Coming up with a design you like the idea of, and fits the request [depending on if somebody has asked for it, or whether youo re making it out of boredom] can sometimes be difficult. As a request I got the following:


Female


20-30 years old


MASTER COOK/CHEF [I got 125 skill credits to spend on cooking lol]


Hair color should have a light tone


Eye color should be blue and green, halflings typically have two different eye colors


Maybe a flower or so in the hair? ^^


I'd prefer a simple dress as clothing


Without references, ito s even more difficult. So I started by looking for hair styles. I went browsing Planet Minecrafts female skins. When looking for designs, rather than just outright steal them, tweak them. Use them as a base. The skins I took reference from are as follows:


http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/sapling-girl/


For the back hair and ponytail,


And http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/elf-girl--/


For the front of the hair. [full credits will come towards the end.]

Once you have an idea in mind, you need to choose the color youo re planning to use. I chose a light brown and marked out the hairstyle in flat color. [Note o this is already shaded as ito s pre made]


One thing I see a lot of in skins posted on PMC is the o Bottomo layers being backwards. This is an issue with where the program displays the bottom hat layer [Or how MC layers the skins, who knows.] To counter that, you just need to draw it on backwards. It will look strange in the previewer, but will look fine in Minecraft.
Then comes the skin. Again, I see a lot of skins being so plain with 0 shading at all. I made, for my own use, a base female skin. Still not 100% perfect, but which has your basic shading on it which you can always remove if it doesno t fit with the skin youo re making.



The main shading on skins should be the hands and face, as the rest is /usually/ covered up. How you do this is up to you. There are a lot of ways to effectively shade hands. Mine is above. Using three different skin tones, the base one, darker and darker.




So when the hair and skin are layered together, ito ll look something like this.


Then we move onto clothes design. This can be one of the most frustrating parts of creating a skin. With this, you can be as creative as you feel. Whilst youo re very limited in how the outfits layer and what not, there are some amazing things you can come up with.


This is the basic outfit I came up with. A simple, off the shoulder brown dress with a darker brown underskirt. The boots to match the color of the dress and a dark grey belt around the waist and on the boots, for detail.





When you have the outfit down, and are happy with everything. This is where you start shading.

Step Two - Shading.



The basic rules for hair and clothes that I use is that there is a highlight color. A spot on each side which catches the light. After that, you deduct the color values a few each time to get the shading colors. For clothes, I use four. Highlight, normal, shade 1 and shade 2. For hair, I use a few more, usually 5 or 6, or basically until all the hair has had some shading on it.


The base colour is usually the center color.


The layout for the shading of the hair is as follows.
Take the top for example, the highlight tine in the center and then, going down a shade each time, surround the previous tone.



The only issue I have faced with this is that sometimes the sides do not match up, in which case, you simply need to play with the shading until they look fine.


I use this method on each side for the hair, simply altering the position of the starting highlight each time.


Next, we move onto the clothes. A fellow LoTCer and PMCer, Draeren showed me his shading skill and, I fell in love.
The way we shade is this. Choosing 4 different shades of the color [as above], choose a highlight spot for each area on the clothes, essentially following the same directions as the hair. Surround the previous color with the darker tone. However, dono t over use the tones, which is why I stick to four. You dono t want to look like a walking tone sheet, do you?





This can be the most time consuming section of skinning. You will find that you will go over and over the same section, tweaking the shading. But that doesno t matter. Just do it until youo re happy.


Following that, ito s simply adding detail as per your imagination or the request.


For this, I changed the eye color.


Eyes can vary depending on the person.



These are the most common three I see used. Which you do use, is up to you. Just make sure theyo re positioned correctly on the face or else you could end up with a rather derpy looking skin.


Mouth wise, you can have one, or totally remove it. I tend to use the two toned pink mouth. I just prefer them.


I then just added a small flower on the front of the hair and hey presto! Sheo s completed.


Messed about with the shading a little bit more but didno t change anything else.

That's it. Skinning is pretty basic and, you don't really need to be technically minded to make on. You just need to put effort in. Everything, at the end of the day is personal opinion when it comes down to skins. How you shade them and what shapes you use is up to you.

Ask any questions below and I'll do my best to respond~

Full credits.

www.planetminecraft.com/member/draeren/ - For showing me his skills.

www.planetminecraft.com/member/darkrai48/ - For making the skin: www.planetminecraft.com/skin/sapling-girl/ which I used as reference

www.planetminecraft.com/member/vainillebite/ - For making the skin: www.planetminecraft.com/skin/elf-girl--/ which I used as reference

www.planetminecraft.com/skin/lotc-halfling-female-request---wip/ - Full, finished skin. Can be used and edited. Please do not steal the full skin and re-post or simply re color. If found, reports will be made.