A Skinner's Guide, by Mal!: Women Edition

[slattador 511]

A SKINNER’S GUIDE, BY MAL!

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The essential secrets behind the art of pixel placing.

 

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Skinning is hard. And yes, it still is- even after the four years of experience that I have in the art of pixels. Whether it comes down to the shading techniques applied, using color coordination, attempting to defeat a creativity block or even the basics of simply stirring up a base; skinning will always be hard. Constantly, my style is changing along with the consensus of what the absolute ‘correct’ type of skinning should be. However, before I write further into this manual- I’d like to establish a clear point that there is absolutely no correct way to go about making a skin, and there is not a perfect style. You should always skin in the way you deem best looking. Below, I’ve gathered a variety of different kinds of skins from some of the most known and skilled skinners- so that I can make this specific point clear.

Notice something? 

Each of the styles has its own personal touch, none the same- but they all look equally just as amazing. There has never been such a thing as a perfect skinner- and by writing this post, I’m not naming myself one either.

 

Skin by Melpommene on PMC            Skin by Zuzie on PMC

 

        Skin by Fie on PMC                Skin by Louis on PMC

        Skin by Venclair on PMC                Skin by Jihnyny on PMC

 

                     Skin by PerfectlyPeachy on PMC                                        Skin by Drzzter on PMC

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SO LET’S BEGIN..

I’m merely here to help. Although skinning has grown into what some may call a business, everyone deserves to have a great looking skin- seeing as many roleplay aspects revolve around what your persona may look like. So! With that, I’ve come together with a couple of skinners to help put together a somewhat detailed and updated guide on some ways you can start your skinning journey! If you’re willing to try and learn, please continue. I will firstly begin with women bases, and shading- because women are great. I love women. A separate guide for men will be in the making shortly after this guide’s release! 

1. Women Heads: Color Coordination

When shading my heads, I do it differently each time. But, let me start off with the basics. Firstly, I will go over color coordination and how to go about picking decent skin tones- and then I will start on hair overlay bases! The woman skin I will be focusing on for this guide is my own version of Meg from the Disney Movie, Hercules. 

 

Color coordination plays a huge part in how your skin turns out, and all in all- it’s just important. Finding neutral skin tones and darker skin tones are hard, but I suggest firstly beginning around the more orange area as seen in the first picture below. If you’d like to go for a more’ sickly’ or pale look, I suggest you shift the bar slightly over to the more yellow-ish area. For more melanated looks, shift the circle amidst the triangle to the darker colors! Don’t be afraid to play with shades, it’s the only way you can truly learn. For hair colors- hair color can be absolutely any color you’d like, dyed or not. There’s not a better way to find hair colors. The only color I’d exempt from ease of finding are blonde shades. You never want a blonde color to be too yellow, so I’d recommend finding your blonde shades from somewhere around what is depicted in the second picture below. If looking for a platinum blonde color, adjust the circle amidst the triangle higher towards the white- but not by too much! When we get into hair shading later on, your hair color will become darker- so pick a shade lighter for the sake of the process. If you do not go a few shades lighter, you will have to go back in and lighten your hair after. It’s a waste of time!

 

 

2. Women Heads: Bases

Now that a bit of color coordination for the head is done, let’s work on our actual base! Head bases are extremely simple, they practically outline your work and are also important. Because I am recreating Meg, I’ll begin with a more tan shade for her skin- and a brownish / reddish color for her hair! DO NOT forget to check which part of the head that you’re shading! Backwards heads are a pain to fix.

 

Here is a simple base that I have just to start off with! It’s okay to shift the look of your bases as you work further into your skin! I myself will probably end up saturating bits or lightening / darkening parts I find necessary- do what you think looks best! Hairlines are quite optional too, depending on the hairstyle you’re going for. Mine is skewed left by a pixel, but you can go for a centered, even look or even skew your hairline to the right by a pixel: as seen below.

 

 

Now that we have a simple head base done, we can start with a front hair overlay! Again, there is absolutely no correct way to do your hair overlays- they all vary depending on hairstyle! Below, I’ve presented some basic hair overlays highlighted in a lighter color! Feel free to experience with shape yourself, my word is not law. 

 

 

Meg, my ref for my skin, has a swooped bang on the right side of her face- so that is the look I’ll be going for on my example skin:

 

 

Now that our front is finished- let’s start on the side of the head’s overlays! Again, there are so many ways to shape these: but experiment, experiment, experiment! I’ve provided some more examples down below of what some of these can look like!

 

 

Because Meg’s hair is slicked into a high ponytail, I’m going to have my hair overlay swoop upwards so that it meets in the back at a higher point on her head. I usually copy and paste the hair overlay on one side to the other using the clone tool. To use it, make sure you apply the settings shown in the picture below, click on the overlay you wish to copy and turn on x-axis- so that it flips over correctly on the other side! Then to paste the piece you’ve copied, simply click.

 

 

 

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3. Women Heads: Skin Shading

Congrats! You’ve made it through the easy parts, now it’s time for your worst nightmares. Shading. Let’s start off with shading our base skin! When shading at any part of a skin, I typically use light theory, meaning that the lightest parts should be where light fully hits- and the darkest having little to no light, or being a shadow: as seen below.

 

However, instead of the light being hit from the side- I imagine it hitting directly the front of the face. So, let’s start with the skin.

 

Step 1: In a pattern, I shade upwards at the middle with a lighter setting using the HSL Shift Mode tool. I typically shade lighter at 103%, and darker at 97%. One side should be done lighter than the other with an extra click, for a highlighted section of face!

 

Step 2: As we near closer to the ending of the most highlighted part of the face, add a last three lighter pixels around the lightest highlights!

 

 

Step 3: In the outermost corners of the face near the top, darken pixels as much as you’d like! The hair overlay should cover these bits, and it’ll give it a ‘shadow-like’ look! I go in usually at 97% with the HSL Shift Mode tool to do this as well.

 

 

Step 4: Add highlights down the middle wherever you’d like, and saturate the two pixels beneath the eyes for a more tan / blushed look! Don’t forget to darken or lighten either side of the lip pixels for a nice spice to your head. Always take your tools and adjust any colors that you don’t like- whether it be skin tone, eye color or lip color! It’s never too late to go back in and fix anything. My reference has more of a red lip, so I will be making that red more into the future using the hue shift. Otherwise, your skin shading is just about finished! Wooo!

 

 

 

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IV: Women Heads: Hair Shading

Hair shading is very tough- so read closely for this bit. After going in on my skin, fixing the lip color, and darkening her eyebrows (because eyebrows are usually darker or lighter than hair shade)- she is ready for hair!

 

Step 1: Start off by traveling upward and outwards darker on the front part of the head. I use the HSL Shift Mode Tool at 97% for this process as well. Your hair tone will become DARKER, so use a lighter shade on your base if you don’t want it to be extremely dark! Below is the first pattern we’ll be going by! Lightest in the middle, darkest on the most outer parts! 

 

 

Step 2: Where your hair overlay has a gap, add 2 darker lines of pixel on the first layer to make a 'hair part!'

 

 

Step 3: Then add highlights on the first layer once more! The first layer is finished.  Now, we may move onto the hair overlay.

 

 

Step 4: When doing your hair overlay, try shading the lightest INWARDS, where the most light would hit your persona’s face! The outermost parts are my darkest, as you can see- and the most inner parts are the lightest. Use the HSL Shift Mode Tool at 103% to achieve this sort of look! Use this technique in whatever way you’d like, this is simply how I do mine:

 

Voila!

 

Step 5: Now that our front is completely finished, we can move on to the sides of our head. This part becomes a little bit tricky, however there are many ways to work around it. Firstly, we are going to drag the colors from the first layer onto the sides, like this! I also take my hair overlay and paste it onto the first layer so that I can clearly see how things are going to look:

 

 

Step 6: Next, I lighten the middle parts of the base once- ignoring the overlay bit. Just like this:

 

 

Step 7: I trace the outside of the overlay with a darker shading, it makes it pop out more- and highlights the overlay hair! It looks crazy as of now, but don’t fret. Once we get to the next step, things will look much better!

 

 

Step 8: Then, we’ll go in at 103% to lighten the upper half of her head! The further you get up the side, the lighter the shading should be- because any sun and / or light will hit that part the most. I have shown this process down below with step by step pictures. The bits that are in red have been lightened. 

 

And as for the lower portion below the blank hair overlay, you’d do the same! 

 

Begin with making bits lighter:

 

 

And proceed by making bits darker to finish the first layer!

 

 

Step 9: Now the overlay! This bit is quite easy. I shade lighter (like usual) and continue on in using light theory! Here’s the pattern I use for my overlay shading, I won’t go too in depth with this bit because it’s fairly simple. Once you’re finished with the overlay- don’t forget to paste it onto the first layer of the skin beneath it! 

 

 

Lighten these parts, and go lighter as you travel up! I used 103% and 102% for softer highlights. ^

 

 

Then lastly, darken these bits at 97%!

 

 

And we are finally done with the sides of her hair! Now, we’re on to the absolutely WORST part of the head. The back.. Till this day, I still struggle with making nice looking backs. So, I’ll be skipping that part in this guide. However, don’t shy away from shooting me a message through discord with questions! I’ve gone out on my own time to complete the back for the sake of finishing up this guide:

 

BEGINNING THE OUTFITS..

Now that our head is completely finished- it’s just about time to go on and begin with our outfit base! In my opinion, heads are the hardest part of skinning- so if you’ve made it this far.. You’re doing great! There are so many different ways to approach outfit bases. Things like shape and color are very important! The shading of outfits should be the last of worries- for that process is quite easy. Since there are a variety of different ways to approach bases, I’ve asked one of my best friends- and one of many great skinner’s to provide you all with some bases of her own to show as examples. Even so, she’s added her own little spicy touches to the refs I’ve given her. Below are her examples!: 

 

 

Niya's PMC!

 

On my end of making bases, I’m going to remain with the skin we’ve been working off of together- and stir up a strong outfit for her! Let us begin.. I’d firstly like to show the ref I’ll be working off of:

 

 

As you can tell, there isn’t much shape or detail to this ref- which is why it’ll be extremely easy to copy. We’ll begin with the upper half of her body. Seen below, is the upper part of the base we’ll be working off of. Although it’s quite simple, it’s the shading that will give it all of its glory!

 

 

Like the upper-half, the bottom too, looks quite boring. But like aforementioned, this will all change once the shading comes through! You can see the take I chose regarding shapes, and choices I left plain at parts. You can do so much with the shapes during skinning, but always- always stick to what you think looks best. 

 

 

 

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1. Shading Skin

Step 1: When shading open arms such as these, I first start off with a pattern like such! Lightest parts should be stationed on the very outside of arms, seeing as that is where most light should hit! The darkest parts will sneak in on the most inner-parts of the arm, nearest to the body! 

 

Step 2: Then, I go in with the HSL Shift Mode tool at 97% and darken bits just a little bit more for an extra touch of shadows! 

 

I’ll even additionally go in with the same tool at 103%, and highlight more parts that should be lightened as seen below!

 

 

The neck shading should go by a pattern such as this, very simple!:

 

 

II: Shading Clothing

Now that the skin is out of the way, we may move onto shading parts of the dress! I’ll first start off by repeating myself: USE LIGHT THEORY. It is your bestest friend when skinning! 

 

Step 1: Starting off with the chest area! You want the shiniest parts to be in the center, and darker parts to be towards places with hair- or covered by something. If there are neither, the darkest bits can also go near the outskirts of the chest. Begin with a pattern such as this:

 

 

Then proceed on by shading a lighter, and darker bit! Then boom, the upper-chest part is finished!

 

 

For the golden buttons and lining beneath the shaded chest part, I’d do the exact same! Light theorryyy.. 

 

\

 

For the middle part of the chest with the light stripes, I start shading by lightning it further as I go higher! Typically the sun hits the first part first, so it would only make sense. Again, parts that are closer to the skin / arms, become darker! I apply this rule to the stripes as well. Note that the less symmetrical that the shading is, the better it looks! Try your BEST to avoid symmetrical and / or even shading when doing clothing. It can make a skin look plain, or boring! This is an exception when it comes to patterns such as flannel or plaid. 

 

 

 

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And as we near the final portion of this guide, we’ll be finishing up the skin by doing the skirt! Skirts can be troublesome, so tread carefully when going at one. 

 

Step 1: Start off with a pattern such as this! As you can see, I’ve added my own touch to the skirt part by adding a white bit of folds. Don’t shy away from adding your own details to original refs, that’s what makes your skin- YOUR skin! Originality is hard to find nowadays, especially within the skinning community. The shading I’ve laid out below recognizes a fold in the dress, and also a change in material in the middle part. Very simple to start off with!

 

Step 2: Add shadows on the dress-skirt, and emphasize the highlights by.. Adding more highlights! There’s no specific pattern I follow for this process, but here’s what I ended up with! 

 

 

And just like that.. We’re just about done with the dress skirt! Let’s talk about clothing overlays to close this manual off!

 

 

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III. Clothing Overlay

Clothing overlay is so tricky! It is definitely an aspect that makes, or breaks your skin. So what kind of overlay should you be approaching depending on skin? Because I’m working off of a tight dress, we’ll be working with a vague overlay. When doing tighter-clothed skins, the amount of overlay that you need becomes less; and vice versa.

 

For this specific dress, I only highlighted parts such as buttons, a bit of her chest, etc. When doing the waist of dresses, I tend to delete overlay bits that are at the most outer parts to give the skin a more slim-shape. I additionally remove overlay from stripes / folds to give the skin more of a pop and fuller look! Though for some skins, I casually leave random parts of folds just for a spicy touch- as seen below.

 

 

For the lower skirt overlay, I use the same technique mentioned above! Parts where there are folds have no overlay, and I even remove bits of the side of the skirt to make it look more flowy! I do suggest playing with the shapes of overlays, anything can look great if done nicely. 

 

 

Once the skirt overlay is finished- you’re practically done with the front of your skin! All that is left are the sides, and back- which are relatively easy. Congratulations! Wooo!

YOU’VE MADE IT..

 

 

And so that is all of the tips and explanations I have to provide for this guide! Further into the future, I’ll be working on firstly a guide for male skins- and more intricate guides such as one for fur shading, and possibly even guides for species outside of just humans. If you’ve any suggestions, shoot me a DM on discord at: slattador#2003. I do hope this guide somewhat helps those who are struggling in skinning- or willing to learn. Have fun skinning, and until next time!

 

Here is a link to my PMC if you’d like to support me!: Slattador's PMC

[sondher 759]

aye thx puta

[Mamimiux 174]

Amazing :0

[Ark 2830]

This is incredible! Thank you for putting this together. 

[Dasdi 658]

wondrous.

[MCVDK 1565]

Good guide but we don’t need more female skinners - we need male skinners. Please, for the love of God, more male skinners.

[Heartesy 349]

41 minutes ago, MCVDK said:

Good guide but we don’t need more female skinners - we need male skinners. Please, for the love of God, more male skinners.

become 1

[niya 180]

40 minutes ago, MCVDK said:

Good guide but we don’t need more female skinners - we need male skinners. Please, for the love of God, more male skinners.

 

17 hours ago, slattador said:

I will firstly begin with women bases, and shading- because women are great. I love women. A separate guide for men will be in the making shortly after this guide’s release! 

17 hours ago, slattador said:

Further into the future, I’ll be working on firstly a guide for male skins- and more intricate guides such as one for fur shading, and possibly even guides for species outside of just humans

Learn to read................................................

[AnimeWolf0080 1493]

Lovely <3

[Vocturne 68]

Was able to try my hand at overhauling a character's skin because of this.
First real attempt at skinning!
Thanks, hopefully the first of many.