Trouble doing a freezing sprite

[Madara Uchiha]

Well I checked up this tutorial, and I actually can't seem to do it. I wasted my time downloading Gimp and Photo filitre, I'm a little frustrated.
Here's the tut:
http://www.lf-empire.de/en/lf2-empire/gr...zen-images
I followed it exactly, the only problem I am having is with GIMP. I can get the character transparent, but then when I want to put it on the frozen sprite it basically also carries over bits of the background - so the characters frozen in it and the transparency nice, but there is some white square round him :/.

In paint you have that feature where you can make the picture transparent to certain backgrounds. Does anyone have a clue to how I can do that in GIMP.
The alternative solution I've come up with is taking the transparent picture and putting it in paint and doing it there, but it consumes some time for how many characters I wish to do. Anyone got any solutions? Would be appreciated.

[Jernemies]

I don't know the details on how do you do that, but I'd select the white square with the magic wand (or the finger), then just wipe the selection with the eraser (or press delete). If you do c&p, that should work just fine (before "anchoring" it to the place).It should be right, but my memory isn't the sharpest this time of day. It may just as well be wrong.

[Ramond]

I didn't exactly understand what the problem is, but I thought I'd add my two cents. (I didn't quite understand what you meant by your white squares. Perhaps you could show a picture as an example.)

I used to cut sprites for a Flash movie - copy and paste the whole 80x80 frame of the char into a new layer, then select the black color (0,0,0) with Tolerance 0 and anti-alias off, then delete. Should leave only the character.

For ice (and fire), I have another image here (see attachment) that might help you out as well, as I see that the ice in that other tutorial is a bit... obviously covered with the broken ice parts :P

[Madara Uchiha]

@Ramond it's pretty hard to describe, but your ice method is much better I'm going to use that instead. Thanks I'll give credit.
Jerkington you were right, thanks a lot.