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Don’t be a Noob: How to Change your Minecraft Skin

So, you took a leap of faith, and now you’re letting your kid play on a Minecraft server! Good for you–you’re opening up a whole new world of online fun for your little Minecrafter. (Might I suggest a really nice family friendly server?)

Wait, what? You didn’t change your kid’s skin before setting them loose on a server? Noooo!

minecraft skins

Great mom, you just branded your kid as a noob. (That’s a new player–someone who has no idea what they’re doing.) You may as well send them online with a dunce cap on!  Minecraft has two default “skins” for players, good old Steve and his newer feminine side, Alex. These default skins are fine when you’re on Single Player Minecraft–who cares what you look like when you play alone? But once you’re on a server, you’re joining a community, and it’s time to show a little personality!

How to Change Your Minecraft Skin

minecraft skins

There’s a couple ways to change your character’s appearance, or “skin.” The image above is me and Mitch on our favorite server, Cubeville.org. I didn’t want to be too crazy, so I’m going for a jeans and t-shirt look, with some long red hair to help look girly. Mitch, being 8, opted for a Creeper/Enderman combo.

Note: We play Minecraft on the PC and Pocket Edition, and I’ve never played on Xbox or Playstation. My understanding is console players have skins they can download through their dashboard. Pocket Edition also recently added new skins packs, and some are free!

Mobile App (PC and Pocket Edition)

We use an app called Minecraft Skin Studio, available for Apple or Android devices. It’s not free, but it’s one of the EASIEST way to adjust your skin. You can pick from skins already loaded by other players and edit them using a simple drawing program in Skin Studio. When you’re happy with your work, it’s very easy to download the skin to Minecraft for the PC, or the Pocket Edition. You can also send it to your printer and make a papercraft of your character! If you’re going to make papercrafts, it’s well worth the $4 price tag.(It’s also good for players who just like to change their appearance a lot.)

Because Skin Studio is an official Minecraft app, it’s the easiest way to download your current skin if you want to tweak your appearance.

Free Internet Skins (PC and Pocket Edition)

If you don’t want to spend any money, you can venture onto the internet for a free skin editor. Minecraft Skins and Miners Need Cool Shoes are both easy to use and let you “paint” your character in 3D. You can search their catalog of skins and make changes in the editor before uploading to Minecraft. Cool Shoes also lets you download your current skin with you want to make tweaks.

As of this writing, Miners Need Cool Shoes was the only online editor I found that allowed me to download my skin from the Minecraft server. I don’t know if this is a bug, or if Cool Shoes is the only site that’s keeping up to date with Mojang.minecraft skin

PhotoShop/PicMonkey

Don’t do it. Ug. It’s possible to make a skin with a standard photo editor, but it’s a huge pain in the booty. First, everything in Minecraft is made up of pixels, so the graphics are 16-bit. Yeah, I don’t really know what that means either, but I’ll tell you what I do understand: your character’s skin, flattened out is only 64 pixels wide. Here’s my character’s skin. Yes, that’s actual size:minecraft skinSo, just to show you that you should never try to edit a Minecraft skin with a standard photo editor, I tried to edit my skin with PicMonkey. Don’t try this at home kids.minecraft skin Dont touch that

I’ve got a custom skin! Now what?

Great, now you just upload to Minecraft.net. Since you’re going to use of of the cool editors I pointed out, just search for the upload button and click send. You’ll need your Minecraft username or email and password.

If you’re a nut and you made a skin on Photoshop or PicMonkey, you’ll go directly to Minecraft.net/profile and upload your file there.minecraft skin