AhNeo’s Mid TFR Icon Guide
AhNeo’s & Rusty’s TFR Icon Guide
Hi, we are two monkeys from Malaysia and Albania respectively, who somehow gained internet access, and today we are going to show you how to make GFX ic9ns in TFR style.
Disclaimer
- Do note that this is an unofficial guide, and it mostly showcases what stuff + effects I do. Almost every icon artist in the TFR dev team varies a little bit in terms of style and the process of making icons. If you want a better and more complete guide, you can check out Bondrewd’s guide.
- I only use Adobe Photoshop (specifically the 2021 version) to make icons. Some applications have some features similar to Photoshop, like Gimp, Photopea, and Ibis, but I would NOT recommend using them.
Introduction
In case you're still not very familiar with what TFR style icons are. It is important to note that TFR style is fundamentally different from many icon styles you see in Hoi4/Hoi4 modding GFX (Vanilla style, TNO style, Red Flood style, etc). Most notably, the absence of frames as well as a wider canvas allows more creativity and compositional freedom. Besides that, TFR icons are more colourful and vibrant compared to other icon styles. TFR icons will also look more rectangular rather than a square. An image will be provided so that you can see clearly how TFR icons look and also the difference in styles by various artists.
Icon Making
Step 1: Preparing the Canvas
Well, I’ll focus less on this part because it's quite basic. The canvas size should be 170x150px, but you can also expand the width to make it around 210x150px in total, for the really wide/grandiose icons. I will provide a PSD for that. The section below highlighted in red is the focus box in-game; make sure not to put your icons low because it might lead to the focus text overlapping the icon in-game.
Step 2: Placing your asset
Download a pic from a search engine of your choice (Google, Bing, Yandex, etc). You can also find assets from picture websites such as alamy or gettyimages. Download it and remove the background with any background removal of your choice. Personally I prefer Photoroom than remove.bg cus it doesn’t affect the quality of your asset that much compared to remove.bg which compresses your image by a lot.
You can use this but some asset quality will be significantly reduced though it won’t be that obvious considering you will still resize it in canvas. FYI the original image was like 1500x1000.
But ofc if you spent money on the Pro version, there’s no reason not to use it. Since I’m a broke Malaysian, I will not spend
RM144 just to remove backgrounds lol.
Instead, I use this cus it doesn't compress your image as much. It won’t be noticeable at all if you resize your asset anyway. The standard resolution is 1280x1280, so that’s good enough.
You can still use other websites like I said, maybe you can discover better ones, who knows?
But if you really want the full quality of the asset without using any websites, you can manually remove it in Ps. I sometimes manually remove the background using Lasso tool,Magic Wand, Object Selection Tool or Quick Selection Tool. I used lasso tool for this one. I traced the subject and then Right click → Layer Via Cut.
Very quick,very simple.
Now you can put your assets on your canvas! Make sure it fits inside the canvas. And don’t worry with a large part of the asset occupying the red space, we will deal with that later. After that, convert it into a smart object.
Step 3: Applying effects and editing
The most important part or else your asset is just a flat png. What I usually do first is open the Camera Raw Filter to edit the asset. It changes an asset much more than just Contrast/Brightness.
I messed with the clarity, texture, contrast, exposure and highlights. My asset looks more sharper and a lil more detailed now. But it is by no means perfect, you can also try out other stuff to make your asset look even better. There’s also the curve tool inside the raw camera filter if you’re lazy to adjust the basic effects one by one.
But it’s still a flat png!
So you gotta apply effects. I added Bevel, Outer Glow.
Bevel and Outer Glow are the most essential. You can also use outer glow and drop shadow simultaneously. Just make sure that the outer shadow isn’t too strong. I will provide my psd later so you can check out the settings.
The hand looks kinda flat, it should be another. I used the lasso tool again to trace and layer via copy.
The icon is still overlapping and it just looks awkward having Biden being cut in a straight line.
No worries! First, click on the Layer Mask tool, as shown here.
Then, select a brush with 0% hardness and a size of about 20–40 px, and carefully brush around the edges and any areas that overlap too much. To make the process easier, I grouped the arm and the body together so you don’t have to erase them separately. Then, proceed to erase the unwanted parts.
(Ignore that DeepL logo)
Much better now, but there’s still more to do to fully complete this asset. Since I didn’t use a Gradient Overlay for the shadows earlier, it’s now time for another crucial step: adding additional shadows and highlights.
As you can see, I drew some shadows and highlights using a small brush. The areas highlighted with WHITE represent stronger, larger shadows, typically on parts of the body facing away from the light. For this, I use a larger, softer brush (around 4-6px in size) set to black color, which is then smudged and/or blurred until the shadow looks natural. The layer where these shadows are present is set to Normal mode, at any opacity that looks good (but usually on the lower to middle range, roughly around 30-70% opacity) The RED area indicates much more detailed shading, usually on the suit, neck, shirt, hands, and some parts of the head. I use a small, 1px sized, hard brush (also set to black) here and smudge until it looks smooth. The reason a hard brush is used, is that the parts where you’d want more slightly detail (say, the suit or around the edges), you smudge those parts less, that way the shading is more apparent and detailed (you still smudge even those parts of course, just slightly less). The layer is also set to Normal, and with a high opacity, no lower than 80-100% usually. In the GREEN area,is where the additional highlights are added. Here, I use a white,soft brush (around 2-3px in size), then smudge and blur until it looks natural. Afterwards, the layer is set to Overlay, usually at a mid-level opacity (anywhere between 30-60%). Normal mode isn’t used because it would make the lighting too mushy and solid-looking.
Joe Biden asset finally done! But there is still a ton of empty space. I will add a building asset behind Biden.
I have my building asset here. I will use the lasso tool or object selection tool to layer via copy/cut different parts of the building. As I did with Biden’s hand, it will make the overall asset less flat and stand out more. I divided it into 4 parts. Transfer everything to the icon, edit and apply the effects. There are still some awkward empty spaces so fill them with relevant assets.
Step 4: Keep The Cycle Repeating
Now, simply add the other assets to the icon and adjust them until the result looks just right. You can also include neon elements, smoke, particles, or other cool effects to enhance the icon but be careful not to make it too cluttered. Once the icon is finished, add a Gradient Overlay but it heavily depends on your choice and icon theme you’re making. I also use Color Lookup as well, but only sparingly. And the icon should be done and ready to be exported!
I provided the psd above so that you can check out the settings and other details. I will provide PSDs for every icon I made for this tutorial because I’m blue and wholesome.
Yes, this is not the end of the guide. As I said, I will cover multiple types of assets, some that are not even in the icon I’ve shown.
Here’s the list of asset types I will do in this guide:
- Flag Assets
- Metallic Assets
- Map Asset
- Text Asset
- Logos/Coat of Arms
- Miscellaneous Assets
- Smoke/Cloud Assets
- Water Assets
- Glowing Assets
- Fire Assets
Specific Assets:
1. Flag Assets
Flag assets are probably some of the most common assets you’ll see in any icon. They’re simple and nothing too fancy. However, many flag assets I’ve seen tend to look quite flat. Even a raw camera filter can’t fix how cardboard-like they appear. Here are some examples, if you know what I mean.
These are mostly outdated icons, and the flag assets aren’t the best tbh. This step isn’t necessary if the flag asset is already high quality, but it does help make them look less flat.
Ok first I have my flag asset and yeah it looks flat. What I will do is to make it look like it is waving or a ripple effect.
I used a black brush (75% opacity, 20% flow) to shade the areas that should appear darker. After that, I switched to a white brush to brighten the parts that were left unpainted. It doesn’t need to look perfect at this stage cus this is mainly about establishing the basic light and shadow. After that I also added additional shadows to give the flag more depth (shaded the flag pole too) and smudged some parts. Lastly, I adjusted the Contrast and Brightness settings.
And yeah, it’s done! This method is both quick and fun to do. Now that the icon is still looking a bit empty, it’s time to start filling it out.
2. Metallic Assets
From my perspective, these are also very common to appear in TFR icons. I typically classify country assets, text-based assets and logos/coat of arms as metallic.
Unfortunately logo’s like this tend to be very very flat.
But there’s still a way to make it look less flat. First, apply your basic effects to your asset. This time, however, add a Gradient Overlay (refer to the bottom image, sorry about the DeepL logo again lol).
Then add a grey Colour Overlay set to Normal on the asset (preferably on the slightly darker side). You can adjust the Brightness and Contrast of the asset as needed. After that, group everything together and add a Colour Overlay using the original colour. And yeah, that’s how I make flat logo assets.
I’ve added a small background. Some people also add a metal texture to the asset, but that’s optional imo. Here’s the PSD for this little logo asset. (It’s a bit different from the picture shown here, since I mainly want to show the Gradient Overlay settings.)
Of course, some assets are much more complex to work with than a simple logo. In these cases, breaking the asset into separate layers can make a huge difference. For this example, I started by applying the usual basic effects, then added the same Gradient Overlay I used for metallic assets, along with an Inner Glow. I also manually added shadows to each individual layer, which helps separate the elements more. After that, I grouped all the layers together and applied the Gradient Overlay again.
I always add metal textures for text and country assets. I’ve noticed map assets in TFR icons use the same metal texture so I would recommend using it for your map assets.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom
3. Miscellaneous Assets
-Smoke/Cloud Assets:
I often use smoke/fog/cloud assets to fill empty space or add visual interest to icons. It is simple but can convey quite a lot. There's no need to apply any effects to assets like these (At most, it's a really soft outer glow).
I like my smoke assets darker and higher contrasted but it usually depends on your icon. I decreased the exposure and clarity through Camera Raw Filter, then adjusted the brightness and contrast using Levels adjustments.
Layer mask and erase some edges and areas to your liking. Add just a little bit of shadows if you want. And it’s done! You can also change the opacity of some smoke assets if it’s too strong to your liking.
Here’s another icon example where I used it on cloud assets
-Water Assets:
While rather uncommon, water is still something that you should be comfortable with adding and editing in your GFX, especially since any naval-themed icon will necessitate the usage of water somewhere.
Let’s start by taking a basic water texture, from any online source, like this one. The angle and size does not matter, as long as the texture is of high quality (and preferably of sizes at least larger than 1000x1000 pixels)
Then, place the water texture in your canvas, and resize and reposition it in a way you think makes sense (or you could just place it over the entire canvas and move it so you get whichever specific details you want to have visible. One trick to make the water look better, is to angle it slightly when placing it, so that the waves are not flat and perfectly straight (which is weird-looking) Then, you use Camera Raw Filter and adjust the water however you see fit, with the goal of increasing the clarity and sharpness overall of the image, like this:
Afterwards,fade all the edges surrounding the water, either in a circular pattern, or just fade the edges into any kind of shape that fits the icon/surrounding assets. Use a 40-60% opacity soft brush when fading. It should look something like the image to the left. Here I faded it roughly in the shape of a circle, but you can make it fade into any shape, as long as it fits your icon well.
Then, play with Brightness/Contrast until it looks fitting with the rest of the icon, the goal is to make it look somewhat shiny and make it pop out, but not draw too much attention, something like this:
Afterwards, something I like to do, in order to make the color of the water uniform across all my icons, is to add a Hue/Saturation layer right on top of the asset, and set it to -100 saturation, or add a Black & White adjustment layer to achieve the same effect. Shown below:
Then, I add a Color Fill adjustment layer, and set it to a shade of blue that I think fits well as a natural color of water that exists IRL. I set that layer to Color or Soft Light blend mode, and mess with the opacity until it looks right (usually around 60-90% opacity, enough so that the color fill is visible). It usually looks something like this:
And viola! The water looks incredibly natural, and also has a nice color to it. You can do without the initial desaturation, then color fill to add your own blue tone to the water, but I personally like doing this method in order make all my water assets more uniform across the board, and to also have a bit more control over how the water assets look. Since different water assets all have different shades of color, doing the Color Fill layer to add your own color allows for a consistency amongst all your water assets across any icons you add them in.
4. Glowing Assets
There’s no specific way on how to do this but this is how I do it. I will do this in Cognoscenti style (W Bill Burns) to show the glow effects better.
I have my logo asset here and I usually turn it completely white using Color Overlay (White, Normal, Opacity 100%). I would then apply a coloured outer glow. The colours should usually be a much more vibrant and brighter colour. You can set the outer glow to Normal, Screen, Linear Dodge or sometimes even Hard Light. It really depends on which one you would prefer and fits the icon the most. I usually use Screen and sometimes Hard Light. I will give the psd below.
After that, I duplicated the neon asset a few times and apply Gaussian Blur or sometimes Motion Blur to the duplicated assets.
Make sure the blurs are not big enough to get clipped off the canvas.
The neon asset is pretty much done, but the icon is far from being perfect. Let’s try and make it look like the light of the neon assets also affects the surrounding objects like Mr Burns here.
Group all the neon assets into one group. Duplicate the group and convert it into one layer. Apply more Gaussian Blur (I did about 14-15 radius). Before doing the next step, I also created a group for Mr Burns' assets. Now, I would take the newly converted neon asset group and create a clipping mask on Mr Burns' asset.
I set the neon asset in Overlay blending option and duplicated it a few times. I also set one neon asset into Color as blending option to give Mr Burns just a little bit more of colour. Sometimes I also set one into Screen, Linear Dodge or Hard Light to make the light more apparent.
But the icon is quite empty so let's add more assets and repeat the same process!
W Burns icon done! Here’s a package from the CIA
Of course, there are also other ways to play around with glowing assets.
5. Fire Assets
There’s a lot of similarities between this and glowing assets except I didn’t put any effects on the flame itself apart from some contrast and brightness changes. Most people can follow this guide as it is still a great example on how to do fire assets.
But of course, I like to add my own personal touch to things.
I have my fire asset here, and I’ll duplicate it. I use the Gaussian Blur or Smudge tool to blur the duplicated fire. In this case, I used Smudge. Then, I set the blurred layer to Screen (you can also use Linear Dodge or Hard Light). I also sometimes add another layer of the blurred fire and set it to Overlay. (Again, optional)
I added another fire asset along with some sparks and repeated the same process.
Some devs would also place an orange color overlay layer or gradient on color, to make the fire more uniform in colour. I personally like it. It will also make your icons more uniform which makes the focus tree look better. You can check out the KKK icons I made (League of The South)
The fire asset is much prettier now but of course, it’s not over yet.
Follow the same steps that I mentioned in the Glowing Assets part of matching the hue of the non-fire assets to the hue of the fire. And boom, this is how I do my fire assets. It’s a more simple and uhh lazy way but I like the results. Like glowing assets, there are also many methods to do it as well.
结束了。。。
Others
Well, it’s not the end of the guide. This guide will also cover other icon-related GFX. Since I’ve already covered the basics of making a focus icon. The others wouldn’t be too difficult to understand. However, there are some details worth noting that set them apart from focus icons. The most notable differences are the canvas sizes.Bondrewd has done a very good job at explaining but there is some stuff I would like to show.
These are the canvas sizes for icon related GFX.
National Spirits,Decision-related icons
The only thing that matters is the canvas size compared to a focus icon. The canvas size of a national spirit should be 68x68. It is highly recommended to fill the entire canvas with relevant assets to express the idea behind the icon. Be sure to match the theme of the icon to the related focus icon or path. Additionally, the process for creating the assets is the same as making a focus icon.
Example taken from the KKK teaser:
(You can see how the icons match with the theme of the focus tree or the branches)
As for decision-related icons like decision category icons, decision icons and text icons, each has different canvas sizes. However, keep it simple to prevent them from looking cluttered. These are very small icons, so don’t worry too much about the overall quality. Example:
Ideology Icons
Unlike focus icons or national spirits, ideology icons tend to be more colourful. Neon or fire assets were used sparingly, too. And unlike other GFX icons, ideology icons must have a specific frame.
I have the frame here.
Now turn the bg (what do you call this) into the colour according to the ideology, following the RGB colour. Here is the list of RGB colours for each ideology.
TotSoc/AuthSoc: 97, 24, 24
LibSoc: 89, 34, 39
SocDem: 113, 47, 81
SocLib: 77, 59, 23
MarLib: 99, 84, 9
SocCon: 32, 44, 97
AuthDem/Despot: 61, 61, 61
Fasc: 66, 43, 21
NatSoc: 56, 39, 39
The ideology icon I’m making belongs to the Social Democracy category, so I will set the background colour according to the list above. Now, after that, add a laurel behind the frame. TFR artists normally use vanilla-styled laurels. You can add any type of laurel as long as it is vanilla-styled.
Now moving to making the assets. Normally, ideology icons have assets related to party logos or vector graphics. Assets like these differ slightly from other icons’ effects. The effects of these assets are very similar to the metallic assets I have mentioned before. No need to apply the same effect to every asset, as some assets like flags or people can just be your usual bevel+outer glow (with shading ofc).Apply effects to your asset, then add a grey colour fill on the asset. I will then group them and add a colour overlay on the group. The PH logo is red/white, so I will use the red colour on the text.
Now just repeat the process until the icon is filled. If you want a neon asset in your icon be sure to prevent it from being overpowering. A soft glow like this will do.
Conclusion
This guide isn’t the most comprehensive one out there, but it should cover the basics. Creating good icons takes a lot of experimentation and practice. Don’t feel down if what you produce doesn’t meet current standards yet. Most importantly, if you have enough passion for what you do, you’ll eventually look back and realise just how far you’ve come. And who knows? Maybe one day you’ll join our team and help push the flames even higher.
Pepelicious
