🎨 ㅤSkinning In Progress - Week #01

SouthDakotaGirl • 6/4/22 1:00 pm history

6/5/2022 2:07 pm

June 04, 2022

Welcome to Skinning in Progress! The newsletter for skin makers.
The goal of the newsletter is to give you a place to learn about other skin makers and their events, and see the top skins of the week.

PersonWhoPlaysMinecraft

I'm PersonWhoPlaysMinecraft, or Iphera (she/her pronouns), and I've been making custom Minecraft skins since March 2020. I've got five pets (I'm sure they all love me) and like to write short stories and listen to music in my free-time.

Interview!

SouthDakotaGirl
PersonWhoPlaysMinecraft

1. Why did you decide to make skins?
I decided to make skins mostly out of boredom, I'd "made" skins before but they were mostly just solid colors (the skin tones were always off too) and I don't think I have any of them on file anymore. As I started posting my first skins, I received a few diamonds/favorites but I think I stuck with it because I liked making up outfits and characters.

2. What skin editor do you use and why?
I use the advanced editor in PMCSkin3D, I like how I can change the background to be different colors, and the RGB section on the color-changer-wheel-thing is very useful for my style of hue-shifting. Sometimes I use the Skindex editor to plot out the draft of a skin. I make skins on my laptop with a mouse (people who do it with trackpads are crazy).

3. What was the biggest thing that helped you improve? (Was it advice, a tutorial, seeing someone else's skins, etc.?)
I think that the biggest thing that helped me improve my skins was practice! I spent an entire year making 4-5 skins a day, it helped a lot but I do not recommend doing that unless you have a lot of free time haha. Also, looking for commonalties between various skin artists' shading helped me figure out my shading - darker on the insides of the limbs and such - but I worked to make my style more unique.

4. How long do your skins take to make on average?
Typically between 2-3 hours per skin, if I'm starting from scratch. When I'm using a base or just shading the skin for a reshade contest it normally takes about 1-2 hours.

5. What is your favorite color to shade?
My favorite color to shade is probably purple, its one of the easier colors to hue-shift haha. Orange is fun too.

6. How do you shade one color with different hues?
AH! This one is hard to explain haha. I use, as previously mentioned, the advanced PMCSkin3D and there's the color-box-thing (typically it says "foreground color" at the top) and there are three different sections on it, RGB, HSL, and HSV. I use the RGB section to adjust the colors for hue-shifting, then I switch to HSL to either lighten or darken the color. If that makes any sense haha. Then for my own personal touch, I'll take the base color and adjust it slightly on the RGB, and add it randomly to the sections the base color appears on the skin. I do this with the base color 2-3 times, that's how I get the speckled-noise effect.

7. What are the steps you take to make a skin? Do you start with a palette first?
When I start a skin, first I pick out a skin tone, then pick out other colors based around that and the general vibe I'm looking for in the skin (for most of my skins - sometimes I have a clear idea of what I'm doing and I'll start off with a certain color scheme, but mostly I make it up in the beginning). Then I plot out the skin on just the front side in solid colors, which always takes a while since I tend to struggle with my outfits. After that, I hide all the parts and shade the skin part by part, going from the head to the body, to the arms, and then to the legs.

8. What is your favorite skin out of the ones you have made?
I have a whole collection of my favorite submissions! Right now, I'd have to say that my skin 𝖓𝖔 𝖔𝖓𝖊'𝖘 𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗 𝖇𝖊𝖊𝖓, an entry for a palette contest, is my favorite, but I'm also extremely proud of my dark wood dancer skin.

9. Who are your favorite skin makers on PMC?
I have a lot of fellow skin-makers on PMC that make wonderful skins that I love! I'd say that DragonsDungeon, retrospective, diving boardz, GingerPie, and cheyko are some of my favorites, they all have such unique styles and really good like skin-composition, I'd guess you call it haha. I always look forward to seeing their skins pop up in my feed.

10. Where and how do you find inspiration for your skins?
I get inspiration from either what I see people wear around me, outfits I find on pinterest, or just as I go when I start the skin! Sometimes I'm in the mood to make cute girls in dresses and skirts, other times I like to make up fantasy characters, every now and then I get into a phase where I make a ton of mystical-deity type people. When I'm low on inspiration, I'll browse Skindex for nice hair or outfit bases I can use (always with permission and credit, of course - don't steal things kiddos) , or I'll enter a contest or two, until I can make something of my own design again.

11. How do you stay motivated?
I think that one way I stay motivated to make skins is that I put zero pressure on myself to do so. I think that, sometimes people begin to worry too much about their views, diamond counts, favorites, etc., which tends to then lead to self doubt/ lack of confidence in their skinning style. I don't make my skins to get diamonds or level up - I make my skins because its something I found very enjoyable and self-gratifying (for lack of a better word). I love seeing other people using my skins, and its true that complements and praise do encourage me, but if I started getting less diamonds, or people started unsubscribing, that doesn't mean that I'll quit because as long as I'm enjoying the process and the journey, I'll keep going. Minecraft skin-making is a exploration process that doesn't really end, and a pastime (or job!) that one can always improve upon. (Sorry that was long haha).

12. Are there some things about getting your skins seen that are hard or easy? If so, what?
Sometimes it'll be hard to get your skins seen! When you're just starting out it can be really difficult. I've found that it's hard to get my own submissions seen on Skindex a majority of the time - but I've started posting pictures of them here, in the Public wallpost feed, with links to the actual product on Skindex and I've noticed that that might help a bit. To be honest, I don't really remember how I first started getting diamonds, the summer of 2020 is very much a blur for me. I'd guess that being very active helped (people still occasionally make jokes on how I'm never offline), when you're an active person people tend to go "ooh, wonder what they do" and might go check out your page.

-Bonus round-

1. Favorite DND class?
Favorite D&D class is definitely rogue (bard and ranger are close though, very close), love being a little sneaky gremlin with very little morals.

2. Favorite DND dice?
D20s are pretty dice, but I'd have to say the D100 is my favorite haha. Mine's solid metal and could probably kill

3. Is a hotdog a sandwich?
n/a, I can't pick a side haha

4. What are some hobbies that you have?
Hobbies other than MC skin making? Not much, sadly. I like to bake every now and then, and play the occasional video game (mainly Diablo III or Animal Crossing: New Horizons) :')

5. Do you think cars should be added to vanilla Minecraft?
Cars in Minecraft? I'd have to say no, with how Minecraft currently is I feel that it leans more towards epic fantasy than a genre that would include modern elements.

6. Favorite color?
Am I allowed to say black? I guess a nice bright yellow-orange is close second.

7. If you had to choose one block to remove from Minecraft what would it be?
Polished granite. I don't know why I just hate it. It pains me.

Angelonasher's OC, Rin Sato Tamaru!

A new featured skin will be randomly chosen each edition, so let us know if you would like to enter for a chance to have yours featured!
Just make sure it's a skin fully made by you!

The Trending Animal Skin of the week is:	meteor shower ; sf by aquarine
The Trending Cartoon Skin of the week is:	Popstar Misa // Request for Coast ♡ by minzy
The Trending Experimental Skin of the week is:	45 by anonpmc4001613
The Trending Famous People Skin of the week is:	Namie Amuro \| Request for Minzy ♡ by Final
The Trending Gaming Skin of the week is:	Withinder's Alex by Withinder
The Trending Human Skin of the week is:	your power ; sf by aquarine
The Trending Robot Skin of the week is:	P03 (Inscryption) by giantspacemonster
The Trending Other Skin of the week is:	exist for love ; sf by Mellie

Skin Fight 2022 by Meiolki

Skin Fight is an annual event that lasts throughout the month of June, where participants will break off into two opposing teams. Participants can earn points for their team by submitting “attacks” (fan-skins) of someone’s original character/persona from the other team!

At the end of June, the team with the most points accumulated will claim victory!

Want to see your event featured here? Fill out this form!

Title and Link	Hosted by:	Deadline:	Collection of entries:
🦠 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 & 𝗠𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 💀	Nitgo	June 11th	Here
I am hungry. VERY hungry. Themed Contest	Emminlk12	May 30th	N/A
Cute Foxes Contest	ImQuiting404	June 10th	Here
THE 3 COLOR CHALLENGE!	Afap	June 10th	N/A
Two in One \| Skin Contest	Angelonasher	June 16th	Here
Happy Birthday! [Skin Contest] (OPEN)	Fyniti	June 12th	Here
Warm vs Cool Colours Palette Contest	Shady Skinners	June 30th	N/A
Want to see your contest here? Link it below!

How to Shade Hair

Check out this thorough guide to shading hair by Cirxett!
Not only do they go over two different methods, but they even include various things such as bangs and masculine vs feminine presentation!

Feel free to suggest any types of articles or blogs you'd like to see in the future!

The Shady Skinners	We created this newsletter! We're also open to anyone interested in being interviewed in the future! Our currently prompt of the month is "Rainbow" in lieu of Pride month, courtesy of CrescentLune!
Want your Skinning Group here? PM SouthDakotaGirl a link to your Skinning group and what it has been up to and it will appear here.

Thank you for reading the edition!
Special thanks to our newsletter team:

- Angelonasher (Skin Collector) Also suggested question 3 -
- ruietto (Writer) Also made the banner and section headers -
- CrescentLune (Head) Was on a break but helped when possible -
- SouthDakotaGirl - (Manager & Contest Collector) Also filled in for Crescent, did the interview, etc -

Thank you to the other people who made this possible:

- PersonWhoPlaysMinecraft (Skinner of the week) -

Posted by

SouthDakotaGirl
Level 51 : Grandmaster Vampire

608

Collaborators

Angelonasher

CrescentLune

ruietto

Create an account or sign in to comment.

8

06/05/2022 2:07 pm

Level 25 : Expert Button Pusher

Withinder

Thanks for getting me up there!

I should also add if you are looking to highlight more events related around skins, me and LuckyFrames are skinning artists from suggestion in the community.

06/04/2022 10:56 pm

Level 45 : Master Gent

Cirxett

Yazzzzz I'm so glad that the newsletter turned out great! And thx for the mention for my first blog!!!!!~ ( I also Just Realised I am not sub to U sooo yup)

06/04/2022 6:52 pm

Level 53 : Grandmaster Mlem Mlem Bat

Angelonasher

It's still so cool to see my skin featured there :0

I'm glad the newsletter turned out well, and I'm honored that to be part of the cast C:

06/04/2022 1:42 pm

Level 47 : Master Procrastinator

Mxple_Starz