Requirements: Adobe Photoshop*, an image
*Or another image editor you can work with while following this tutorial

Ever seen those pictures that people use to represent themselves [icons/avatars]? This tutorial will teach you how to make them.

In this tutorial, there is an image on the side. That is the Tools bar. Refer to that when you don't know what tool I am talking about.

First, pick you image. I will choose this one:

This image is a big one, so:

[1] Resize it
Resize the image if it is too big (my image is the right size for what I want). So if the head is too big or something, resize it. Don't know how? Learn how to resize proportionally.

[2] Transferring image
Push Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+C. This selects all, and copies everything.

[3] Make a new canvas
Go to FILE>>NEW...

^ Click for a better view

When you have your new canvas open, push Ctrl+V. This should paste your image on the new document/canvas. It should look like this:

[4] Spiffy the image
You can adjust the image colors or whatever (in other words, make it "pretty").

[5] Add the template
Using the pencil tool, draw designs (like boxes and dots) on your image.

[6] Erasing and transparencies
Now I have my template on my avatar, without transparencies yet. It looks like this:

Using the Eraser Tool, and erase the parts that you want transparent.

As you might have noticed, I changed the some of the colors while I was erasing. I animated this avatar. You can animate images with programs like unFREEZ.

If you want to download unFREEZ, go to Google and search "unFREEZ animation program." There are also other programs, like Animation Shop.

And here is my final product: