Skins for CS:GO created by the community are endlessly varied. Among their authors and professional designers, and ordinary users who create new coloring guns for fun, embodying their own original ideas. Two Australian community members, Steve «Cimota» and Chris Parr, who created the P250 Visions, recently shared their take on this activity .
How is a skin created?
For Chris, P250 Visions was the second CS:GO skin he worked on. So the fact that it made it into the official briefcase made a particularly strong impression on him. His first work was the AK 47 Sybilline, which he also designed under the direction of Cimota. The latter started creating skins a few years ago and has already accumulated some experience, so they divide the work as follows: Chris deals with the artistic side of the issue, while Steve takes care of the technical aspects of the process, working with materials and textures.
In the process, the original image is edited and modified until it is perfectly matched to the 3D model of the weapon. However, Cimota mentions that this balance of responsibilities may change in the future as Chris gains more experience. By creating the design, Chris Parr embodies his own style, which he calls psychedelic surrealism, and aims to create images that have not yet appeared in other CS:GO skins. Also, being a tattoo artist, he uses as inspiration the work he used to draw for one of his clients.
Theartist's work
Chris says that when working on the design of the P250Vision, the drawing alone took about eighty hours. In fact, the whole process took even longer because the original images had to be finalized. One of the important tasks for him was to find a balance between minimalism and the amount of details: if there are too many elements in the skin's coloring, it will look overloaded, so it will not be so recognizable and memorable.
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What is important for the success of a skinmaker?
Interestingly, while Chris Parr continues to do his main job as an artist and designer, treating CS:GO skin creation as a hobby, for Cimota it has become his main occupation. He was an engineer before the coronavirus pandemic, but in 2020 he decided to devote himself fully to creating skins and has been successful at it. However, he warns other authors against following this path, as it is extremely difficult to turn this activity into a stable source of income.
In addition, he notes that not only the appearance of the skin, but also its successful presentation in the Steam Workshop can be decisive. You need to utilize social media to promote your platforms, talk about your process, and generate community interest. Of course, in case of luck the skin can get into the official collection without it, but still the promotion noticeably increases the chances of success.