This type of glowing text I don't usually use in icons (unless I need to enhance the words) but I use it in banners since that's what I mostly make, here's an example of a 600x200 banner I have as my siggy over at sn.tv forums (yes I'm the same person!):


The tutorial looks long but it's not actually, I just go into detail ;)

1.  Open an icon size image (100x100) and for now I filled it in with black just for the purpose of this tutorial.
2.  Type in the text you want it and arrange it to your liking. I choose "Dean Rocks My Socks Off" just because he really does! haha. In case you want to know for Dean I used "Blue Plate Special" , for Socks I used "Bookman Old Style Semi-Bold" and for the rest I used this one called "Fixedsys"

For these next steps they apply for whatever type of fanart your making, it could be either an icon, wallpaper, or banner.

3.  If your going to use the same glowing color for the whole text and it's not in just one text layer then merge them all, if it's already in one then go to the next step or if your going to use different colors like the icon I'm using for the tutorial also go to the next step. (Go to your Layers Dialog menu by doing Ctrl+L then right click on the top text layer, right click and select "Merge Down" and do this until all the text layers are merged)

4.  In your layers dialog menu right click on the text you want colored and Duplicate it (where to duplicate option is shown in the picture above by the way) then right click on the bottom of the two duplicate layers do an "Alpha to Selection" (Should be last option shown). Right click again on the same layer and pick "Layer to Image Size" option, this step will help in the coloring for the next couple of steps. Your text should now have dashed lines going around it like this:

5.  Having the second duplicated highlighted (like I have in gray above) were now going to grow the text by going Select>Grow. You can set the number to what ever you want it, I usually do it between 2-4. If the text is pretty big like "socks" then do 3, if the text is skinny like "rocks" then do 2, I did 3 for the "Dean" text.

6.  Here comes filling in the text! Choose a texture you like. If you don't know of any try looking for some over at deviantart.com (by typing in "textures" in the search bar) or at icon_textures for some (pick one with lot's of colors it comes out better in the end), I have my textures in my patterns folder because that were they seem to pop up there, if you need help putting them then ask and I'll try to help. Once you have the texture you want and still having the text selected, fill it in with that texture by going Edit>Fill in with Pattern or by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+; I used this texture:
by lostinsidethecrowd over at deviantart.com
7.  Once filled in, unselect the layer by going Select>None. It should look kinda crappy right now, text barely readable but here's how we are going to fix it. Still having the same layer you filled it in highlighted in your layer dialog menu were going to do a Gaussian Blur by going Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur. When doing the blur it's best to do it between 15px-20px with Blur Method in IIR. For this example I used 15px.

8.  If you didn't have all the text in one layer (like mine) just repeat from step 5 with another texture you want. I did the same thing for the "Socks" text except this time I used this texture:
  by the same person and same link as the other texture I used above.
9.  And your done! Yeah that's practically it you can merge the two layers if you like but here are some other tips to help you out before your merge them!

Tip 1:  If the texture you selected is light and it kinda distracts the white text and it's barely readable, do this: Repeat step 5, don't grow it but just fill it in with the color black, and do a Gaussian Blur of 4. Having the Layer mode to "Normal" in the Layers Dialog menu minimize the Opacity to 50% (mess around with the %) or at least until you can see both the text and the texture.
Tip 2:  Mess around with the layers mode! Make sure your working with the original text (the top of the two duplicated) set it to "Value" or "Saturation" or "Overlay". Sometimes setting it to "Value" makes the color of the texture jump out and gives it a little something else, like for example, for the "Socks" text I set the top to "Value" and this was the result:

In some cases it looks nice in other, it doesn't. It really comes down to the color of the texture you use.

FOR BANNER AND WALLPAPER MAKERS!!:
When I make request or banners for myself, I do this step first then I do the brushing and here's why: You can color pick a color from the texture you used to brush around the banner. Use this water thing option from the main menu. Pick out a color from the blurred texture, and a new layer to your banner (Layer>New Layer) and start brushing! If there's more than one color from the texture use two or how many you want. Using the color picker adds sort of a color blending mode to your banner. (That's what I did with the banner I put in this tutorial.


That's the end of the tutorial! Sorry for the length but I wanted to go into detail. Feel free to ask questions and I'll try and answer them as best as possible! Enjoy!