Question for Skinners

[MisterImmortal2009]

I'll be the first to admit that I am a total noob when it comes to this subject, but I hope you guys wouldn't mind answering a few questions for me.

First, how do you get skins to have actual white on them? For example, I tried to skin my own Mister Immortal, and the white parts of the costume look grey.

Second, how do you decide what to skin? Any character that I would like to see in game has already been created a thousand times better than I could hope to make, so how do I decide what's next?

Thanks alot!

[murs47]

Second, how do you decide what to skin?

Just skin who you want to skin. Don't worry about what other people are doing or have done. Enjoy the process. Improvement comes with time and practice.

[Tomato]

it may sound cliche, but murs is right: do whatever you want to do. We don't hold patents on our skins here, and it's not like anyone's going to object to more green lanterns or something.

As far as your whites, could you post a screenshot of your current white areas? It would help let us know what you're doing and how best to help,

[AfghanAnt]

I'm not one to tell people how to get a certain effect but for whites I usually either A) hand paint the area because Brightest/Contrasting gives it an overly pixelated look or I use "screen" option on the layers.

As for skinning - I'm completely random. Some of it is I read a comic and became inspired, some of it is I saw an old skin I did 5 years ago and cringed, some times I'm asked by content users and go "yeah sure thing" (such is the case of the animated/ Linda Danvers Supergirl I've been working on for months now. She isn't taking months - I just keep stopping and starting her because of other skins and lack of interest.).

[Podmark]

If you could see the list of skins I want to do....it's gigantic.

There's lots of characters and costumes that haven't been done, especially newer stuff. But just do what you want, or even if you're up to it try something from the requests section.

[daglob]

If you could see the list of skins I want to do....it's gigantic.

There's lots of characters and costumes that haven't been done, especially newer stuff. But just do what you want, or even if you're up to it try something from the requests section.

Yeah, same here, except I try to do mostly Golden Age stuff (with side trips to Atlas, Skywald, and Harvey). If you don't do what pleases you, you won't do it for long.

[MisterImmortal2009]

This is really good information, I wasn't sure of the etiquete on the topic of skinning characters that others have already skinned. So thank you on this. And I apologize for the late reply, I only have access to internet on Monday nights. At least till this semester ends, then I'm not sure what I'll do.



Hopefully this screen will give you all an idea of where I'm coming from. The whites look grey, and I'm not sure of where to fix that.

[laughing paradox]

You could desaturate the areas of the base skin that are going to be white. Add a new layer above it and fill in that area with a very light blue color and change your blend option from Normal to Hard Light or Soft Light or Vivid Light.. somewhere around there.

[Courtnall6]

Second, how do you decide what to skin? Any character that I would like to see in game has already been created a thousand times better than I could hope to make, so how do I decide what's next?

Thanks alot!

All it takes is a cool looking costume with me and I don't worry about if the character has been done before. I tend to avoid most modern characters because I often find their designs bland, boring, and/or over-detailed disasters (not to say that all old school looks are masterpieces). Classic hero stuff is where it's at for me mostly. Updating is big with me now since 90% of my old skinwork is crap.

[Tomato]

*40%, and that's generous... the 90% arejust ones you "could do better" and those will ALWAYS be 90%...

anyway, as far as the whites... it looks to me like you're just colorizing sections, which isn't going to work for white... you need to adjust the brightness/contrast in those areas too. A better way of doing things would be to desaturate the costume, use another layer for color, then select each block of color on your bottom/base layer and adjust the variance.

oh, and as far as white areas go, you should make the color layer light blue rather then white... it sounds weird, but it'll look better once you've brightened the base up .