The process of creating a skin
According to the official guide published by Valve, the development of a skin should go through several stages, including:
- Creation of a concept;
- Creation of a draft design;
- creating a working model;
- refinement and bringing it into compliance with standards;
- checking the skin;
- uploading to the Workshop.
One person can cope with all these stages, but there are often cases when two or three skinmakers work on a successful model, who share responsibilities, for example, one concentrates on the artistic part, and the other – on turning the pattern into texture and fitting it to the shape of the weapon. Of course, there are many subtleties in each of these steps that determine how the design will ultimately look. To change the appearance of the skin, you will need a graphics editor such as Photoshop or one of its free analogues, as well as the free Workbench program, which is a skin editor. As in other creative tasks, practice is of great importance: it is important not to get hung up on the desire to immediately create the perfect skin, but to try many different options, developing your skills and studying the reaction of users.
Which skins end up in official cases?
For a skin to have a chance of getting into the game, it must meet the basic requirements – do not contain offensive images or copyright violations. Valve pays especially much attention to the last point after the story with Howl, which had to be removed from the game when it turned out that the rights to the image on the body did not belong to the skinmakers. You also cannot use religious or political symbols.
In addition, skins with a body painted exclusively in black, white or gold will not pass verification. Other one-color skins are not directly prohibited, but their use is also not recommended.
Considering that new works appear in the Workshop almost every day, there is not much chance for each individual artist to pass the selection. In addition, after the Howl scandal, Valve usually prefers skinmakers who have already earned a certain reputation in the community. Therefore, in order to increase the likelihood that a skin will end up in one of the future cases, you will need to pay attention to its promotion and earn the respect of other users. In addition, even skins from recognized collections sometimes wait for their turn for years: for example, not all guns from the Aziimov series have been added to the game yet.
