When using LoadResPicture in VB, it seems to always load icons 32X32 pixels, which looks ugly on the docking panes.

I've had luck resizing the icons using code such as:

Private Declare Function CopyImage Lib "user32" (ByVal handle As Long, ByVal imageType As Long, ByVal newWidth As Long, ByVal newHeight As Long, ByVal lFlags As Long) As Long

Private Cons IMAGE_ICON=2

Private Const LR_COPYFROMRESOURCE =3

   Dim p As stdole.IPictureDisp
   Set p = LoadResPicture(101, 1)
   Dim l As Long
   l = CopyImage(p.handle, IMAGE_ICON, 16, 16, LR_COPYFROMRESOURCE)

  DockingPane.AddIconHandle (l,ID)

The code above will resize the icon in the resource file to 16X16.

Good luck.