Making and editing icons for AutoCAD 2009

[swells132024]

I'm in the process of making a bunch of new buttons in AutoCAD 2009 for my office. We're customizing some panels and tabs to include our standard blocks. I've done a decent search on the internet and can't find any good information about making custom icons or examples or places to buy stock icons. One problem in particular that I'm having is trying to find the icons that are used in AutoCAD that are larger than normal. Usually the first icon in a panel. I was planning to use Paint.net, but I really wanted to see how those larger icons are put together. They seem more complex than a 16x16 png file. Does anyone have some good advice about how to tackle this or examples? I don't want to re-invent the wheel in making these icons, so any help would be great!

Thanks!

[dgorsman]

A little secret about professionally created icons - they draw them much larger than the final image and scale them down for the released version. They are also typically done by graphic artists rather than computer-support types (not to suggest you are graphically-challenged), who have training in color theory, interface design, and other obscure areas.