Personalization is one of the biggest draws for Minecraft. You can build your own worlds, structures, and even mess with the code to make your own mods.
However, when it comes to true personalization, one of the most customizable items in Minecraft is the character skin.
These skin customizations are one of the few ways you can truly make your character stand out in the game. Everything about the appearance of your character can be changed, including the body areas, accessories, and a lot more.
If you too want to modify your own Minecraft skin or make an entirely new one that befits the type of player you are, it’s your lucky day.
It’s way easier than you think and all it takes is a couple of steps. In this article, we’ll explain the process step-by-step so there are no roadblocks in the way.
Now let’s begin!
An Introduction to Skins in Minecraft
The skins, in general, are the textures of the main character in Minecraft. They can be customized in a myriad of ways, but don’t confuse them with resource packs or textures, though.
In simple terms, skins are nothing but an image embossed on your pixelated character.
You can apply a skin on your character in most of the game versions easily, be it Bedrock or Java edition.
The cross-platform compatibility also allows you to use the same skins on MCPE and other underrepresented iterations of the game.
A Minecraft skin is categorized in two layers, each with 1,632 editable pixels divided across the surface area of the character.
The Java edition of the game only allows choosing a solid color for the player’s skin, which means you cannot make it transparent unless you’re editing the second layer.
The latter is transparent by default. On the other hand, the Bedrock Edition allows having double the resolution of a conventional skin.
Due to this, the templates can be 128×128, unlike the standard 64×64 pixels, which provides you with more playgrounds to experiment with.
Moreover, you can also use transparency even on the first layer, but you’d still need to have at least one visible pixel on all five body parts (two legs, two hands, and head).
Also, keep in mind that you can either make the pixels completely transparent or opaque, but never translucent.
Top 5 Minecraft Skin Editors Available
Minecraftskins.net
If you’re looking for a website that offers a simple skin editor with some of the popular skins, Minecraftskins.net is what you want.
The website hosts multiple existing skins, including Steve and Alex from the game, along with many pop-culture characters.
There are even dedicated categories focusing on popular trends like Fortnite skins. While there isn’t a lot of variety in terms of skins on this website, what it does have is the most popular ones.
The best thing about this site is the editor, which is just as good as Skindex.
Block Bench
Minecraft players know that Blockbench is one of the most powerful tools for developing Minecraft skins. It’s versatile, free to use, and offers tons of customization options for your character.
While there’s a steep learning curve involved, Blockbench is a great way to create highly customized, high-quality Minecraft skins.
With this tool, you can make characters with multiple arms and legs or heads. The possibilities are endless!
This program is also open-source, so it’s constantly being updated. One downside is that it doesn’t have support for game consoles like Xbox or PlayStation.
QB9’s 3D Skin Editor
As the Minecraft community has grown, so too have the tools available to its enthusiastic user base.
QB9’s 3D skin editor is a mobile-friendly skin editor that allows you to create and edit your Minecraft skins on the go. You can download it for Android devices or use similar iOS alternatives.
This app has all of the usual tools, such as a brush, paint bucket, eraser, color picker, and more. The skins created here can be used on the Minecraft PE as well.
The downside with this particular option is that there aren’t any advanced features like layers—but what’s available is sufficient for basic edits.
The Skindex
Skindex is a community website for downloading Minecraft skins, and it’s also one of the most popular.
You can find almost all of the most popular Minecraft skins here, including those inspired by official marketplace skins. But what makes this platform even better is its built-in skin editor.
The site even gives you the option to directly upload your skins to the Minecraft Java server. That means you can enjoy the direct installation of your newly created skins if you are using the official Minecraft Java edition.
Nova Editor
Nova Skin is an online editor that lets you create skins for Minecraft. It comes with many features and customization options, including a posing system. You can customize the character’s pose or make it move within the editor.
It also has other features like shapes which save you time when editing skins. The interface might look a little intimidating at first, but you can get used to it.
Additionally, there are pre-built skins that you can place over your creation to make the experience even faster and smoother.
Editing Minecraft Skins Through Photoshop
To edit Minecraft skins quickly, you can use the ‘Adjustment Layers’ feature in Photoshop and change the appearance of your Minecraft characters. Follow the steps given below in the defined order to do so:
- You can get your current skin through the profile page by logging into your Minecraft account and clicking on the ‘download the reference skin’ hyperlink
- Drag the downloaded image to photoshop and press the ‘Ctrl + 0’ key combination to zoom in the image
- If the image is in indexed color mode, set it to RGB by navigating to the ‘Image > Mode’ menu
- Open the ‘Adjustment Layer’ and choose the ‘Hue/Saturation option
- Choose a custom preset or adjust the hue value to change the colors
- To add extra details, use the ‘Pencil Tool’ and paint them out
- Lastly, export the skin as PNG and you’re done
Now all that’s left to do is upload the skin on your Minecraft account by using the ‘Upload’ button on the platform. The next time you login into your Minecraft account, you should be able to see the skin applied to your character.
Installing Player Skins on Different Minecraft Editions
Bedrock Edition
From Pocket Edition v0.11.0 Alpha onwards, the game allowed players to choose from two default skins – Steve and Alex.
It also enabled the support for custom skins, wherein a player can select a valid skin image and apply it on either of the two available models.
The version also introduced ‘Skin Packs’ that can be purchased for Minecraft coins. There’s also a legacy skin pack implemented on this version, but to access it, you have to sign in to Xbox Live.
To make customized skin packs, you must include a manifest.json and skins.json file.
Java Edition
The Java Edition only allows players who have purchased the game to change their skin.
You can navigate to the profile page and upload a PNG file of 64×64 pixels that replaces your default skin in the game. You can also make your character’s arms three or four pixels wide.
Additionally, you can also change the Steve.png and Alex.png files located in the launcher file with the help of resource packs.
However, the changes are only visible to players using that particular resource pack and take place for all the players wearing the default skin.
Legacy Edition
Excluding the skin packs, the Legacy Edition includes 18 different types of skins out of which nine are based on Steve and the rest on Alex.
The only difference among these variations is in the outfits and skin colors of the characters, and you can choose any of them in the ‘Change Skin’ option under Help & Options.
Transparent skins are not allowed on the Legacy Edition and it doesn’t allow custom skins either.
Earlier, there was a misconfiguration that allowed console players to hack their way to add custom skins, but that risked a ban from playing online.
The Character Creator Feature – Bedrock Edition Exclusive
Made exclusively for the Bedrock Edition and Minecraft Earth (until discontinuation), the Character Creator feature allowed players to customize their skin using both free and paid cosmetic items.
The feature is accessible through the character profile button located on the main menu.
Making Use of Skin Templates
Minecraft players have a lot of options when it comes to customizing their experience.
One of the most popular ways to customize the player model is by changing the skin, which can be done either by using one of many community-made skin editors or by editing the steve.png or alex.png file manually with an image editor like Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.net, or similar editors.
Players can find premade skins online in places like Planet Minecraft, but they might want to create their own unique skin instead.
Creating your own unique skin is as easy as downloading the steve.png file and the alex.png file, then opening it up with an image editor like Photoshop and making whatever changes you want.
Whether you want to add accessories like hats and sunglasses, change your eye color, or make some other alteration, you can just open up the image file and start editing away.
Just be sure to keep the original image dimensions and make sure that any background pixels you don’t use are transparent.
Wrapping Up
Many modders claim that the appeal of Minecraft stems from its flexibility. That can be hard to prove, but it’s one that you’ll probably agree with if you’ve played the game for long enough.
Whether or not you feel the same way about Minecraft skins, the freedom to customize a game in such an unprecedented way is indeed one of the best things about Minecraft.
So don’t wait up and take some time out of your day to turn your skin ideas into reality in Minecraft.
