Rat Bag

unsure if this is "tools" per se but i'll just tell u everything i know abt making them!

i use a browser-based program called photopea which is a clone of photoshop and is fundamentally the same. i have base templates that i made by downloading blinkie templates from commentslive when it was still up (i think there's another site called uhh holidaycomments where u could get the same thing? the ones on blinkies.cafe r sometimes rly stylized that can make editing parts of them out more difficult)

for the frame of the blinkie - that is, the part that's actually blinking - i sometimes remove the frame n just have the flashing parts on it, or i color one of the flashing parts the same color as the frame. this gives the blinkie different design effects, basically.

for the decorations that i use, its usually pngs of emojis that i downloaded. i also use clip art and transparent photo pngs sometimes, esp for animal ones that dont rly have emojis of them out there. also unicode, i use unicode a lot.

the background tends to look best when its not a solid color but rather a gradient of some kind. i also tend to desaturate colors a tiny bit so theyre not as eyestrainy as actual retro blinkies tended to be.