Icon-A-Day, Icon # 46, The Desktop

This one everyone sees, but not many use.

Icon 46 (Desktop) This is one of those icons that everyone looks at in your icon pack, but is actually rarely seen in use. Mostly as a 16x16 in your quick launch bar, but never the less I like to spend a little time on it, an make sure it looks good. Since the Desktop is essentially just a special kind of folder, I am going to use the styles we are using for the folders, so that at least on some level they match.
Step 1: I start by using the mesh fill and some rectangles, to make the basic shapes of the desktop.	Step 2: Now using more rectangles I use the Mesh Fill tool to make some corner covers for our desktop.	Step 3: To make it match the folders I make the corners black, and I give the Main desktop a nice Brush texture using our transparency 102 techniques.
Step 4: Now I give desktop and top two corners some gloss, and make a simple shadow off the entire thing.	Step 5: Now I copy the File icon off the My Documents folder, and rotate it slightly so it looks like it is sitting on our desktop. I also make a copy and change the title bar to blue. To polish them off I give both the files a slight drop shadow.	Step 6: last I make a copy of our pen from the my documents folder, and set it in front of our almost completed icon.
Finished Icon Image	Click here to download the finished icon.
Join us tomorrow as we dive back into the file icons. Read the other Icon-A-Day Articles: (Icon-A-Day Index) Check out the CorelDRAW for Skinner Index, for links to all the related Video Tutorials. And don't forget to check for all the Icon-A-Day icons as they get made, in the Miscellaneous Icons Gallery at Wincustomize.com