User blog:Special Elf Friend/Texturing for Minecraft

Introduction
I started texturing by editing a skin and sent it to the mod. They said they wanted bandit skins so I made 3 and sent those to them. After that I became the official texturer for the Eragon Mod and textured like crazy till I ran out of ideas(Mine and other people's. I wish I had more :. Someone was asking how I made mine so I decided to make a tutorial on how to use Blender to make textures.

What is Blender?
Blender is a 3d modeling program that also has a built in image editor and video editor.

Why use it?
I chose it because I knew how the image editor works, it saves transparent images, and is easier to learn then Gimp.(Plus it is free)

How do I get it?
Blender can be downloaded at blender.org For this tutorial I am using a older version of Blender but nothing major should be different. I want to get a newer version but my texturing computer(I do 3d modeling on another) has download issues.

Setting up your workspace
This is what you should see when you open up Blender

Click the little cube in the corner of the 3d view

In the popup tab click UV/Image Editor

You should see this

Click the button that says "New"(This creates a new blank image file)

Then you have to configure some settings First put in your pixel size. 16*16 is for normal sized textures, 32*32 for larger textures like the lotr mod swords, 64*32 for npc skins and 64*64 if you need more room.

This is optional but if you want to start with a transparent image click the black rectangle,

Turn the slider marked "A" all the way down

After you finish putting in your settings press OK then click the button that says "View"

And switch it to paint

Then press the little + in the upper left hand corner.

This opens up the paint panel where you can configure your brush settings for painting minecraft textures always keep the strength at 1 and the radius should normally stay at 1 to. The strength is what controls how much the color is mixed. So at 1 it is solid at 0 there is nothing and .5 would make it halfway transparent. The radius is just the radius of the brush so a radius of 1 lets you paint individual pixels.

If you need to put the radius higher scroll down on the paint panel to the "Paint curve and click the little button that looks like a bracket on its side. This makes sure with a bigger brush radius the edges of the brush don't become slightly transparent or a different color then the rest.

Tips
If you need to make a area of your texture transparent select the button that says "Mix" below "Strength" slider and switch it to "Erase Alpha"

Minecraft textures, especially npc skins shouldn't have large areas of solid colors. Try to find a middle color then scatter lighter and darker colors throughout it.

If you don't know how to make something look at vanilla textures and texures from the lotr mod. You could even open up a picture and paint over it. (At the bottom screen click "Image" then "Open Image")

Make sure to save your image(I forget sometimes) Press "Image" then "Save as Image". After that you can just press "Save Image"

Thanks for reading
Tell me what you think in the comments and feel free to ask if you are wondering how to do something.