After I released Icon Patches for Tav's Hair Salon I've had a few people ask me how I did it. Toarie already had it partially set up, since she has one custom icon set up for every hair, so I basically just had to go through and make individual icons. Archer, aka ghouls0rules, ended up making their own template from my patch that they posted in the Down By The River discord server, but since I've been working on making my own hair mod, I figured I would make my own template.

THIS IS NOT A MOD, the file only contains the files needed for adding CC icons to an existing mod/workspace, and therefore will not work on it's own.

Since I've only worked with hairs so far, this template only refers to hairs, but as far as I know, it should work for other character creation visuals (heads, horns, beards, tails) as long as you change "Hair" to the appropriate slot name. I don't believe it will work for race/class/subclass mods though; as far as I know, your best bet is going through Improved UI for that.

This template assumes you already have the tools necessary for modding BG3 (such as a text editor and a program that can open/edit .dds images) and have the rest of your mod worked out. Generally, you want to save icons for last.

Additional Notes:

• I personally use paint.net for .dds files and for CC icons, I use the BC3 (Linear, DXT5) compression setting, but I've also seen people use BC1 without issue. If one doesn't work for you, try the other.
• Technically, you *can* use a different size atlas (aka the .dds), however that require using different values in the icons.lsx & I'm bad at math so that's why I go with a full size atlas
• I've also heard that you should always "generate mipmaps", however I have seen cases that work without that setting checked.
• I personally name my merged "_merged.lsf.lsx" instead of just "_merged.lsx" so that I don't have to use lslib to convert the file before paking up (the multitool will do it for you with the .lsf added in). If you prefer to convert with lslib, remove the .lsf part of the file name.
• Some modders have been able to get CC icons to work with a smaller .dds file, but in my experience the game can be picky about that (especially when run through DirectX 11 instead of Vulkan) so I discourage cropping the .dds.
• A lot of things are case sensitive. Triple check everything if you're having problems, take a break and come back to it later or the next day, or ask someone else to look it over for you.
• Here's a link to Padme's mini tool that I mention in the CCAV
  

So far, I haven't had any issues using this setup after Patch #4 of the game's full release.

If you are looking to make your own icon patch for a mod that does not belong to you, I suggest asking for the original modder's permission before posting it anywhere. A little courtesy can go a long way, and making "fixes" for someone else's mod without talking to them first can be considered rude.

Finally, I am a human being. A rather forgetful one at that. No matter how thorough I try to be, I often find out that there are details I've missed and needed someone else to point it out to me. It's entirely possible that this template is not as complete as I thought it was, or that I was unclear in some instructions. If you're having trouble getting this to work then you can check the forums on this page to see if someone else had the same problem and whether it was solved, as well as going to the DBTR discord and asking for help in modders-talk or making a post in the modders-helpboard channel.
I will try to answer questions as best as I can, but I am by no means a pro. I'm just someone who likes to make stuff for myself and share it with other people.

Thanks
Toarie for allowing me to post my icon patch in the first place
labotor & Aloija, as Toarie mentions them for how she learned how to get icons to show up in CC
ShinyHobo for the BG3 Modder's Multitool
Norbyte for the ExportTool (aka lslib)
ghouls0rules for their template in the DBTR server
And the Down By The River discord server itself! I wouldn't have been able to do this without the support and resources there