First Skin no sniggering at the the back of the room PLZ

[CoUrTjEsTeR]

Lo all
Ok here is the thing I have just finished my first skin for DOW (its nothing original more a compilation of other skins I liked namely clean, quartered & checkered) anyhoos was looking for some feedback on anything that you think needs fixing or ways to improve it.

http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... kinha2.png

http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... in1sg0.png
Oh and minor point but is it just me who needs to flip the tga before repaking it (or it ends up upside down) or dose the tool always do that?

[IBBoard]

No, it's your art package. DoW uses bottom-left as the origin for co-ordinates (IIRC) but TGA can optionally use top-left. When you save the image then try using bottom-left as the origin (The Gimp has an option that you tick to use top-left, with unticked being bottom-left) and it should work fine. Why the art package isn't just saving it with its original co-ordinate origin I don't know.

As for the skin, my first bit of feedback is something I give to everyone who starts with compilations/modifications. Always make sure that you get permission before re-using other people's textures, badges, banners, etc. Some people don't mind, some people will pretty much give permission to anyone who asks, but using someone else's work means you're using their time and effort and if you're doing that then you should make sure that they don't mind you re-using their work.

As for the texture itself, it looks like you've managed to put it together quite cleanly. Personally, I'm not a fan of quite so many checks but if it fits your chapter then that's great. Some of the colours could possibly be toned down a bit, though, and the chequered bolter stands out a bit against the rest of the texture.

Thanks for sharing your first work

[CoUrTjEsTeR]

Ok first
Yup your right of course I had failed to lock the origin.
Second
As for permision to modify & use existing skins to see how things were done, well considering the two major originals are yours IBBoard, I here by formaly ask your permision to use them as source materal and reference points & promise to give you full credit in any readme file if I ever get the set finished and someone is deranged enough to want to use them. As for the checkered it was more took as insperation but I would ask Fed11 if he/she is still around (with the skins having been posted back in 2005).
Third
The colours come from my insperation the Lion Rampant Royal battle standard of Scotland also explanes the saltire on the knee. I should have posted this image it might have been clearer what I was going for.
http://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sargua9.png
The Chapters name is of course The Lions Rampant.
The checks came about as a work around for textures being reused in areas I wanted diferent colours in the quatering. The weapons and clean look well becase I wanted them to stand out old school style like back when 40k first came out (yes unfortunatly I am old enough to have been playing back then). After all the rines are the empires finest not some ragtag bunch using what ever tat comes to hand.
Of course these are just my views and probably not widly shared but if you are going to invest the time to skin an army it might as well be one that fits your own idea of what it should look like.

[IBBoard]

I'll let you use the textures this time, but in future it is best to ask before you start work so that you haven't wasted time if the original author says no

I've not seen anything of Fed for a long while now, so they might not be in the community any more. All you can do is try contacting them (either through an address in the readme, if they have one, or I think Fed was on the Relic News forums) and see if they reply. If they don't then you'll have to recreate the effects yourself, but chequerboard patterns aren't too difficult.

I did wonder whether you'd based it on the Scottish "lion rampant", especially with the saltire. I think it's the combination of the red, orange/yellow, blue and white that's a bit odd. I don't know whether you might be able to tone down or change the colours slightly so that there's not such a jarring of colours while still keeping the theme.

[CoUrTjEsTeR]

Thank you IBBoard your permision is apreceated and due credit is given but just to be clear all the work is recreated by me already, I have not used a single tga out of any of these 3 sets just looked at them to get the idea of how they were done to save me a lot of experimenting (just like you would have done while creating your exellent skins).
This would be instantly notacable to you if you were you to get a look at the files. All have been created off the original default tga to make my own colourable area tgas. 1 exeption I did just alter the wrinkle sheet for my use instead of creating 1.
I for one would not dream of just cutting and pasting someone elses work and passing it of as mine.
I would not put my name to such a skin its all about knowing when you finished, looking at something and knowing you created that.

[IBBoard]

Ah, if it's just inspiration and no direct file use then permission isn't necessary (although there are some cases where you can emulate something so closely that it looks suspiciously like you've copied it). There are more than a couple of people who are willing to not just take content and copy parts of it, but to take it all and just repackage it. I try not to insult/upset people, but I just like to make sure that people are on the sensible site, like you are.

As for the wrinkle sheet, Hangar-8 made that with the whole purpose of being a good example that people could use in case they didn't want to create their own one. In that case a credit would probably be nice, but I don't think most people include one.