I Would like to add error icon and custom validation message using Jquery plugin. Like this

Here is my html code,
    <input type="text" id="firstName" name="firstName" class="required" />
    <input type="text" name="lastName" class="required" /> <br>
    <input id="email" type="text" name="email" class="required" /> <br>
Here is my Html code,
I have tried with errorPlacement function, however for some reason i am not able to get error message below the control. I have used prepentTo, appendTo, all jquery function to do this. but no luck!!!
function validateForm(){
            $("#register").validate({
                rules: {
                    firstName: {
                        required: true,
                        minlength: 2
                    }
                },
                    errorPlacement: function(error, element) {
                        error.insertAfter(element); 
                    },
            });
        }
Thanks