First attempt at a skin and i need your idea's and opinions to make it better, thanks very much in advance

why is it so blurry? it looks like its a 512x512 skin resized to 1024x1024

Quote from XCNuse :

why is it so blurry? it looks like its a 512x512 skin resized to 1024x1024

How do i get it to be at 1024 in the first place? Make it bigger then decrease the size?

Well first of all I'd recommend using the Master Skinner kits here. They're 2048s, which you can edit as is or resize to 1024 then edit.

If all you're doing is editing the DEFAULT skins, try resizing it to 1024x1024 before you edit it. The default skin will be a bit blurred, but the areas will still be in the right places.

Quote from Dajmin :

If all you're doing is editing the DEFAULT skins, try resizing it to 1024x1024 before you edit it. The default skin will be a bit blurred, but the areas will still be in the right places.

The default skins with the viewer are 1024x1024, so it's better to use them instead the game versions. And I think the skinner kits are a bit overrated, they give a nice finishing touch to the skin image, but aren't necessary. You can do just fine without them. Just make the default 1024 skin a multiply layer and start building top of it. Of course, it doesn't look that cool in the folder, but nobody will notice the difference on the track.

edit.

Remember to turn the jpg compression to minimum when saving skins, might be one reason for the bluriness. Although it looks like someone had used a softening tool over the whole skin hehe :P

That will be because i used the softening tool over the whole skin Any suggestions other than re-sizeing to improve? Thanks again

Well...don't use the softening tool, it makes things blurry
Another one would be layers. Make multiple layers and it's much easier to work with skin and edit it, and if possible in your program, use vectors to make things, great quality and very flexible for editing afterwards.

How do you save your files? Do you use jpg's? Do not save in jpgs the file you are editing . Saving as a jpg file always uses some compression on the file making it look very bad over time. In paintshop pro you can save the files as .pspimage files and you won't lose the quality when you save the file. In photoshop you may want to use the .psd file, not so sure about other programs. But commonly it is just save as... and then choose the right file format.

To see the skin in the CMX viewer (=the skin viewer program), you need to save the copy of the skin file as jpg file. In painthshop pro there is the feature of save copy as... which save a copy of the file in choosen format.

So basically you want to save the actual skin file, the file you are editing, in some lossless file format as .psd or pspimage and save a copy in jpg format for the cmx viewer

And as said earlier, use layers if you program has the support for them. Learning how to use layers takes about 5 minutes and after that you don't want to make anything without them

There are lots and lots of good tutorials for layers in the interwebs for every program.