lullabycharmed

garonne asked icontalking.dreamwidth.org/94046.html:

"I would love to know how you add moving backgrounds to your icons, for instance the animated circle in this icon with the "we are all stories in the end" text. Even to know what keywords to search for tutorials would be really helpful! I guess it is something like an animated gif?"

The icon in question:

I honestly forgot where I got the background texture from (probably the following resources places that I get textures from:

icontalking or contextures.livejournal.com or maybe another icon challenge that I can't figure out in the moment that provided the background texture for this icon).

Also, how I created that particular icon, I used the background, took a screencap of Amy from Doctor Who, edited and removed it and added to this background and wrote the text on top (to practice the text work) all on photopea.

So I decided to still answer this question by making a how to guide on animated icons.

First, I want to begin with saying that this all depends on what tool/resource you use in creating your icons (photoshop, gimp, etc). I use photopea which is a website equivalent to photoshop.

Here are some examples of animated icons that I created in the past:

   and

The first icon, I simply used the background from this texture from poisonfield.livejournal.com (as found here: retro-icontest.dreamwidth.org/49468.html), took sailor mercury edited in photopea, then removed the background added her in this animated gif, and saved it as .gif icon so that it stays as an animated icon). There are ways to animated icons by using layers, and seeing how long the animation can last as well.

The second and third icons, I actually edited on photopea, and then went to website called giphy.com which can animated still icons (.png/.jpg) with using animated stickers like flowers, rain, movements, etc) and then save it as a .gif. In photopea, i can then crop it (if it's a large image) back to 100x100 size, and save it as a .gif icon to get it to be animated.

I do suggest playing around and finding what works for you. I am now going to show with a screencap and create a random animated icons using the giphy method to show how it works:

I am going to take this screencap here (from capspiration): and create an animated icon with rain as an example:

I edited this to make Paddington bear be more purple coloring and then decided to remove the background to be yellow:

Then logged into my giphy account (it's free to use):
You have two options create or upload. I usually pick create because I can use still images (png or jpg) to create animated icons.

When you upload a still image, it does yell at you to remind you to use a sticker or gif motion. I knew I wanted rain, so I wanted to use the sticker option, so I used the search option to find the sticker for myself. There are all kinds of option and figuring out to place. Don't worry, giphy shows you how to move the sticker where you want to place to it. I found the sticker option sometimes doesn't work when the image is very small, hence why I crop the icon at the end.

In order for me to crop this to be 100 x 100, I go back to photopea and crop it to the fix size to create this:

Remember to create animated icons, it's best to save them as gif format.

I hope this guide/tutorial helped you! Let me know if you have any questions for me.

Here's another tutorial about animated icons:  1wonderment.dreamwidth.org/69082.html#cutid1

Another tutorial from 2013 from livejournal that discusses how to animate text in icons:  aintafairytale.livejournal.com/52230.html