How to Make Your Own Buddy Icon

Before moving on to know the method of how to make your own buddy icons, we need to have an idea about what a buddy icon actually is. Buddy icons are customized avatars that people often use on message boards and instant messaging programs. Buddy icons can also be used in websites that support them. One can create buddy icons with the help of graphics or text. They can also be created by using a combination of both graphics and text. So let us know the exact method of making buddy icons on your own. Just follow the step by step guide given below which will help you in making your own buddy icons for free:

Open blibs.com. This website helps in creating simple photo buddy icons. After opening the home page of blibs.com, you need to proceed to the next step.
Now you will have to add at least 4 images on the icon making page. You can notice that there is a box for each file. There will be a “browse” button just beside the box that helps you in uploading the image. After you have chosen which image to upload, you have to click “open” and then pull it to the icon maker.
Locate the drop down list on the page and select animation speed from there. Speeds vary in fast, medium or slow ranges. You need to choose a speed which changes the speed at which the icon flips through the uploaded images.
Next is choosing a border color from the specified list. However if you do not wish to have a border, you can leave it at default settings of “No border”.
Now you have to click on the “upload icon” button and wait for a few minutes to get it uploaded. Remember that the smaller your images are, the faster your icons will get created by the icon maker.
Now download the icon from blibs.com. The process of downloading is to right click on the icon and choose “save as”. Make sure that you save your icon within a day of creating it as they get deleted automatically from the website after 24 hrs.
There is also another website which is good at creating buddy icons for free. Open PimpMyIcon.com and then click on “create your AIM icon now”. This will lead you to the icon maker. PimpMyIcon.com is preferred over blibs.com as it has some extra features in it.
Choose a particular style of your icon. The styles which PimpMyIcon.com has to offer are rotating, zooming, twinkling, text designs etc. Some of these styling options have sub divisions among them like the twinkling design. You can choose your style and design and move on to the next step.
The next step will deal with uploading your image or addition of text or a combination of both. Click on the “browse” option to select and pull the image in. If you want to add an image from any website you can do so by simply adding the URL in the address box. You also have the option of adding text in the box provided for the purpose and also change its font style and color by using the drop down menus below the box. After completion of all these steps, click on “Submit” and this will prompt the image/text to get uploaded in the system.
You can change the settings by changing the speed of the animation.
If you are happy with what you have created, then click on “Finalize Icon” button. After clicking on this you will get transferred to a page with three options of which one is free. The free option would require you to fill up a form of a survey and get the icon for free. Right click on the icon and click on “save as” to save it on your hard disk.