okay i really hate to do this so soon after my last escapade into My Blog Being On Fire but. we need to talk about fan skin artists.
fan skin artists (and fan modelers!) are integral to a lot of the glitz and glam of a minecraft series, in particular, empires smp and the minecraft championship event, though hermitcraft is also bleeding into this lately. skin making to the level you see in videos and streams is really hard! i’m a skinmaker myself, actually, and my current default mc skin took me about six hours total to make, not including recent tweaks to the design, and on average my skins take me three hours each when they’re edited and five and a half hours each when they’re original. i’m also learning blockbench modeling, and though i’m very much a beginner, it doesn’t take much more than a beginner to tell you what kinds of techniques they use to get the models on empires and hermitcraft.
“well, luna, if you’re a skinmaker, why don’t you make fan skins? you clearly really like these series! it would probably be fun for you, right?” i hear you say, for the sake of my post flow.
you’re right, random citizen! i would love to make fan skins and fan models! it would be very fun for me!
however. there is a horrifically bad problem with ccs not asking permission to use people’s skins or flat out not giving credit for their skins at all. this is straight-up art theft, and it’s not okay. some of these artists already have online followings, and that’s the only reason i know who has made certain skins. ccs are notoriously terrible with affording skin artists and modelers the same respect they do with traditional fanartists (even if they pay modelers, it is my belief they should still be credited).
now, some ccs make their own skins! that’s great! but i genuinely cannot tell who has made their own skin and who has used a skin from someone else because nobody ever draws a distinction. i know a few ccs are typically really good with crediting artists in their videos—pearl, in particular, has a skin artist whom she credits often—but in events like mcc contestants often forget to credit their artists, and i’m left a bit skeptical if they asked to use the skins in the first place.
so. yeah. skin artists and modelers need to be given the same credit rights as fanartists. minecraft skins are just as much fanart as a painting someone put a lot of effort into. please, please, please always credit your artists.
