Thanks for having a look at my contest entry. If you like it, please take the time to diamond my submission - it only takes a second to click a button! I'm not exactly a famous skinner so I could use all the support I get, whatever form it comes in.


This was a difficult skin to make due to complications with McSkin. I managed to get to about this stage before it crashed, the .png file became corrupted and I had to start again. As you can imagine I was pretty annoyed with losing a good few hours' work, but I started again because I had confidence in the idea. In a way, I was happy: I was starting afresh, I knew what I had to do and I remade the skin.


Then it crashed again.


I flipped out a bit, as you would expect, and took a day's break. I was in a pretty foul mood. But you know what? I liked this idea. It was going to do well. I knew it. So this afternoon I started again, saving the .png file to a different folder on seven separate occasions, and eventually came up with what you're seeing now. I'm proud with how it turned out actually. This time there was a lot more contrast in colours than in the first version, his beard looked a lot more majestic and generally he didn't look like a fish stick wrapped in seaweed. Yeah, that's not a good look for the god of freedom.


So, why freedom? I wanted to choose a broader topic than 'dogs and pretty flowers' and this seemed like it would fit in nicely with existing Roman gods, so there we go. As well as this, his colours match those of the Statue of Liberty - the brown-orange sheen that it would have had when it was first made, and the blue you see today.


I loved working with these colours, too. Blue and orange are complimentary - that is to say, they are found on opposite sides of the colour wheel. While you would imagine that oranges would only work with reds or yellows, and blue with greens and purples, you'd be wrong: the blue and orange compliment each other (hey, it's that word again) in a way that would not work so well if the colours were similar. This is especially important when you're working on an extremely small 'canvas', as it were, so I'm certain I made the right choice.


The shading was different to my general style which you can see the most clearly in my Santa skin - and I hope you agree that it's progressed from there. Previously, my biggest downfall was not putting in enough contrast, so that's what I focused on with this skin. also, the patterns in the shadows were too regular: I wanted to make it look at least a little anatomically correct, so I attempted to make the shades reflect that. You can see this on his back with the spine. This was also the first time I'd tried making folds but it turned out a lot nicer than I expected. Again, it was this use of contrast that helped me here.

Here's a screenshot for those of you who can't use the preview feature.

Well look at this, you beautiful people you.




As always, I'd love to hear read any comments you may have. Please diamond or sub if you like it, I had a hard time with this skin. :c