Normally when someone sees HD skins of sorts, they tend to be amazed at the level of complexity of the skin. It's not all that hard that you make it out to be in all honesty.

Sure, it may take you 6x or more longer than it would a 'normal' skin, but in the end the success is even more giving than a 'normal' skin would. There are several draw backs however when it comes to making an HD skin over a 'normal' skin. Several include things like not being able to use it in-game and having to post it in the blogs section instead of the skins section of the site (where it'd get less attention than if it were actually in the skins section).

As some of you may know, I recently started up a pixel art on an HD skin contest. But what might this have to do with HD skins other than the fact that it's a contest involving them? Well, it's simple really. The way I see HD skins is that they're like creating a full-scaled pixel art version of a 'normal' skin while keeping it ON a skin template. The details on them are a lot harder to manage for many of you out there. But, for some, such as myself, find it easier to make HD skins over normal skins.

Having a perfectionistic personality like mine comes in handy for this kind of work, though I'm sure that Jesuitical could beg to differ on that one (you know I only kid Jesuitical). But even then, it still is quite difficult even for me.

What makes HD skins so difficult is that they go against traditional shading and coloration techniques. It's also that aspect of having such precision with the skins at your hands that it'd take quite a bit more time than usual skins (like stated before it can take up to 6x+ hours longer than 'normal' skins). For example, the HD skin I'm currently working on (an HD skin of Gaara of the Desert from Naruto Shippuden) has taken me a combine total of around 8 hours (give or take) with at least 2 of those hours being for the basic colors alone so far over the course of 4 days. While I had spent about the same amount of time on my Garo's Mask skin (up to this amount of time I've spent on my Gaara skin currently) and I'm still currently working on my Gaara skin.

Point with that is that much like 'normal' skins, it can occasionally vary on the amount of time it takes to make a certain skin.

• Try not to get frustrated with yourself when it comes to creating one.
  
• Start out with an "easy to do" skin idea. (Like with my latest skin contest. Try creating pixel art on it at first to get used to the tiny size of the pixels).
  
• If you don't want to try to do the pixel art on it, try to do an HD skin of a TV/videogame/comic book/whatever kind of character that you'd enjoy making a skin out of like I had done with my Garo's Mask Link. (And for those of you who don't know this, the Garo's Mask was one of my favorite masks from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask when I was growing up as a kid. It was pointless for the most part, yes, but it was still one of my favorites).
  
• Try to space out the time you spend on it at first when you're still working on the coloration of the skin (not the shading). Do the coloration of the skin before you even begin shading (this will help out later on quite a lot).
  
• Once you've gotten the colors on the skin, try using the darken/lighten tools and/or the transparency with the pencil tool technique with darker forms of the colors you have on the skin already. Be sure to darken anything such as belts/chest straps (like the ones on my Garo's Mask Link skin) and buckles (if there are any on the belts/chest straps) on the underside and lighten them on the upper part.
  
• When you're shading an HD skin, be sure to have a single angle at which you'd see light coming from for shadows. Try to have this part more in line with either the left or right sides of the skin. It will be easier to do it this way since you have to think less about how the light would hit the opposite side of the skin.
  
• Try not to do everything all at once, if you do then chances are that you may not stay focused, lose interest, or (my least favorite) start to over analyze what you're doing and try to over do it by trying to go one step further. It may seem like a good idea to try to stay working on it to keep what you're doing and what you've done fresh in your mind, but once you get to the shading part, it's not so easy to do sit there and work on it non-stop.
  
• Divide the parts of the skin into day by day sections if you have to. You might do the torso (the chest, sides, and back) one day, and the legs the next, or the arms one day and the head the next.
  

All in all, I hope this helped those of you who are interested in making an HD skin out. Feel free to ask questions in the comments if you'd like.