I'm a sucker for glowy looking skins!

For my shading I usually go from dark to light. It gives it almost too
much contrast. Perhaps I shall try some other styles. Dunno.

Although I don't like the contrasted, detailed shading, I appreciate it for effort, and I appreciate the fact that everyone can have their own different tastes in skins.
I also like quite a few of them (probably because I don't call "bad skin" just because I don't like the shading.)
It's certainly better than fake shading.

Me?

Calm down.

I prefer skins that are pretty shaded, enough that you can tell, and not ones that are not shaded at all or overly shaded. Just my opinion though.

I use a mix of both styles. Light shading for depth and hard shading for shapes and detail. ie. http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/the-hunter-2406315/ and http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/193 ... r-2408914/

I like all styles if they are done well. The lower contrasted style is one of the hardest to do well, and I only know of a select few members who are really good at it.

I guess you can say I'm kind of in the middle. I don't do only one color each part of the skin but I don't do heavy shading because I have to do each pixel individually. intresting topic to discus, based on other peoples individual 'style'

I tend to prefer the simple shading style. Mostly because I suck at palettes and stuff.

I usually shade inwards and outwards. I've got the most complicated style ever xD

My personal skin is unshaded (look at my avatar if you want an idea of what it is) but I honestly don't care. I make my own skins.(I drew my avatar too.) You can't go to a skin shop for that level of personalization. In my opinion, bad shading is worse than no shading at all. Don't flame me, I'm entitled to my opinions.

er what?
I get about the hard shading but where does the teen skin fall into place? also subscribers don't matter buddy. I don't care if i have 50, 300 or none. as long as i am happy and i feel like i put my effort into skins i do not care how many subscribers i have. I also don't care if it is shaded or not as long as i like it and feel satisfied with it. now i like shaded detailed skins but that doesn't mean i'm going to hate on someone who doesn't make detailed shaded skins. we all once started out with Bad unshaded skins so we should all give them some slack.

I like well made skins. By well made, I mean original skins with noticeable effort put into shading and design. And for character skins, I prefer them to be accurate.

Personally, my skinning style is the "simple, hardly noticeable shading" as I prefer cute and bright skins. However, I'd like to add that although it looks simple, it's actually quite tedious because I use more shades to make the colours blend. For each skin in my series, I usually spend an hour+ on shading hair alone (since I like developing new hair shading styles).

I'd say something in-between the two options.

I feel like a noob for choosing simple because i don't know how to shade ><'

I llike to make skins based off of tv characters, so I usually try to match the style of the original character with some of my own style mixed in, which usually ends up somewhere in the middle ground.

For example:
http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/vas ... e-2054251/

I wouldn't compare it to the super contrasted ones but it isn't lacking either.
Also some of the super shaded ones have weird shading that just looks like lines and is the same on every one of the skins the person makes. I don't like that along with hardly shaded ones.

Minecraft skins aren't supposed to look particularly realistic.
There are many styles and the whole point of a lot of those styles that have gotten popular is to showcase a technique and colours used. The funny thing is, the shading is always realistic, and the places where these skinners put the shadows or highlights is always the right place, just exaggerated in some way.
Paddy, Peytonisgreat etc. are more simplistic or cartoony skinners. I know it's hard to compare these two as their styles are visibly different, but their aim is to not get every single pixel to look as though it is 'realism', yet they still shade in the right places.
Leostereo is another example of someone on the opposite spectrum. He uses a very contrasted palette, and a more realistic feel to his shading.

These styles are unique, but what I like about them is the amount of skill and time they take to do. Blocky skins or skins with no shading at all however do not require this time and effort, so as a result, look rather minuscule in comparison. That's why, I'm voting for the second option.

I like shaded skins more, but not too contrasted. Like how I made my skins. Sadly, I kinda quit because 1.) I found a server called Dungeon Realms and it's EPIC! and 2.) I was making shaded skins, and I go look on the new skins. And then I see an unshaded teen skin or an unshaded robot or steve skin and it has more views and downloads and diamonds and favorites than mine.

I love the blocky shading style, but I also like the style with a good amount of contrast. Some skins do look good without all the contrast, though.

I like shading hard, not SUPER hard but hard enough that you can see it.

I like the blocky, subtle shading, because large amounts of contrast look too shiny to me. It's one thing for robots/metal armor, but HUMAN SKIN AND CLOTHES AREN'T THAT SHINY!
In fact, I like un-shaded better than huge contrast.
Oh crap, I've started a flame war with idiots who think I have to like large contrast better because it takes more effort!

I prefer contrasted detailed shading as well but there are skins that look nice with the simple, hardly shaded style.