Skin

''This page is on the mechanics of skins. For usable uploaded skin textures and the like, see Skins (Gallery).'' Skin refers to the texture that is placed onto a Minecraft person. A player can edit their character's skin if they bought a copy of Minecraft through the website. This is done on the Preferences page by uploading a .PNG image file which will replace the default skin.

The skin is divided into areas that act as the surface area of the character (For example, the there's the front head area, left leg area, and etc.). A skin will only allow solid color on the skin; transparency is not allowed on the skin file except on the second head area. By default, the second head layer will not show up. If there is solid color on the second head are, the second head layer will become visible. This allows the character to have glasses, caps or anything else you can think of (even a bigger head).

It is also possible to preview your custom skin and edit your skin with the community created Minecraft Skin Editor.



World Textures
A skin can also refer to textures not for the player, such as block textures, item sprites, mob skins etc. Modifying these requires hacking your copy of minecraft.jar. One such example of the environment being skinned is the sun, in this video.