Ivoreyy 2179 Popular Post Share Posted June 17, 2020 Heya So I thought I’d put together a little guide to help out people who’d like to learn to skin. It’ll be as detailed as I can make it, and will have my tips/advice for starting out. It will mostly be about human skins, as that’s all I really make- but the same principles can apply to skins for other races 🙂 This guide will be a little lengthy, because I’m putting my entire process, start to finish, with lots of tips and tricks! Bear with me. Ivory’s Guide to Skinning: STEP ONE: Coming up with a design The key to a good skin is in the design. Shading only amplifies the design, so the trick is to come up with new, dynamic designs for your skins. References! Whenever I make a skin, I almost ALWAYS have some sort of reference/idea of what I want to do. Obviously, you need to modify lots to fit on the limited pixel space a skin has, but having the basic outline/guide really does help.I use these references to make an unshaded base. To make my base, I use the (unpopular) https://www.minecraftskins.net/skineditor I just find this one much easier to search for the right basic colour. Examples: Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler It’s not always necessary to have an exact reference like those above. Sometimes it’s a certain colour, a singular detail or pattern that you can build the rest of the skin off. In any case, references are extremely helpful to making realistic skins. It’s also a great way to try out new things that haven’t really been on skins before. My favourite skins are always those that build around unique features. It’s easy to whip up generic, boring skins- but being able to have skins that incorporate new ideas are much nicer, as well as more enjoyable to make and experiment with! Especially when making human male skins, I like to start out with some sort of unique feature to build around. It could be a cloak, belt- etc. It’s a lot easier to build an interesting skin around one, nice detail. Examples: Spoiler In these two, I was able to build the rest of the skin off of the central feature- being the plaid throw, and the blue sash. References can come in handy for these central features, or for the whole skin. Faces / hair! When making a skin, I generally like to start with the face and hair. This way, I can make it match nicer with the colours and design of the clothing later on. Male: Okay, so I have a personal style that I always follow for male faces. I always put the mouth pixels on the bottom of the face, as higher just looks weird (PSA to always put them on the bottom row). With hair, overlay can be put on the front, and possibly the sides & back of the head (but not always necessary!) Spoiler For the base layer of hair, the top three rows of pixels are where you’d start, if wanting short hair. The middle is usually higher, as it sort of ‘rounds’ the face shape. For the sides of the face, always make sure to include the shape of an ear. It can be done in a few slightly different ways, but this is pretty standard. Having overlay around the sides and back is a personal preference. If trying to make the hair look a bit longer/scruffier, or otherwise with more volume, it works quite nicely. Spoiler Females: Female skins have a similar, uniform face structure for most skins. Generally, the basic design is like this: Spoiler Mouth pixels on the bottom, and eyebrows four down from the top, eyes below. Hair goes down each side to the bottom. As long as you have those key elements, the design for the hair at the top can vary. Again, however, the general shape usually rounds out the face. The sides, same as on males, should include some sort of ear shape. Spoiler With an overlay, this can look really nice. Just be sure not to make the ear area too big. Next comes overlay! My biggest tip is to make the overlay for hair lighter than the base colour below. This lets you see the overlay a lot better, and will play into how you shade later on. For the front, the rough outline is this. Spoiler The specifics of how long the fringe is can be played with, as well as if you want the one side higher, or both equal. Again, all that’s necessary is the rounded shaping. The sides generally match the overlay from the front for the first column, then move thinner atop the ear, then thicker again behind. Finally, the back is where it matters a lot what you want to have the hair be styled as. Having a bun, braids, using different hair accessories etc can influence this. Play around with the shape until you’re happy Spoiler Designing the clothing: It’s hard to specifically outline steps for this, as every clothing skin is bound to be very different. So, instead, I’m going to share a few of my tips for general designs. Dresses Skirt designs can be really fun to come up with! Try experimenting with colour, shape and overlay to make something new- a reference can help. Spoiler To make a simple pattern, using a variation of light/dark in stripes will create the basic dress look. Be sure to also dictate the shape and height of the waistline. High waisted dresses will look very different to low waisted dresses. Play around with colours and patterns especially, as these can make skins look much more interesting. Same goes for male skins. Play around with designs- look at other skins, and how those skinners have manipulated the pixels to create certain shapes / effects. Try new things out. Spoiler This is how I start a skin. I work on the general base, then I add an overlay on top of that. The purpose of overlay is to accentuate the details on the bottom layer. You’ll end up with a base skin looking like: Spoiler Next up, shading! Shading is what can totally transform a skin. For this, I switch to PMC3d: https://www.planetminecraft.com/pmcskin3d/ I use the ‘HSL shift mode’ tool to do this. LOTC is categorised, usually, by less intense shading to get the ‘realism’ effect. Each skin is different, but my shading tends to be a bit more mild for most features of a skin. Usually, the more detail on a skin = less shading needed, as the differing colours will render shading a lot lesser. Whereas, if you have a large area of a singular colour, more shading is needed. I use 101% or 102% on my shading, rarely more than that. The way this tool works is essentially just lightening the pixels that you click by the percentage that you use. As a general guide, the darker the colour, the less intense %. When shading something like white I maybe using 103-104%, but black will be 101%. Hue shift and saturation can be used, but I personally don’t tend to use them as much. Now, onto the how of shading. The thing with shading is that everyone tends to do it a little differently. I’ll explain how I shade, but this will objectively be very different to other skinners. There’s no real right or wrong, and shading techniques can also drastically change with different skin designs. The easiest way to shade a simple design is to use a ‘box’ sort of pattern. Start darker in the corners, and work your way to lighter in the middle. Generally, this principle can work for most skins. You can follow though a gradient for different features of a skin. Simple shading isn’t too difficult, to be honest. Spoiler Simple shading on skirts/dresses works in a similar manner, except you shade each vertical line individually. This is why it’s important you have a base with the two stripes, with one lighter in colour. Work from darker at the two edges, to lighter in the middle. Allowing each line to be a little different will create a nice effect overall. Spoiler For some features, you can use more complex shading to get certain effects. This is especially relevant for features that are meant to resemble certain fabric textures (especially capes/robes etc.) For example, something like this. Spoiler To mimic the folds of the red cape, I used a darker line across the middle, with the lighter areas on each side. Again, it’s a simple gradient to shade- but these variations in colour can have a really nice effect in the end. Spoiler Same goes for the fur on the shoulder of the second skin. I worked from darker to lighter, in a bit of a more complex gradient to the ‘box’ technique from above. Those principles can generally work for most clothing skins. Now, onto faces! Female and male face shading operates a little differently. For females, I start with the darkest shade at the corners of the face, and work lighter from there. The pixel directly beneath the whites of the eyes can be made a little pink to resemble pink cheeks. I always have one column a bit lighter across the two in the middle, which somewhat resembles the shading of a nose. I also always have one pixel of the mouth lighter, usually the pixel below the lighter stripe in the middle. The eyebrow pixel above the coloured pixel of the eye can also be lightened to have a nice effect. Spoiler Male faces are somewhat similar, but they also have a bit more to shade. I work in the ‘box’ style gradient, going from darker in the corners of the face, to lighter in the middle. Again, I use a lighter stripe down one side of the middle, and a corresponding lighter pixel on the mouth. Similar to females, the pixel on the eyebrows can be made lighter. Spoiler Hair is a totally different ball game that I'm still honestly working out for myself. I’ll make another guide once I figure it out properly and am able to explain it well! I’ll drop some examples of hair designs I’m really proud of - but I’m not sure I’m totally competent enough yet to advise others on how to do it. Spoiler An absolute goddess with hair shading was Roseways, so have a look at how she does it ! https://www.planetminecraft.com/member/amyselia The BEST advice I can give for learning to skin is to just practice. The more you play around with designs and shading, the easier it will become and you’ll learn specific ways you like to do things! I personally try to come up with new designs and new things to add into skins all the time. My favourite skins are ones with cool details - hats, capes, patterns, or particular colour schemes. Also do always feel free to drop me a PM on discord if you ever want some skin advice. I’m always happy to help and guide!! I’ve also made a skinning discord along with TJB, so join that one if you’re a skinner or would like to just vibe. https://discord.gg/4U9HrVn Skinning obviously has a lot of different elements, and this guide only briefly touched on a few of them! Let me know if there’s any specific things I can make little guides on and I’d be more than happy to do so 🙂 54 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axelu 3691 Share Posted June 17, 2020 literally MARRY ME 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sergisala 2739 Share Posted June 17, 2020 omg this guide is so good... 10/10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LithiumSedai 4823 Share Posted June 17, 2020 As a longtime skinner, I greatly appreciate the effort put into what might be the greatest guide for functional RP skins I’ve ever seen. +1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCapybara 1760 Share Posted June 17, 2020 The Winner Is... IVOREY BECAUSE SHE A BADDIE B! 10/10 QUEEN! HUN! SMH! ± +1 ± 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volous 25 Share Posted June 17, 2020 This is excellent work. Great job. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evonpire 1780 Share Posted June 17, 2020 hot 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eryane 3629 Share Posted June 17, 2020 wow immaculate Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pompadour 361 Share Posted June 17, 2020 Very nice! +1! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callum 926 Share Posted June 17, 2020 Ivorey more like.... Dummy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
libertyybelle 5463 Share Posted June 17, 2020 So as a person who literally has learned from Ivory and can now make pretty decent skins, I can CONFIRM, these tips work. amazing job bb. also don’t mean to brag but uhhh Mary Lucilles face is immortalized now. B) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rukio 8908 Share Posted June 17, 2020 This is a cool guide but I’m still gonna spam your DMs like “Ivory why is my skin terrible, help” 😏 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Ivory 4534 Share Posted June 17, 2020 thank you im taking notes Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kholibrii 977 Share Posted June 17, 2020 Great Guide! I do have a couple questions though. D you have any advice for doing males with longer hair or bangs and do you have any good photos like what you included, but not of human outfits?(I play a wood elf, so his outfits would be nothing like the ones you included, so i would assume shading would be different?) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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