The main reason that I write this blog is so that I can come back to it. Since the extravagansa of my icons, I needed to go an revisit it, so you'll just have to put up with another post about it. First off: why do it? Well custom icons are useful so you can recognise players instantly. I recently -av'd a saurus of mine because I forgot he had frenzy and did a silly block. I think custom icons are helpful in game, especially if you play fast, and they just look cool. Now I have coded all my Lizardmen icons so I know what I have and where. In order to spread the greenscale love, I will let everyone know how to do it.

First up, if you read my previous posts on skills, you will know that I consider a Saurus with Break Tackle to be a "blitzer", and a Saurus with Guard to be a "blocker". So here is how I have coded all my Sauraii.

Any normal Saurus:
Notice they have a skull helmet (with no chin strap), no shoulder pads, and no gold arm band. He also is wearing a very old, used, and dark skull helmet. It probably smells.

When a Saurus becomes a blitzer:
They now have team shoulder pads, gold arm bands and have lost their helmet (for extra speed of course).

When a Saurus becomes a blocker:
They have their team shoulder pads, gold arm bands and now a brand new white chunky helmet, for the extra protection they'll need on the Line.

When a Saurus becomes frenzied:
The frenzier is probably the most important Saurus to recoginse instantly, so you don't make a silly block. He has pronouced teeth and claws, and is missing all armour, including the gold bands. His eyes glow too.

When a Saurus gains a strength
When a blitzer gains a strength:
When a blocker gains a strength:

Note on all of these they are a bit brighter in colour, their eyes glow yellow, and they are much wider than the average saurus (thanks to those steroids usually reseved for the kroxigor).

All of my skinks are set to look like:
These have no skull helmets.

When they get side-step AND diving-tackle, it's handy to be able to recognise them:
Now they have skull helmets for the extra protection, sice they'll be diving a lot, and getting clobbered.

When a skink gets dirty player:
He grows nice long raptor like claws for nailing those players that are down.

When a skink gets kick:
He has a nice big shiny pair of bootin' boots. This is kind of silly and pronouced since I tend to forget to place him at the kick off correctly.

When a skink gets an agility:
Apparently being the most important player has gone to his head, as he nows wears a fancy headdress. Actually I think this turned out pretty cool.

When a skink gets a strength:
This is a little wider than a normal skink, as well as having some glowing eyes and shoulder pads.

I really didn't think it was necessay to make icons for +ma upgrades, as I don't find I need them to get the feel of the set up. Maybe one day I might need to make a super wide frenzier, but since I've never had a +st frenzier and another frenzier in the side to get confused with I didn't bother making one. It would only happen if he already had frenzy then got the strength.

So how did I do it all?
First up, I used paint! Although you cannot use colours not already on the gif for some reason, all you need to do is "open" the image (do not copy and paste) and make sure it is set for transparency. The background will be a funky colour, purple or gray or something, which means it is transparent. Then I just zoom in 8x and do everything pixel by pixel. I only use the pencil, and the tool that mirrors a colour.

Now to add them, you need to open your file in Java blood bowl -> pics -> icons
Create a few folder called "customs"
Then add your custom icons here (or mine, right click on them and "save as").

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Note: When making the "sideways" icon, you just name the file exactly and put "an" on the end. So you will have two icons: saurus.gif - saurusan.gif
You don't need to do anything else.
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In order to code all the players of a type the same icon, you go back to the main folder and open the "icons.ini" file. May want to back it up too in case you delete something you shouldn't. Now we go to:

[Lizardmen]
(note my file has "lizardman" and "lizardmen" for some reason. Anyway I use the lizardmen one)

Then I change it all to:
SAURUS=customs/lmsaurusplain.gif
SAURUS=customs/lmsaurusplain.gif
SAURUS=customs/lmsaurusplain.gif
SAURUS=customs/lmsaurusplain.gif
SKINK=lmskink1.gif
SKINK=lmskink1.gif
SKINK=lmskink1.gif
SKINK=lmskink1.gif

Where "customs" is the name of the folder and "lmsaurusplain.gif" is the name of the pic I have used for a normal saurus. The skinks just use a normal icon, so they don't need the folder extension.

Now go down to the bottom and add an extra section

[PLAYERS]

Bobby=customs/lmsaurusblitz.gif
Fredo=lmskinkdirty.gif

Where "Bobby" is the name of the saurus on your side who is a blitzer, and "customs" is the name of the folder and "lmsaurusblitz.gif" is the name of the pic I have used for a a blitzer. Fredo is obviously a skink with dirty player.

Presto, all players will load from the same icon, and now players that you add will get their own custom icon. I tend to create a shortcut to icons.ini on my desktop for easy access.

Good luck and make the lizardmen proud!

Stu
PS. Credits to DirtyBrian for starting all this. Here is his original thread. Also Mattybee who provided the a skink model I used and modifed for the +st one. Lastly AndyBurns who provided the original models that I worked from for the dirty player skink and +ag skink. These are all in the forum thread above.