As you can see by a quick glance at my submissions page, I am a skinner on this site. That is where my "home" is on here and the community of PMC that I have been involved in for three, maybe four years.

The Beginning
I started playing Minecraft about five years ago. My cousins introduced me to it; we would play together when we were at their house and use one of my cousin's friend's account. I was pretty much immediately hooked on this game. That following Christmas, my cousins and I each got our own accounts that we could have to ourselves.
That year at school a Minecraft club was started by my friend's dad that worked with coding and all that computer-y stuff. This was probably one of my favorite times, and I don't think I have enjoyed Minecraft that much as I did back then. It was a lot of fun to come after school to the computer lab and play with a bunch of my friends and kids from school. One of the best parts was that the server was up most of the time and was all for us. The school even bought a bunch of accounts that kids could use if they didn't have their own account.
Steakfest was the name of that server, and I don't think I could forget how much fun that was.
I think this might have started my love for small servers with good communities.

The club continued for another year but wasn't as fun. Instead of just having free time to hang out with friends while playing Minecraft, we were given projects to do together. It wasn't as fun, but the excitement was still there.

While playing on servers I saw that people didn't have the default Steve skin (ah, the primitive days before Alex came along and armor layers were available). I immediately wanted to know where people were getting these skins and how I could get my own. A quick google lead me, to what I remember, was minecraftskins.net; my first time I saw and used other skins. I used this website and scrolled through a lot of skins. (Now that I look back on it a lot of them were probably stolen.)
Eventually, I wanted to explore a wider variety which led me to this very site, Planet Minecraft.
Before I had even thought of creating my own account and making skins I used PMC for a while. I loved looking at the creative ways people used pixels.

One day, after years of observing, I wanted to be apart of this community. After some are convincing my mom, I created my account. My adventure began.



To start, you need something to make skins. My friend introduced me to SkinCraft on Silvergames.com. I had continued to use this up until a bit ago when I finally figured out how to download MCSkin3D. Now, as many may know, that program is not allowed on this site. I have never even touched the pre-made section of that program, but that program got me through the years.
As for how most people are when they start skinning, I wasn't the best at it. Blocky colors, gradient shading, the basics. I was somewhat frustrated at first. Why weren't my skins coming out as good as others?
Through this, I saw that I needed to start experimenting with shading and my style. With most activities in life, PRACTICE is needed in order to start improving. I was hooked on creating skins.
My first skin, to say the least, was not the best; it was a start though.
It took me quite some time to even be remotely satisfied with my work, let alone make it to the pop reel.

1/13/2014 The very first skin
It's kind of funny to me how this skin had more shading than some that followed. But I used a premade blending tool instead of trying on my own



2/1/2014 The start of shading
Now in this skin, I started to go away from blur tools and to try things on my own, using my own designs. Definitely an improvement, but not quite satisfied. The colors have no shift in hue, it is purely just adjusting value.



6/1/2014 Hue shifting has discovered!
I started to experiment more with hue shifting and started to do some slightly more challenging skins for the level I was at. I also began to make and use my own skin bases.



9/6/2014 Less gradient
Less of a gradient style is being used. This somewhat shows that a style is starting to emerge. I'm experimenting with my own ways of shading.



3/13/2015 A style has emerged!
This was where I could really see a major improvement in my skins. The use of hue shifting adds more appeal to a skin and makes it looks less flat. The introduction of the armor layers helped with creating more details in skins. The shading is not as basic as before. Experimenting with your own style and trying new things can lead to some great progress. Don't be afraid to try new things, it's a part of learning.



4/4/16 Still experimenting, but more comfortable with my style.
I have always struggled with shading the lighter colors and the body area. I like the way I overall shaded this skin. The addition of the flowers completes it in a way and adds a nice touch.

Now, on to my process.
I tend to always start by browsing instagram or google for inspiration for outfits and color schemes that I would want to feature in a skin

Step 1- Create your palette

Your palette is a very important part of the skin. Colors can create a certain mood or feeling. A well crafted palette can make or break a skin. I normally will start with a group of colors that I like and then will add some hue shifting. Hue shifting helps add more dimension to your skin. If you shade by just making the color slowly go more towards black then the colors will look muddy in some areas. Let's say that I wanted to create some blue shades for my palette. I will then put about 4-6 pixels of a medium tone of blue and then take a purple, adjust the opacity, and add it to the darker side of my blue shades. For the lighter part of the blue palette I will do the same but with white or a more green-toned color.
Sometimes my original palette will be different from my final one and that is ok. Don't feel like you have to have to stick to your palette that you created in the very beginning.
Here's an amazing blog on color theory and skinning by KnobleKnives and the part 2.

Step 2- Create an outline of your outfit

After I have my palettes created, I will then take some unrelated color and create and outline of the outfit I want to make. It helps me visualize what my final product will be and how I will go about shading it.

Step 3- The shading

The shading is what makes a skin more interesting to the eye, it helps it look finished, and it shows off your style as a skinner. I like to go with a blocky, yet realistic in a way, style of shading. Shading takes a bit of experimenting and playing around, but once you find your own style of doing it everything comes together more.
I like to start with the darker areas, and then using my palettes, I will eventually work my way up to the lightest shade. If I find that the transition between the light and dark shades is not as smooth as I want it to be, I will then take the dark shade, turn down the opacity, and go over the area that needs a smoother transition. I will often forget how I like to shade some areas and will use some of my own skins as a reference.

Step 4- Final details with the armor layer

The armor layer is a very important part of the skin. One could say that it is like the icing on the cake of minecraft skins. It helps add a lot more depth and dimension to the skin that shading alone could not do. It will also help adding more of a 3D element to it.
Using the armor layer can often take a little bit of experimentation. I will put pixels where parts of clothing would pop out a little bit in real life, such as collars and sleeves


Sorry for such a long article. I wish you all the best on your journey through skinning.
Hang in there, new skinners, you'll get there eventually.