Skin creation process
According to the official guidelines published by Valve, there are several steps to skin development, including:
- Concept creation;
- creating a rough design;
- creating a working model;
- refinement and standardization;
- skin testing;
- uploading to the Workshop.
One person can handle all these stages, but it is not uncommon for two or three skinmakers to work on a successful model and share responsibilities, for example, one concentrates on the artistic part, and the other – on turning the drawing into texture and fitting it to the weapon's shape. Of course, there are many subtleties in each of these steps that determine how the design will look in the end.
To change the appearance of the skin, you will need a graphic editor such as Photoshop or one of its free analogs, as well as a free program Workbench, which is a skin editor. As in other creative tasks, practice is important: it is important not to fixate on the desire to create the perfect skin at once, but to try many different variants, developing your skills and studying the reaction of users.
What skins are included in the official case studies?
For a skin to have a chance of getting into the game, it must meet the basic requirements – not contain offensive images or copyright violations. Valve is paying particular attention to this last point after the story of Howl, which had to be removed from the game when it turned out that the rights to the image on the case did not belong to the skinmakers. It is also not allowed to use religious or political symbols.
In addition, skins with a body colored only in black, white or gold will not pass the test. Other one-color skins are not directly banned, but it is not recommended to use them either.
Considering that new works appear in the Workshop almost every day, there are not many chances for each individual artist to be selected. Plus, in the wake of the Howl scandal, Valve usually favors skinmakers who have already earned a certain reputation in the community. Therefore, to increase the likelihood that the skin will get into 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 years for their turn: for example, not all Aziimov series guns have been added to the game by now.