joetheblow: Making icons is not that hard, but sometimes is kinda tricky, once you get the hand, then you go forward. F few tips bellow...
- First think about what is going to be the concept of your icons, by this, I mean: realistic, cartoonish, etc... what materials are you going to use: plastic, metal, glass, wood, etc... Try to follow the same style for each icon.
- always make the bigger size first.
- try to use an image editor that uses vectors. I use vectors from Photoshop 7.
- after making your icon design, transfer it to your icon editor for it to make the resizing job for you. I use SkinStudio as icons editor.
- make the most complete icons theme as possible, at least around 50 of them.
- the most sizes you make them, the better, I would go from 16x16 up to 128x128. People like to use them as Object Dock objects too.
now a suggestion, don't make glass or OSX kind icons, I think people are allready sick of them. Imagination and creativity are the words of order.
Making icons is something that requires patience, sometimes is very boring for most of the people, but I love to make them. I think I got used, since I have done near 4000 unique icons so far. 
Good luck!
