If you're looking into making girl skins I'm going to put an emphasis on colour, eye catching colours stand out, and that doesn't mean just 'bright' but well hue shifted and good blends (tho I see a lot of this is missed out on the reel)

If you look on a colour wheel it's got H (Hue), S (Saturation) and V (no idea what it stands for but it's basically how much black is in the colour.



This is an example of when pretty much only V and S are changed. It's over-saturated, the colours don't really stand out very much, and let's be honest not much effort has been put into making the pallette to begin with.



Add a little H (hue) tho and then you're in business

Red shifts to orange (lighter), purple (darker)
Orange shifts to red (darker), yellow (lighter)
Yellow shifts to yellow (lighter [go towards white] and orange (darker)

etc. basically around the wheel. (Also I apologise because that purple I made is just so so gross but you can see the point)

Here is a collection of skin tutorials from PMC. You may find what you're looking for there.

I think, it's so nice to see a bit more higher level "experienced" to help someone who is new. Or, like I have seen on many other forums, where if someone asks something they get called noobs or other mean things

Thanks for your advice! This is really helpful. I'll be sure to check out MCSkin3D.
Also, congrats on getting your Draft Punk skin on the popular section. Your skins look very nice.

Hi kluid, nice to see someone is interested in learning how to skin.

First off, I'd recommend checking out a few different editors. My personal favourite (and the one I use.) is MCSkin3D. It comes equipped with both a 2D and a 3D preview, as well as a color wheel, and is capable of creating skins using the Alex model, 1.8 layering, and semi-transparency on the outer layer.

Unfortunately you may have trouble running it on mac, I'm not sure if there is a workaround to get it to function on that operating system. There are a few in-browser alternatives that you can locate with a quick google search.

http://www.planetminecraft.com/mod/mcskin3d/

After you've picked an editor, you can start practicing with different styles and seeing what you like best. If you've already got a style in mind you can begin by trying to mimic other people who've already mastered the technique.

Shading like that can be easily broken down into a few simple steps. I'm going to show you how you can easily shade an arm. The rest of the skin can be done similarly.

Start by making an un-shaded base skin.



Add darker lines to put emphasis on where the shadows or joints of the skin would be.



Darken the shadows a little more here and there to break up the shape a little better and show where the darkest parts of the skin would be.



Add highlights and touch things up here and there. Adjust the colors if necessary.



Done.

I'm no master of making teenage girl skins like the ones you're looking for, but with a little bit of practice you can be every bit as good as the people you linked.