Fireworks MX 2004 Tutorial > Smilies

Undoubtedly in your adventures navigating the Internet you've run across these famaliar little icons. You'll find them on message boards and instant messengers. It's become a real art creating the expressions on these guys and today we're going to try our hand at it!

1. Of course, the first thing to do is to draw out the circle shape. So select your handy-dandy Ellipse Tool and draw out the shape for the face. Make it 55 X 55 pixels.

For the fill, choose a Radial Gradient with light and darker shade of yellow like below:

Next, add an Inner Glow:

Color: #FFCC00
Distance: 6
Opacity: 83%
Softness: 4
Offset: 0

2. Next draw out an Ellipse 43 X 33. Fill with a Black/White linear gradient. Have the black at the bottom of the circle and the white at the top. Change the layer blend mode to Screen to make the impression of a highlight.

Zoomed In 300%

3. Now to make the eyes... Draw out the eye shape and fill with white with a dark yellow stroke. Also, add an Inner Glow.

Inner Glow Settings:

Color: Dark Gray
Distance: 2
Opacity: 65%
Softness: 4
Offset: 0

>>>>>>

Next, add the pupil. This is just a black ellipse with a white highlight.

Copy and Paste for the other eye. Just move the black pupil and highlight over to the left side of the eye.

4. Use the Pen Tool to create the eyebrows. 2-Pixel Soft Black.

5. Now for the nose. Draw out a circle and fill with a light to dark yellow linear gradient. Have the darkest color at the bottom. Add an Inner Bevel and a Drop Shadow.

Inner Bevel

Edge Shape: Flat
Width: 3
Contrast: 75%
Softness: 3
Angle: 135

Drop Shadow

Distance: 1
Color: Black
Opacity: 35%
Softness: 4
Angle: 274

5. The mouth is created using the Pen Tool.

6. As one last effect create a drop shadow. Add a layer beneath all the others and draw out the shadow shape and fill with a Radial Gradient (light to dark gray). Feather the edges by going to the Properties Panel and selecting Feather for the edge.

And that's it!