ruiettoPlease note: I do not consider myself to be an expert on skin/character design at all! Take this as a GUIDE to design and not the rule or law when figuring out your design.
Hi! This is ruietto with a guide explaining various processes to design a skin! I will be explaining only a few general processes under two categories, but I’m not claiming that these are the only ways. Sources and credits will be provided at the bottom where needed.
Overview:
✦ References
✪ How You Can Practice:
Please be sure to at least read the Mood Boards section before deciding to use the practice to allow for full understanding.
There is a mood board in each of the spoilers below. Feel free to choose one at random, or choose your favorite out of the four to use as inspiration for one of your future skins. Remember that there's no right or wrong way to utilize inspiration.
bones day?
phroggie goes meow
pastel g fuel
f,,fl,, flower
✦ ㅤReferences
Using references is something that is recommended for all types of artists to do. Whether it be for poses in illustration or anatomy in sculpting, it’s a practice that all artists should utilize art at some point in their craft.
The same can be said for skinning in Minecraft. Sometimes that means using a set palette, or even tracing occasionally. Allow me to explain.
Tracing & Using Bases
In any art, tracing and using bases is generally looked down upon unless given permission, such as using a premade base. Bases usually consist of pre-made shading or addons to a skin, such as hair and outfits. Below are two examples of outfit bases that I posted on Skindex. (If they look familiar, they're from skins that I've made and posted on here)
How Can It Be Good?
You may be questioning why I included tracing and using bases. Am I advocating for nonconsensual use of other people’s skins to cookie cutter them together? Am I saying you should use bases without credit?
No and no. HOWEVER, using a widely used design, such as bucket hats and certain types of bangs, in terms of SHAPE, should not be looked down upon, as there’s only so much one can do with a 64x64 canvas. The original creators of those designs would be difficult to pin down anyway with the mass amount of skins using them.
BUT, if you are directly copying a specific and unique feature from a skin, such as essentially reshading someone else's skin, credit AND permission will always be required.
You can also always take inspiration from other people’s skins as well, even in aspects other than pure design. Many people who redesign their style of shading get inspired by others, and just as many get inspiration from choices in color. For example, the NameMC style (from what I've personally observed) is essentially mochhi’s style as the shading is the exact same, and the NameMC desaturated colors and stereotypical outfits are heavily inspired by her skins. However, as said before, in the case of the former, credit should always be given.
When Is It Stealing?
Stealing is when you copy someone without any credit. This can be in the form of blatantly reshading the design, reposting the skin and claiming credit, and many others. Even with credit, most people wouldn’t appreciate doing so.
Using bases without proper credit is considered stealing as well, as you didn’t come up with the design of whatever category the base falls under.
The way most skin artists protect themselves against stealing is by having a clear no editing policy somewhere on their page. That way, on websites with minimal moderation, it's very clear that the stealer knows they've stolen and should have their repost deleted.
Character Design
When some artists use references, some of them do so in order to make fan art or art for their original characters. Many skin artists do so as well. Some of them are loyal to the design, as seen in my remake of Grian’s Poultry Man (In Hiding) skin; others use the character design as inspiration to make their version of the character, as seen in my humanized version of Freddy from FNAF.
Many skin artists make fanskins for other artists using the other’s persona or original character design. The designs are loyal to the original creator while being in the person’s own shading design. These are made with credit to the original, and are usually done for skin trades. Below is an example of a skin trade I did with interlude_vi.
Marrying a Design
When creating skins for already existing characters, such as other skin artists' original characters, or even characters from franchises, it can be overwhelming when being loyal to the design. Many issues can arise, almost all of which stem from needing to decide what to keep, what to omit, and maybe even what to add. I'll use my own skins to discuss what I feel can be the most difficult issues to get past: colors, outfit design, and physical features.
Set Palettes
Just think of palette contests or even the SSPBL. In each of those, the contestants are only allowed to use the colors within a given palette. Most of the time, these palettes are centered around some sort of common theme or tone. For example, in the S5 W1 palette, I noticed that the entire palette had larger amounts of brightness (sans one). The palette overall is very pastel, which can inspire a multitude of ideas for the contestants to create. While the design of every skin created with the same palette will be different, the colors must be the same no matter what. Below are three contestants who competed against each other in the bracket. Feel free to go to this forum page to vote for one of them!
✦ ㅤInspiration
Artists of all mediums will at some point make original content in some form or another. However, because original designs are not set beforehand unless the person has a storyboard or character sheet on hand, coming up with the design can be rather difficult. Listed below are various ways in which such obstacles can be bypassed.
Mood Boards
Mood boards are collages or compilations of a variety of images that all revolve around some central theme. They're not isolated to only be used by artists, as they can be used to inspire people in terms of fashion or organization. The groups Skinspiration and PMCAesthetics post mood boards for this specific reason for anyone to use. Below is an example of a mood board that I've created to find my own cohesive "style" for how I dress in real life.
At the beginning of this article, the ✪ Practice section includes four mood boards to choose from to practice using them for inspiration. Doing so is not required, but is included for anyone who needs them.
Character Context/Backstory
Sometimes people like to make skins for their own original characters. For some, they already have a set design to make the skin of. However, it wouldn't be unheard of for the skin to help visualize and/or finalize any details of the character. Doing so would be using the character's non-physical characteristics to build up their design from the inside out, similar to how some people name their characters after designing them (e.g. Sarah J Maas giving the name "Dorian" to a character with powers related to snow and storms).
For an example, let's analyze my skin of my original character Chauncey Luxe.
For those that want to make skins of their characters using this method, but are unsure as to how to go about it, I would recommend researching character design for generalized digital art. What helped me personally was analyzing the diction and narrative style of books in my English class. For example, in the beginning of 1984 by George Orwell, the setting is described as gray and monotonous repeatedly, giving the readers a sense of hopelessness. So for the avid readers, paying attention to things like that for setting and characters can be beneficial.
Tone/Mood
Tone and mood are tools utilized in literature to convey a setting to the reader. Tone is the stylistic choices that an author takes to convey their attitude to the audience, while mood is the syntax and diction used to make the atmosphere real to the reader, usually by stimulating the senses. Below are examples of both in the form of literature.
While these devices are primarily used in poetry and prose, that doesn't mean that they can't be utilized in artistic mediums as well. While it wouldn't be in the exact same way in terms of using words, it can be done through things like color and shading. We can use my shaded fungal overgrowth skin to help explain this.
Of course, there are other ways to convey tone, mood, and/or emotion in your skins, but color and shading can be one of the bigger tools when doing so. However, just like fictional literature, almost everything can and will be interpreted in different ways.
Real Life
People always say that fiction/art draws from real life in some way or another. While this applies more to digital artists in terms of making backgrounds, and builders like Grian, this can apply to skin artists as well. A common example that I see is skin artists making skins based on music videos and/or the group that made the music itself. Another common example is making the skin based off of the skin artist themself. Below are examples of both of these concepts. Going to their respective links will give more context to each, but each should still be fairly self-explanatory.
Colors Go Brrr (Thank you to SouthDakotaGirl for suggesting this method!)
This method is probably the one of the most organic processes out of everything explained in this article. It's essentially starting with a blank canvas, and throwing random colors and/or features at it. Then you can tweak and manipulate everything until you're happy with the end result. Or you can continue with the randomness until it becomes its own organized mess, whichever you prefer.
I suppose a form of this would be the random character design challenges you can find online, such as TikTok (e.g. If you wear glasses, add __, if you have a dog, make __, etc.)
Either way, I personally do this only when first choosing specific colors for skins until I'm happy with whatever palette I've come up with. Everyone can and will likely do this process differently, making it personal to each individual skin artist.
An Idea
Similar to the previous method, this one is fairly organic in nature as well, and extremely simple: start with an idea, such as an expression. Then jump down the rabbit hole of anything and everything that you personally associate with it until you find something you're the happiest with. An example is my "something fish related" skin.
Now, the key behind this method is its fluidity. If the design you come up with on the first try doesn't work out, that's okay! That's the point of immersing yourself in inspiration where needed. This is all about your creativity and flexibility.
And that's about it! If you use any method not mentioned here, feel free to leave it in the comments for others to try out!
Make sure to check out all of the lovely creators mentioned in this article, all of which are linked below as well! If any of them would like their submission to be removed, please send me a private message.
If anyone has suggestions for future articles, leave them in the comments as well! Who knows, maybe they'll be created in the future.
Thank you for reading this, and feel free to share this with your friends too!
Hi! This is ruietto with a guide explaining various processes to design a skin! I will be explaining only a few general processes under two categories, but I’m not claiming that these are the only ways. Sources and credits will be provided at the bottom where needed.
Overview:
✦ References
- Tracing / Using Bases
- Character Design
- Set Palettes
- Mood Boards
- Character Context/Backstory
- Tone/Mood
- Real Life
- Colors Go Brrr
- An Idea
✪ How You Can Practice:
Please be sure to at least read the Mood Boards section before deciding to use the practice to allow for full understanding.
There is a mood board in each of the spoilers below. Feel free to choose one at random, or choose your favorite out of the four to use as inspiration for one of your future skins. Remember that there's no right or wrong way to utilize inspiration.
ғ ᴏ ᴜ ʀ
bones day?
s ᴇ ᴠ ᴇ ɴ ᴛ ᴇ ᴇ ɴ
phroggie goes meow
ᴇ ʟ ᴇ ᴠ ᴇ ɴ
pastel g fuel
ᴇ
f,,fl,, flower
✦ ㅤReferences
Using references is something that is recommended for all types of artists to do. Whether it be for poses in illustration or anatomy in sculpting, it’s a practice that all artists should utilize art at some point in their craft.
The same can be said for skinning in Minecraft. Sometimes that means using a set palette, or even tracing occasionally. Allow me to explain.
Tracing & Using Bases
In any art, tracing and using bases is generally looked down upon unless given permission, such as using a premade base. Bases usually consist of pre-made shading or addons to a skin, such as hair and outfits. Below are two examples of outfit bases that I posted on Skindex. (If they look familiar, they're from skins that I've made and posted on here)
How Can It Be Good?
You may be questioning why I included tracing and using bases. Am I advocating for nonconsensual use of other people’s skins to cookie cutter them together? Am I saying you should use bases without credit?
No and no. HOWEVER, using a widely used design, such as bucket hats and certain types of bangs, in terms of SHAPE, should not be looked down upon, as there’s only so much one can do with a 64x64 canvas. The original creators of those designs would be difficult to pin down anyway with the mass amount of skins using them.
BUT, if you are directly copying a specific and unique feature from a skin, such as essentially reshading someone else's skin, credit AND permission will always be required.
You can also always take inspiration from other people’s skins as well, even in aspects other than pure design. Many people who redesign their style of shading get inspired by others, and just as many get inspiration from choices in color. For example, the NameMC style (from what I've personally observed) is essentially mochhi’s style as the shading is the exact same, and the NameMC desaturated colors and stereotypical outfits are heavily inspired by her skins. However, as said before, in the case of the former, credit should always be given.
 |  |
An example of shading inspiration and credit:
When Is It Stealing?
Stealing is when you copy someone without any credit. This can be in the form of blatantly reshading the design, reposting the skin and claiming credit, and many others. Even with credit, most people wouldn’t appreciate doing so.
Using bases without proper credit is considered stealing as well, as you didn’t come up with the design of whatever category the base falls under.
The way most skin artists protect themselves against stealing is by having a clear no editing policy somewhere on their page. That way, on websites with minimal moderation, it's very clear that the stealer knows they've stolen and should have their repost deleted.
example: my editing policy
| . do not repost or post edits of my skins without permission . edits for personal use are fine |
Character Design
When some artists use references, some of them do so in order to make fan art or art for their original characters. Many skin artists do so as well. Some of them are loyal to the design, as seen in my remake of Grian’s Poultry Man (In Hiding) skin; others use the character design as inspiration to make their version of the character, as seen in my humanized version of Freddy from FNAF.
Many skin artists make fanskins for other artists using the other’s persona or original character design. The designs are loyal to the original creator while being in the person’s own shading design. These are made with credit to the original, and are usually done for skin trades. Below is an example of a skin trade I did with interlude_vi.
 |  |
Marrying a Design
When creating skins for already existing characters, such as other skin artists' original characters, or even characters from franchises, it can be overwhelming when being loyal to the design. Many issues can arise, almost all of which stem from needing to decide what to keep, what to omit, and maybe even what to add. I'll use my own skins to discuss what I feel can be the most difficult issues to get past: colors, outfit design, and physical features.
COLORS For some people this is as simple as using the eyedropper tool to get the exact color codes for the designs. However, sometimes this isn’t feasible if an artist’s distinct style doesn't allow for the colors of the design. For example, in my Flashbacks remake of one of the first ever skins I made, we can see that the colors of the 2020 remake don't fit my current style, just as the colors of that remake aren't the exact same as the original. |  Original   |
OUTFIT DESIGN When recreating a character's outfit, many issues can easily arise. For example, in many skins of Genshin Impact, a lot of the smaller details of the outfits are omitted simply because they don't fit on a 64x64 canvas without looking messy. In contrast, I added gloves to my recreation of Poultry Man. This is because in the context of him being a superhero, I thought it would help give him a more tactical appearance, as well as making more sense from a practical point of view. |  Original  |
PHYSICAL FEATURES Physical features can be a large issue when recreating characters as skins, especially if largely identifying features are difficult or even impossible to recreate. As seen with this skin that I made 2 years ago (on my old account) I found difficulty in recreating the downturned ram horns, so I remedied that by exchanging them for upturned devil horns. |  Original  |
Set Palettes
Just think of palette contests or even the SSPBL. In each of those, the contestants are only allowed to use the colors within a given palette. Most of the time, these palettes are centered around some sort of common theme or tone. For example, in the S5 W1 palette, I noticed that the entire palette had larger amounts of brightness (sans one). The palette overall is very pastel, which can inspire a multitude of ideas for the contestants to create. While the design of every skin created with the same palette will be different, the colors must be the same no matter what. Below are three contestants who competed against each other in the bracket. Feel free to go to this forum page to vote for one of them!
 |  |  |
✦ ㅤInspiration
Artists of all mediums will at some point make original content in some form or another. However, because original designs are not set beforehand unless the person has a storyboard or character sheet on hand, coming up with the design can be rather difficult. Listed below are various ways in which such obstacles can be bypassed.
Mood Boards
Mood boards are collages or compilations of a variety of images that all revolve around some central theme. They're not isolated to only be used by artists, as they can be used to inspire people in terms of fashion or organization. The groups Skinspiration and PMCAesthetics post mood boards for this specific reason for anyone to use. Below is an example of a mood board that I've created to find my own cohesive "style" for how I dress in real life.
At the beginning of this article, the ✪ Practice section includes four mood boards to choose from to practice using them for inspiration. Doing so is not required, but is included for anyone who needs them.
Character Context/Backstory
Sometimes people like to make skins for their own original characters. For some, they already have a set design to make the skin of. However, it wouldn't be unheard of for the skin to help visualize and/or finalize any details of the character. Doing so would be using the character's non-physical characteristics to build up their design from the inside out, similar to how some people name their characters after designing them (e.g. Sarah J Maas giving the name "Dorian" to a character with powers related to snow and storms).
For an example, let's analyze my skin of my original character Chauncey Luxe.
Some of his physical characteristics based on his backstory are more obvious, such as his fox ears and tail, along with his overall white complexion are due to his previous form being a white fox. However, his outfit in particular would require reading his backstory (included in the post) to understand. According to his backstory, at the current time in his storyline, he's an infamous wealthy gambler. The vest and dress pants are on the fancier side to convey his wealth, while the lack of blazer symbolizes his freedom. Now let's take a step back to look at the overall color scheme and tones. They're far more desaturated than my usual comic-inspired style and have a lot of gray tones, implying to the viewer that the setting is incredibly despondent and depressing, which is true for Chauncey's character in the story (as well as many others). |  |
For those that want to make skins of their characters using this method, but are unsure as to how to go about it, I would recommend researching character design for generalized digital art. What helped me personally was analyzing the diction and narrative style of books in my English class. For example, in the beginning of 1984 by George Orwell, the setting is described as gray and monotonous repeatedly, giving the readers a sense of hopelessness. So for the avid readers, paying attention to things like that for setting and characters can be beneficial.
Tone/Mood
Tone and mood are tools utilized in literature to convey a setting to the reader. Tone is the stylistic choices that an author takes to convey their attitude to the audience, while mood is the syntax and diction used to make the atmosphere real to the reader, usually by stimulating the senses. Below are examples of both in the form of literature.
"It was a low, dull, quick sound — much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath — and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly — more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men — but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed — I raved — I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder — louder — louder!" | "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before" |
Take note of the many adjectives and verbs that give the reader a large sense of insanity, guilt, and nervousness. | In the context of the entire work, the reader doesn't know what's going on for a long time. This incites the atmosphere of mystery and puzzlement. |
While these devices are primarily used in poetry and prose, that doesn't mean that they can't be utilized in artistic mediums as well. While it wouldn't be in the exact same way in terms of using words, it can be done through things like color and shading. We can use my shaded fungal overgrowth skin to help explain this.
Let's first look at the colors. They're all fairly saturated and vibrant, even the warm brown tones. This choice is heavily inspired by comics and western cartoons. To aid this, I used hue shifting in a specific way to keep the vibrancy consistent. This is done by increasing the saturation for darker tones. I do this differently for other skins depending on how I want the colors to appear. If I want them to be a bit less saturated, almost like NameMC skins, I decrease the saturation with the lightness. Another aspect of the cartoon-inspiration is my simplistic, blocky shading. If we look at cartoons like Gravity Falls, the shading is fairly blocky or linear (think of how there's little variation in the line art for animation to make movement easier). |  |
Of course, there are other ways to convey tone, mood, and/or emotion in your skins, but color and shading can be one of the bigger tools when doing so. However, just like fictional literature, almost everything can and will be interpreted in different ways.
Real Life
People always say that fiction/art draws from real life in some way or another. While this applies more to digital artists in terms of making backgrounds, and builders like Grian, this can apply to skin artists as well. A common example that I see is skin artists making skins based on music videos and/or the group that made the music itself. Another common example is making the skin based off of the skin artist themself. Below are examples of both of these concepts. Going to their respective links will give more context to each, but each should still be fairly self-explanatory.
JIMIN (BTS) sobok sobok skinmas  interlude_vi |
Colors Go Brrr (Thank you to SouthDakotaGirl for suggesting this method!)
This method is probably the one of the most organic processes out of everything explained in this article. It's essentially starting with a blank canvas, and throwing random colors and/or features at it. Then you can tweak and manipulate everything until you're happy with the end result. Or you can continue with the randomness until it becomes its own organized mess, whichever you prefer.
I suppose a form of this would be the random character design challenges you can find online, such as TikTok (e.g. If you wear glasses, add __, if you have a dog, make __, etc.)
Either way, I personally do this only when first choosing specific colors for skins until I'm happy with whatever palette I've come up with. Everyone can and will likely do this process differently, making it personal to each individual skin artist.
An Idea
Similar to the previous method, this one is fairly organic in nature as well, and extremely simple: start with an idea, such as an expression. Then jump down the rabbit hole of anything and everything that you personally associate with it until you find something you're the happiest with. An example is my "something fish related" skin.
The story of how this skin was first created is rather simple. One of my friends commissioned me to make a skin for them, and their prompt was literally "surprise me, but keep it fish themed." So I first started with his Discord icon for inspiration, which is a tuna fish wearing a business suit (everything with him is related to tuna for some reason.) That made me think of AJ Carmichael from Umbrella Academy, which is basically what this skin is based off of. |  AJ Carmichael from Umbrella Academy  *AJ Carmichael is part of the Umbrella Academy comic and Netflix series. He is owned by Gerard Way who wrote the story. |
Now, the key behind this method is its fluidity. If the design you come up with on the first try doesn't work out, that's okay! That's the point of immersing yourself in inspiration where needed. This is all about your creativity and flexibility.
And that's about it! If you use any method not mentioned here, feel free to leave it in the comments for others to try out!
Make sure to check out all of the lovely creators mentioned in this article, all of which are linked below as well! If any of them would like their submission to be removed, please send me a private message.
If anyone has suggestions for future articles, leave them in the comments as well! Who knows, maybe they'll be created in the future.
Thank you for reading this, and feel free to share this with your friends too!
Links to all the skins & users mentioned!
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Helpful Resources!
Software Credits
Title Image :: Canva
Mood Boards :: Images from Pinterest, Procreate for collages
My Skins :: PMCSkin3D
Mood Boards :: Images from Pinterest, Procreate for collages
My Skins :: PMCSkin3D
| Credit | Each creator is linked to their respective works. Credit to Discord friend for proofreading. |
| Tags |
tools/tracking
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a-guide-to-skin-design
TravisaInc
Danesto
CrystalRuby
User5098101G
EarthUser
Team UNNAMED
User5115289G
MindOfSocial
WYHA-Storm
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i should not be only sleeping for 4 hours
BTW there's another group with moodboards, PMCAesthetics