My first skin! Criticism would be appreciated...

So, here it is. I've made my first skin, and my own skin tingles. Tihihi. It's GREAT fun. It's a peasant for my D&D-project (needed one that looked more "natural" and with no weapon)
It's not very heavily modified, some stuff I've just changed saturation/hue on, and some stuff I've made myself (the shoulder-thingy (what are these called? The hoodless gugel?), shirt arms, bracelets, and the trim on the coat).
The unit to the left is a militia version (I've just CnP'ed some militia parts and changed them to more leathery style).

So, what do you think? Is it acceptable for a first skin?
Thankful for any comment :)

(also, a quick question: There's a team-colored piece below the chin of both units that I can't get away. Where on the unwrapped skin is that part? I can't find it. It's the piece with the red circle around in the picture).

The unwrap would make it easier to judge.

Yea let's see an unwrap sir

Okay, unwraps are here.

The light blue thingy on his arm look out of place, and his "pants" need more definition, I don't know what it's supposed to be.

Its actually pretty decent for a first, i dont seem to find any recoloring going on wich is good, the new bits look pretty well done allthough there is no shading going on.

The biggest thing it lacks to be able to qualify as a "full texture/skin" to these days standards is a good concept. Its a peasant, skinned to be another peasant. Becouse of the limited filesize cuztom maps allow, skins that dont really change a whole lot to the original unit are generally considered a waste of import space.

The best tip i can give you wich will instantly improve the work process of skinning is to start using a program called wc3vieuwer.

This program will allow you to previeuw skins in a more neutral envoiroment, and allows you to pose them more easely so you can take a long close look at how the new texture works with the model.

Getting custom skins in there though is kind of tricky. What you have to do is create the path to the skin with folders in your warcraft 3 map.
First thing you do when you start up the program is load an "mpq" file. You do this by using the "open MPQ" function, browsing to your warcraft 3 folder and opening either war3.mpq (roc models) or war3x.mpq (tft models)
You can now seek out your model using the tree vieuw.
This is also a verry handy tool to look up and extract textures from the MPQ.
Now, to vieuw a texture on a model in wc3vieuwer, simply make new folders in your wc3 folder that follow the path of the texture you're editing. (say the path of your texture is units/human/peasant/peasant.blp, you create a new map called "units" inside your wc3 folder. Then inside the folder "units" you create one called "human" etc. etc.)
Once the blp file is placed, it'll show up on the model in vieuwer. this does not change the models in-game!

erwtenpeller, actually, you can just open the model you're texturing, press ctrl + m, and then select the texture in the window that pops up and click "Change..." From there you just need to select your texture in whatever folder you saved it in and then press "OK"

It seems i got owned. Thanks SUPa- ^^

Yea it is a good reskin, but it's still a peasent
Good start though sir!

Thanks for all comments :)
Well, actually there is some recoloring. The pants, beard and hair are the original ones, but turned brown instead of black.

I'm working on a D&D-themed campaign, and I needed a more "normal" peasant. The standard ones are to monotone and to intense at the same time; I wanted one with more earthly colours but still a little variation. Less leather, since I can't understand why common villagers would go around dressed in leather all day? Also, I needed one without the pick, since they ain't gonna get neither lumber nor gold.

Size isn't a really big problem for me since it's gonna be a single player campaign, and many of those take far over 20 MB already. Some over 50.

I am using it, but I haven't been able to figure out how to check a custom texture on a basic model. Now that I know, I may do that... Unless it takes too much time from the skinning. Since it's a solo project, I can't afford more than maybe 1-2 hours per skin, so it's mostly gonna be practical changes. Like these changes, and changing the bandit into a soldier by making some of his armor metal.

It's team color. It basically should be white, but shadows of white are often a little bluish... The only painting I've ever done before was Warhammer Miniatures, so I'm used to those methods and lightning effects XD (it's far easier to paint real figures though, as they have real texture to highlight and such).
If it looks strange with a blue base, I guess I could make it grayscale, but the example models above are the player (light blue) variant. With player (red) they look more pinkish kind of. I wanted small, discrete team colour, especially for "civilians".
The pants are actually just a recolor XD I'll try to make them better though. I have to train painting clothes.


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So basically, I'm trying to make it go from peasant to villager. Small difference, but it's gonna be used as a worker unit anyways. :)
Thanks for the criticism :)

The other thing too is that you have a Warcraft-y style as well
I can just see it, good stuff, lets see more ^_^

No problemo

Well, perhaps because (to my understanding), leather is relatively easier to make; you just kill an animal, skin it, and cure the hide. Then you stitch together a few hides and walaa, clothes.
(As opposed to clothes made from wool, or plant fibers, which would require spinning + sewing, etc).

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As to comments/critiques: Looks rather well done, I can only agree with the above posters. I would definitely look into Wc3Viewer, as ertw? said; you can even do "real-time" skinning using Remap Textures and Reload Textures.

The only thing that glares to me (novice that I am) is the eyes; they seem a rather startling electric-blue for a simple peasant. However, since in-game that will hardly come into play, that's really not a problem. Good Job.

Yeah I noticed that too, that's a good thing because not many artists does. I believe this skin would fit right in next to say a footman or a bandit. Looking forward to seeing more from you Hippie.