This tutorial teaches you how to make a smiley with easy shading, also handy dandy for your other pixel art.

1. Open a new document in Paint Shop Pro and set the width and height to 15 pixels with a transparent background.
   You can also use Photoshop, in that case first open a new file from 15 x 15 pixels. Choose from the topmenu Image > Mode > Indexed Color – in the dialog box click on Palette > Web.
2. Use your zoom tool to zoom in a couple of times…

   

3. For pixeling you’ll need a brush, select it from the menu and don’t forget to change its size to 1 pixel. Also set the eraser to 1 pixel if you have to correct something.

   

4. Now you can draw a circle with the brush tool. I used black but you can also choose a dark brown colour for softer outlines. Of course your smiley deserves a big pixeled smile

   

5. Ahw, the smiley still looks a bit pale, lets choose a gradient to fill the face with. Click in your material pallette on the foreground colour.

   

   You can choose a nice gradient now by clicking on the arrow next to the coloured window. I chose Multi-yellow and changed the greenish colour into orange, also set the angle to 130°.
   
   

6. Let’s colour that face with the gradient we just made. Just use the fill tool and click into the circle you’ve pixeled. Voila!

   

7. Save your image as a .gif file (file>save as), your smiley is ready to be used on a website or in your e-mails! Now you can try to pixel more emotions and create your own smiley collection: