Ship set creation is really easy if you already have the images. If your attempting to make your own images, then it can become very difficult.
When I set out to make my first ship set, I did not have the faintest idea of what I was doing, and it showed. Heres what I did.
I took an image of a ship (TOP DOWN VIEW) and opened it in MS Paint and inlarge the image to 600%. I then used the paint all (bucket looking icon) and tried to make the dark area around the ship yellow. I then used the brush tool, on small, and bushed around the ship as close as I could get. Again in yellow. Once the entire ship is outlined in yellow and all the space around it is yellow, I went back to the dipper thing and painted the whole area BLACK. I then selected the area with a modest boarder, and copied it. I pasted it to a new document, and then saved it. I then used a program called ACDSee that I got from
www.downloads.com and opened the image. I double clicked on it, and then clicked enhance. I then croped the image that I wanted and double clicked again. I then resized it using the resize tool that is also offered once you choose to enhance the object. I resized it to 36 X 36 pixels. I saved the image naming it accordingly, Race_mini_Battleship.
I used the same ACDSee to crope the 3d image of the ship and resize it to 128 x 128 pixels and saved it as Race_portrait_battleship. Voila, I had just made my first ship. Oh ya, I also had to convert the images from JPEG to a BIT MAP and this was done simply by saving as and then selecting BIT MAP below the Name position. Name was Race_mini_Battleship, and below that was another window and I saved it as a Bit Map.
I hope this basic outline helps you as you attempt to make new ships. Ship making is fun, but takes a long time to do. I can do a complete ship set in about 8 hours if I have all the images I want. This includes testing and tweaking.