First, I'd like to say that this is my opinion, not any kind of fact. If you disagree, so be it. Don't take it out on me.

Well, I have recently joined PMC (like a month and a half ago) and I mainly post skins. Heres what I have gathered so far about making a popular skin.

1. Concept, not Execution.

        The Idea of your skin really matters. (unless its a teenage girl skin, but I will get to that!) 
Maybe you have created the best Legend of Zelda skin in the world. maybe it has fantastic shading. Maybe you worked for hours on that skin, expecting it to get on the pop reel strait away. 

Then you post the skin.

And it gets two diamonds and 14 dowloads and stops. wait, What?

Now you are confused.

   The same thing has happened to me several times. The problem isnt your skin, its the IDEA of your skin. There are hundreds, probably thousands of Link or Zelda skins on PMC. Any new one wont get much attention, unless its from the newest game or has a funny twist (like a genderbender or a ganon mask or something :P). 

If your skin has a clever concept, like a memorable title or something no one has ever done before, THEN it will get attention. 

Take, for example, the Water and Lava skin made by my brother, Baumans. This was the first skin he ever made, but it had potential. It was very unique in its use of the 1.8 skin format. Half of the skin was a water texture, and the other half was lava. The skin got Pop Reel almost instantly and stayed on it for almost three days. 

Initially, I was frustrated. I have been trying to get pop reel for almost a month, and he got it on his FIRST TRY? are you kiddin me?

But then I realized how it happened. it was the Concept, not the Execution. No one had ever made a water and lava skin before. He was the first, and therefore people liked it. 

So, if you wanna get pop reel, think of something clever. something no one has ever done. This Illusion skin made by Silenced Wolf is a perfect example. Its simple and eye catching, clever, and new. THATS why it has 180 diamonds.


By the way, I have only gotten pop reel once, and it was only for like half an hour :P.

2. Subscribers

People like to think that the amount of subscribers a person has dosent matter. Unfortunately, though, it does. 

First of all, more people see it. If you only have 10 or 20 subscribers (like me), the only great amount of people that are going to view your skin are the people that visit PMC in the first few minutes afters its posted, when the skin is on the recents page. After that, your skin is history. This happened with the most recent skin I posted, Vuldoor the Undead Dragon, It was imensly popular when it was on the PMC homapage. It got about 4 diamonds in the first half hour, and managed to make it to the first page of "whats hot" under skins. but then, after it left the "recents' page, it was history. 

If you have a lot of subs, on the other hand, many people will veiw your skin over a long period of time. It takes a while, though, to gain a lot of subs. I thinks its amazing that I managed 27 in just a month.

Having 40-100 subs can be very helpful to get on pop reel, as you will probably end up recieving a steady flow of diamonds over the next few days. Sucess! 

Sometimes, rarely, someone with no subs will get pop reel. Then, of course, people pity that person and he/she gets tons of attention. this was the case with my brother, Baumans. Lucky him! 

of course, thats not all of us. I guess we have to stick to our 30 minutes of fame.

3. The Practicality Problem

This is something many of you may not have noticed. If you view This Skin, My take on Batman, you may realize that it only has about 5 diamonds, but somewhere around 125 downloads. You see, If you really like a skin, your going to dowload it, not diamond it. Most people only diamond a skin if they like the idea, not the skin itself. I find myself falling into that trap often as well. 

If everyone that downloaded my Batman skin diamonded as well, I would be the most famous person on PMC right now. Instead, five gracious people recognized that this skin would go nowhere unless they left a diamond. I thank you.

Unfortunately, not everyone is so gracious. That brings us back to the first point: concept, not execution. If you wanna get diamonds, think of something clever. If you want to get downloads, make something that you would wear ingame. 

I once saw a skin on pop reel that had 7 diamonds, and 0 downloads. further proving my point, see? people dont want to download a skin, so they diamond it. If they really like the skin and download it, the forget to diamond.

Kind of a predicament, right?

4. Sparkly-eyed TEEN GIRLS.

First of all: I DONT HATE TEEN GIRL SKINS. In fact, most teen girl skinners are very skilled, and I admire them. Its just the Amount of them and the rate at which they get popular that annoys me. You see, people wanna look good.

Well thats kinda obvious, right? what are you trying to say, Mr. Joss?

Thats the point. Virtual reality, (AKA Minecraft) is a new life. you get to choose what you want to look like. Great, right?

Yeah!... mostly. 

Unfortunately, theres a steroetype for beauty. Everyone wants to look attractive, and some of those teen girl skins accomplish that pretty well. They all have the same basic idea. long hair, 2x2 pixel eyes, and big eyelashes. The original idea for these skins was monumental, but, they got WAY TOO POPULAR.

Becuase everyone wants to look attractive, they are going to download an attractive skin. The most attractive skin, therefore, will get the most popular. Undoubtedly, though I dont like to admit it, Teen Girl skins are the most attractive skins out there. 

Hopefully that makes some sense. 

Summary:

Well, that was a lot longer than I meant it to be. 

So, basically, If you want Pop Reel, make sure to:

-Come up with a clever Idea/concept for your skin
-hope it gets noticed, or be happy with your large amount of subs,
-again, come up with a clever idea. if the skin is practical, it will get downloads, not diamonds.
-if you want to get cheap pop reel, make a well-shaded teen girl. It may be annoying, but its effective. (sigh)


basically, so summarize the summary, Come up with a good and clever concept for your skin. its the idea, that gets the diamonds, not the shading techniques. 



I hope this has helped you, skinners out there. 
See ya all later!
Bai!