Art. It's a delicate subject, isn't it? Everything is though. And that's why I'm ranting about it. Taking someone else's art (IE: Airship project, skins, blogs, or other), pasting into your own account and saying it's yours is NOT OKAY. The Planet Minecraft rules even say so. So stop taking the same skin and recolouring it (IE: just look up the keyword 'Teenager' and you'll see what I mean). Also, I'm sick of looking up 'Xephos' and 'Honeydew' on PMC and seeing people have uploaded them. If you WANT those skins, just go to the Yogscast website and download them! People will just pirate these things and steal xp for it by making skins. So I'll start making a list of skins that are not allowed and see if you guys can speculate on that.
===NON-ALLOWED SKINS=== ===RULES THEY VIOLATE===
Steve Stolen art made by Junkboy
Herobrine Stolen art, made by Junkboy/creepypasta
Teenager Stolen art, made by who knows, but still used all over and is raking up XP every time its uploaded
ANY YOUTUBE CELEBRITY SKIN Stolen skin, made by either the celeb or their art manager
Solid Colours Takes NO effort, not allowed
Someone else's skins Stolen art, made by someone else
'Teenage Girls' Same as the 'Teenager'. Made by someone a long time ago and is still pirated and recoloured
Recolours of steve Stolen Junkboy art, violates rules
Recolours of any youtube celebrity skin Stolen art once more
Recolours of teenagers Stolen art, made by who knows, but still used all over and is raking up XP every time its uploaded

That's it for the list, but I'm not done YET.
Don't think you can get out of this with the Dodge-and-Burn tool. That doesn't make it any better. Actually take effort. The colours should get brighter towards the centre and darker towards the edge. The Dodge and burn doesn't do that. It randomizes the colours. Your actually going to have to do the work yourself. Hard, innit?
Yet these are all the reasons why skins don't get as much XP as a project, a blog, a mod, or a texture pack. This is why so many people are complaining that the skins don't give them XP. Sh*t skins make less XP. Yet if we keep making these awful skins, that won't change. So throw away all of your 'Mr. Red' and 'Blue man' skins and start working on real things. And if you suck at skinning, then DON'T F*CKING DO SKINS! Do projects! Do something that expresses your talent. Do something you don't suck at. Because one thing that gives you more XP than skins is Subscribers. Speaking of which, I could use some help in that department.
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~Fire, www.youtube.com/FireleopardGoesBOOM