shadow with these settings:
Step 11.
Lastly you need to add an Inner Glow with the following settings:
Your done! Now sit back and admire your beautiful work, It should look something like this:
and a 64x64 version:
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
- Adrian
