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In this tutorial we will be making our icons for our Forum Skin category that we will learn how to make in the upcoming Tutorial Skin Category design tutorial. This is what our icons look like:

1. Start off with a new document, make it about 75 x 75 pixels with a white background.

2. Grab your Rectangular Marquee Tool *or simply press M* and make a small square selection. Hold shift while making the selection to have an even height and width.

3. Fill it with a dark blue color. I picked color #02296A.

4. Zoom in about 400%, and make a selection from the bottom to nearly half way of the square.

5. Grab your gradient tool, and select the color White. Pick these settings:

6. On a new layer, make a gradient from the bottom to the top of the square. You will now have a white "Fade".

7. In your layer palet, set it to "overlay".

8. Now we're going to move it up 2 pixels. Simply press Up on your keyboard twice. My result:

9. Now we're going to do the same with the top. Make a new layer, zoom back in to about 400%, and grab your selection tool. Make a selection from top to the bottom, and use the gradient tool to make a white "fade".

10. put this layer to Overlay as well. Press the Down button on your keyboard twice to move it down 2 pixels. This is my result:

11. we're going to remove 2 pixels on both sides of the gradients. Make a 2 pixel selection, and simply press delete.

Do the same on the other side.

12. Now make a square selection in the top left corner. We're going to make a fade from the top left to the right corner.

13. Put this layer on overlay as well. My result:

14. Grab your Custom Shape tool.

15. Grab a darkish red color. I picked #A70F00. On the toolbar on top, you can select your shape. Photoshop comes with several premade shapes, and they should be selectable instantly. Press the icon on top, and browse to the Checkmark:

16. now make the shape in the middle of your icon:

17. We're going to make a glare on top of the checkmark. First, we need to make a selection of the checkmark. We can easily do this by holding CTRL and then clicking on the icon that's next to the checkmark layer, like displayed on this image:

You should now have your checkmark selected.

18. Make a new layer, and grab your gradient tool again. Make sure your color is set to White, and make a fade from top to bottom.

19) Set it to overlay, and move it down 1 pixel and to the right 1 pixel. Simply do this by tapping Right and Down arrow.

20) Ok, we're now basicly done with our icon. We can now mess around with the colors. The advantage of our overlay layers on white is that if we change colors of the square, the glare will simply fade into the color as well. Here are various results by simply changing the colors of the square and hiding/changing the color of the checkmark (sure, they dont all look as good, but you can experiment as much as you like!):

good luck!