The Nerd Corner

JimB's Icons as 8-bit GIFs

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JimB's Icons is a set of four dozen freeware icons, largely of people. The subjects and styles vary. Some are portraits of friends or historical figures. Some are caricatures. They were originally developed as Macintosh icon resources. Most come as an icon family consisting of a black and white icon (an ICN# resource), 16-color or greyscale icon (icl4), and a 256 color icon (icl8). A few also have small icons (ics8, ics4 and ics# resources) as well as large. The icons use the standard Apple icon colors.

They are also availble as GIFs in three formats: 256 colors, 16 colors or greys, and black and white on a grey background. The backgrounds in all three formats are set to be transparent. The color palettes have been minimized to include only the colors actually used in the icon.

This page contains the 8-bit versions of my icons in GIF format. With most Web browsers, you should be able to pick up the individual icons directly from this page.

Licensing information

JimB's Icons are freely licensed for private or commercial use. I am asking no fee to use them. The only condition is that if you make use of them commercially, I want some form of credit in your documentation, help or about box. Naturally, if you want to repay me in money or in kind, I wouldn't turn it down. The icons may be a result of my doodling and just a hobby, but I love appreciation. Who doesn't?

The icons

Andrew_Robinson
This icon is a portrait of my friend Andy Robinson. Andy now lives in Jakarta, Indonesia. Say "hi" if you run into him there.

Belle
Belle is doodle icon. She started with the closed eyes and grew from there.

Blank
This icon is a blank form that I used for creating several of the more comic book-style icons.

Blondie
This icon is a portrait of a favorite Western character: the man with no name.

Bug
Just a bug, not a feature.

Chekov
Anton Chekov, a bust of whom serves as the navigator on the pantope, The Fast Times.

Clark
A comic book inspired character.

Critter
This one is one of my many doodles. Is it a cat? A dog? A fox? Something else? I've no idea.

Dae
This icon was a not particularly successful attempt at a portrait of the elf, Daewen.

GIFish
G.I. Fish is the icon for my GIF and GIFish files.

Howie
Howie is a meeting doodle. He is based in part on someone at a meeting I was at, partly on Howdy Doody and partly just made up.

Iris
This one of my series of comic book-style doodle icons. She is the the human side of R. Iris Moneypenny.

Jack_Patrol
This is the insignia of the Jack Patrol from my Tuesday night role playing game.

Jenny
A youngish gal, about the last of the comic book-style srties.

Jerry
Jerry is another meeting doodle. There's a bit more portrait to him than to others like Howie and Lee.

JimBs_Stuffy
The little black Pegasus from Fantasia. A stuffed version of this sits on one of my monitors, so I doodled it.

JimB-in-the-Box
This icon is based on the ResEdit document icon, with my head on the clown. Brendan named it the "Jim-in-the-box".

JimB-on-the-Folder
This icon is used for the version of my icon set in which each icon is a custom icon on a Macintosh folder or file.

JimB-on-the-Web
This icon is used for this page. It's a quick and dirty icon. I really should do a better one.

JimB-Zipped
This icon is used for the version of my icon set that is a zip file containing GIFs. It's based on the WinZIP icon.

JimB
This was my first icon. It's a self-portrait to use as a custom icon for my hard drive when I shared it.

Jon_Callas
My friend and collaborator, Jon Callas. Unlike Andy and Tamzen, Jon was done from memory without a photograph for reference. It's not quite as accurate, but sort of works. Two other people including Jon have done icons of him, so I never went back to do a highly accurate one.

Kling
I decided I needed a broader racial mix in the icons.

Lee
Lee is like Howie, a meeting doodle. She's part portrait, part doodle.

Lizzy
I sketched Lizzy at the Tuesday night role playing game. I was sitting next to Ann Broomhead who was reading a book with twenties and thirties poster and fashion art. Lizzy's mostly just a doodle.

Lovey
An attempt at a more cartoonish variation on my comic book style.

Mai
Mai is another half-porttrait.

Marcy
One of many women I doodled while exploring the comic book style.

Miss_Jane
Miss Jane is a partial portrait from my comic book women series.

Moneypenny
The robot version of R. Iris Moneypenny, my automotous personal assistant.

Mr._Brown
Mr. Brown started as a portrait of a distinguished fellow I ran into at DECUS. I didn't finish while I still had a model.

Mr._Jones
Mr. Jones was the first of my businessmen. He's mostly made up.

Mr._Smith
Mr. Smith was a friend of Mr. Brown. Again I lost my model before I finished, so it's only half portrait.

Ms._Byrne
Ms. Byrn represents the peak of my comic book women period. I was trying to capture a style similar to John Byrne's.

Ms._M
I did Ms. M and Ms. Byrne at the same time.

New_Europa
This is the icon I drew for the logs of the pantope crew's journies into New Europa, the world of Castle Falkenstien.

Pantope
A side-on view of the pantope, "The Dance of Hours".

Pat
The androgynous Pat comes from the midst of my comic book style period and has been used in at least one commercial product that needed a gender neutral person icon.

Puck
Puck's a whimsical meeting doodle, one this time with no real-life model. He's as likely to be a satyr as a fey.

Rani
Rani is an early icon. I'm not entirely happy with her and keep her partially because she maintains some cultural diversity and partially because I have a hard time disposing of my creations.

Red
Red's another icon that started out with a model who went away before I finished. I started her in a hotel room (the same DECUS as Mr. Brown and his colleagues) while watching Murphy Brown. I only finished the outline of her hair before the show ended. The rest is off the top of my head.

Ruthie
Ruthie is purely my creation. She was an attempt just after the comic book period to put a bit more character into the icons. I'm really rather fond of her little smile.

Sue_Ann
Sue Ann is a very early creation, another doddle I'm not entirely satisfied with, but cannot abandon.

Tamzen_Cannoy
This one is a portrait of my best friend, Tamzen. It's one of my favorites and I'm rather proud of it as portraiture in a very difficult medium.

Terry
Another androgyne from my comic book period.

The_Cool_Dude
He started as a pair of shades and just grew.

The_Jack
The Jack represents the six-compartmented space station that was the original locale of my Tuesday night role playing game.

Troy
Troy is yet another comic book inspired character, a good deal more modern than Clark and more stylistic than the John Byrne-like icons of my comic book period.

Watanabe
Shiro Watanabe is a Japanese businessman, stolen blatantly from a Japanese politician drawn by Ryoichi Ikegami, one of the finest artists doing manga--Japanese comic books.

Wiz
The Wiz was a quick attempt at a magical character. The most amusing thing about him was the trick I did of having the lightning appear only in the mask in the Macintossh original.

Wyatt_Earp
This is supposed to be an accurate portrait of Wyatt Earp. I was pretty happy with it until I came across an icon of him made by scaling a scanned version of the picture I used as my model.