Skin

This article is about player skins in Minecraft. For world textures, see resource pack. For heroes in Minecraft Dungeons, see MCD:Hero. For heroes in Minecraft Legends, see MCL:Hero. For exclusive skin properties in Legacy Console Edition, see Skin (Legacy Console Edition).

Skins refer to the textures that are placed onto the player character model. Skins can be created using a skin editor or the Character Creator, or they can be purchased in skin packs from the Marketplace. Players can change their skin in the Minecraft Launcher or Dressing Room.

Default skins

The default skins are always available in the Minecraft Launcher or Dressing Room, including nine Minecraft characters. Skins can have different arm or height sizes; Ari, Kai, Steve, Sunny, and Zuri have wide arms by default, Alex, Efe, Makena, and Noor have slim arms by default.

Skins with wide arms

Alex	Ari	Efe	Kai	Makena	Noor	Steve	Sunny	Zuri

Skins with slim arms

Alex	Ari	Efe	Kai	Makena	Noor	Steve	Sunny	Zuri

Features

Skins are divided into areas that act as the surface area of the character (e.g., front head area, left leg area, etc.) They are stored as 64×64 pixels templates, consisting of an inner and outer layer; each layer consisting 1,632 usable pixels, making 3,264 total. In Bedrock Edition, players can also use 128×128 pixels templates, consisting of two layers of 6,528 usable pixels, making 13,056 total.

The outer layer of the skin is 0.5 pixels bigger than the inner layer on the body, arms, and legs; and is 1 pixel bigger than the inner layer on the head. This layer is usually used to give the character glasses, hats, or other accessories (even a bigger head).

Skins set to "slim" model lose 25% of their arms' width, and the rightmost pixels in the skins' images are ignored. Slim skins from 64×64 templates have two layers of 1,568 usable pixels, making 3,136 total, and slim skins from 128×128 templates have two layers of 6,272 usable pixels, making 12,544 total. In Bedrock Edition, the arms of slim skins' model are lower than the torso by about 0.5 pixel.

A player's skin is exactly 32 pixels tall and 16 pixels wide on the "classic" model with 4 pixel wide arms, and 14 on the "slim" model with 3 pixel wide arms.

Transparency

A skin's outer layer can include full transparency, partial opacity, and full opacity.

In Java Edition, the skin's inner layer is forced to be fully opaque.

• In versions before 1.13, skins are premultiplied, meaning pixels in the inner layer loose color precision the more transparent they are. Specifically, pixels go from having 256³ possible colors to (opacity × 256)³.

In Bedrock Edition, pixels with an opacity of ²⁵⁄₂₅₅ or lower are invisible, pixels with a higher opacity are visible​.

Character Creator

This feature is exclusive to Bedrock Edition.

In Bedrock Edition, there are two types of skin which the players can choose from: the Character Creator skins and the "Classic Skins".

Character Creator skins are made in the Dressing Room with a range of cosmetic items that can be applied to specific parts of the character's model, such as facial features or individual body parts, or clothing items. There are two types of cosmetic item depending on the parts they are applied: body items, which apply to their body parts/features; and style items, which are worn like accessories or apparels. They can appear three-dimensional, that is, they can be built on top of the character's body in 3D space, or completely replace specific body parts (like the arms or legs) with custom models. The eyes part of Character Creator skins also blink occasionally.

Cosmetic items are usually made by Marketplace creators, and are obtained from the featured items or the Marketplace Pass selection on the Character Creator menu, which can be free or paid costing Minecoins (or Tokens on PlayStation versions). Body items are mostly reserved by Minecraft and can be equipped for free, except the arms and legs, which are obtainable previously. Some cosmetic items can be earned by completing certain achievements, and historically, limited-time challenges and in-game live events, which make these items only obtainable during specific time periods.

Players can adjust the character's height and arms size of Character Creator skins, where the character's model gets resized along with the texture pixels. It has no effect on the hitbox size, although the camera eye height does change.​

The "Classic Skins" are standard wide or slim character models with a skin texture applied from a skin pack (from Marketplace or a custom skin pack), or a custom PNG image imported from the player's device. They do not have an ability to use 3D models, as this feature is restricted to the Character Creator skins. For imported custom skins outside the Marketplace, they have limited visibility for players with "Only Allow Trusted Skins" option turned off in the Settings.

In other tabs, all skin types can be modified in the Dressing Room using capes, and emotes can be selected and obtained similarly to body or style items.

Skin signature

This feature is exclusive to Java Edition.

In order for a skin to be displayed in the game, the player's GameProfile data containing the skin's texture URL and signature is sent by the server through Player Info Update packet. The signature is then validated by vanilla clients to be displayed properly in their game; this ensures that no custom skin outside the ones uploaded through the Minecraft services can be used or tampered. As a side effect, it also makes offline mode players unable to use a skin, at least without using mods.

When a player wears a new skin, the signature for that skin is generated alongside the texture URL. This data is stored permanently in Minecraft services, even when the skin is no longer used by the original player, and can be traced back by third-party services, such as NameMC or MineSkin. Notably, MineSkin has utilize this quirk to generate multiple valid signatures for user-uploaded custom skins with a limited set of accounts.^[1] Furthermore, these custom skins can be applied to mannequins or player heads through the [NBT Compound / JSON Object] profile tag or minecraft:profile data component respectively.

Changing player skins

Java Edition

Only players who have purchased Minecraft can change their character's skin. This is done on the profile page or in the Minecraft Launcher by uploading a valid PNG image that is 64×64 pixels, or a legacy texture that is 64×32 pixels, which then replaces the default skin.

• Minecraft.net website
• 
  The Minecraft website's profile page.
• 
  The Change Skin page on the Minecraft website

• Minecraft Launcher
• 
  The Launcher's Skin tab
• 
  Adding a new skin in the Launcher

Skins also have the option of having either 3 or 4 pixel wide arms, which can be changed on the profile page as well.^[2]

The default skin files in client.jar can also be changed and replaced via a resource pack, but the effects are visible only to players using the resource pack, and affects all players with the default skin.

Bedrock Edition

Players can choose one of the nine default skins upon first launch or in the Dressing Room when creating from an empty slot. The Dressing Room, accessible from the main menu, profile, and game menu, can also be used to switch skins, change, or remove skins from five available slots.

In the "Classic Skins" tab, players can switch to a downloaded or owned skin. Skins can be obtained as part of skin packs in the Marketplace, purchased using Minecoins. The player has to sign in to their Microsoft (or their respective console account on PlayStation/Nintendo) to access all the skins they owned and bought from the Marketplace, on any device.

On Windows and mobile devices, custom skin files can be imported in the "Classic Skins" tab, or manually in com.mojang/custom_skins. The player must select a valid skin image file from their file explorer/photo gallery (a .png texture from 64x32, 64x64, or 128x128 pixels), and must choose between the two model sizes (classic/slim). Players can also make their own skin packs, which must include a manifest.json file, a skins.json file, and all the desired skins. An additional .lang file can be added inside a folder labeled texts to display the skin names, but the game can register the skins without it.

Skin packs

Skin packs are collections of multiple wearable skins and available in Bedrock Edition as downloadable content. They can be acquired through:

• The Marketplace, which officially hosts a large number of skin packs by Mojang Studios and their partners. Most of them cost Minecoins (Tokens on PS4), but some have been released for free.
• The .mcskin files put in the skin_packs or development_skin_packs folder in the game files (inaccessible on consoles).
• External sources such as community hosted repositories for skin packs, which are automatically imported with .mcpack files (not on consoles). For information about the contents of a custom skin pack, see Skin pack § Package format.

Java Edition skin packs

The following skin packs were released on minecraft.net by Mojang Studios for certain events. These are technically not "skin packs" but simply collections of skin files marketed together. Although designed for Java Edition, they can also be imported in Bedrock Edition, except console ports.

Image	Name	Description	Release date
	MINECON Earth 2017 Skin Pack	Realeased in promotion of MINECON Earth 2017. It was also released as a skin pack for Bedrock and Legacy Console editions.	November 13, 2017
	Builders & Biomes	A tie in to the Minecraft: Builders & Biomes board game. It was also released as a skin pack for Bedrock Edition.	October 13, 2020
	Striding Hero	A tie-in to the Striding Hero DLC, featuring characters from the map.	December 14, 2020
	The Garden Awakens	A tie-in to The Garden Awakens.	December 5, 2024
	Chase the Skies	A tie-in to Chase the Skies.	June 26, 2025
	The Copper Age	A tie-in to The Copper Age.	October 8, 2025
	Mounts of Mayhem	A tie-in to Mounts of Mayhem.	December 15, 2025
	Tiny Takeover	A tie-in to Tiny Takeover.	April 6, 2026
	Dandelion Onesie
	Chaos Cubed	A tie-in to Chaos Cubed.	June 17, 2026
	Dungeons Hero Skin Pack	A tie-in promotion to Minecraft Dungeons II. It was also released as a skin pack for Bedrock Edition.	August 27, 2026
	Dungeons II Hero Skin Pack
	Wilderness Bound	A tie-in to Wilderness Bound.	September 30, 2026

Templates

Many players prefer their own unique skin. While premade skins can be found online, players may prefer to create their own.

A custom skin is a way to personalize the player model and can be done either by using a variety of community-made skin editors, or by editing the steve.png or alex.png file manually with an image editor like Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.NET or similar image editors. The steve.png file can be downloaded here and the alex.png file here. When editing the steve.png or alex.png file manually, be sure to keep the original image dimensions and make the background of the skin (the unused pixels) completely transparent. Otherwise, Minecraft may fail to recognize the skin as intended.

Alternatively, some may find it easier to use a program, either downloadable or in-browser, which provides a live view of their character on a three-dimensional model as they are editing the skin. For example, programs may further assist players by providing them with a wide variety of pre-made selections (such as hats, boots, sweaters, etc.) to give the skin creator exactly what they want, even if the creator has little to no artistic skill.

After making a custom skin, either by using a skin editor or by editing the steve.png file directly, one still needs to upload the .png file at the Skin section of the Profile page on Minecraft.net (found here) before the skin is applied. Other players in multiplayer can also see this skin. Note that players cannot see the custom skin if they are not logged in or when playing offline.

Official skin templates

Minecraft Help Center Article

• 
  Alex Template
• 
  Steve Template
• 
  4px Arms Template
• 
  3px Arms Template
• 
  Skin sample from the Tutorial Skin Pack.

Other templates

• 
  The modern layered skin template; every body part can have a second layer, marked by the darker palette areas.
• 
  An adaptation of the previous template, color-coded to match the appropriate faces of the skin: front, back, left, right, top and bottom. The checked areas represent the secondary layer.
• 
  A template for the slim arms/"Alex" model.
• 
  An adaptation of the slimmer arms template, color-coded to match the appropriate faces of the skin: front, back, left, right, top and bottom. The checked areas represent the secondary layer.
• 
  Another skin template.
• 
  Color-coded old skin template with all faces labeled.
• 
  Another skin guide, but on a black background. For the arm and leg sections only, "right" indicates those facing outward, and "left" indicates inward.
• 
  A skin guide for wide skins using simple colors and marking the arms and legs as R and L, checkerboard pattern represents second layer
• 
  A skin guide for slim skins using simple colors and marking the arms and legs as R and L, checkerboard pattern represents second layer
• 
  A skin guide for pre-1.8 skins using simple colors, checkerboard pattern represents second layer
• 
  A skin guide for deadmau5's skin using simple colors, checkerboard pattern represents second layer
• 
  Deadmau5's skin (not a guide).
• 
  Template for deadmau5's ears. Use other templates listed here for the skin.

Videos

History

Java Edition

Java Edition pre-Classic
rd-132328							Mobs were added with their skin and model from Zombie Town. These are later used for the player.
Java Edition Classic
June 10, 2009							Notch announces intentions to add custom skins "starting very soon".
June 13, 2009							Custom player skins are tested.
0.0.18a							Custom skins released.
0.24 SURVIVAL TEST							The player skin was changed.
							The arms and legs of the player are now mirrored on opposite sides; they were previously not.
							Hat layers are released to skins, increasing customizability.
0.28							The player skin was changed, once again, removing the beard.
Java Edition Beta
1.2_02							Skins are now downloaded through an Amazon S3 server. Previously, they were downloaded from the Minecraft website.[3] Due to this, players trying to play older versions of the game may find their custom skin unable to be loaded in-game.
Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4				All "bottom" textures (including hand and foot) have been flipped 180 degrees. It's worth mentioning that the textures were specifically flipped and not rotated because an updated texture with the bottom surface rotated as opposed to flipped may display incorrectly depending on the intended alignment with relation to the rest of the skin.
April 1, 2014							On April 1st, all skins applied to players were changed and locked to villager skins as an April Fools' prank. Capes were still shown, however, if the user had one.
1.8			14w03a				Skins have received an overhaul; right and left legs/arms can now be edited independently and the hat layer now counts for the whole body, meaning overlays can now be added on skins. This means there are now 3.06013 × 1023,581 unique Minecraft skins instead of 2.29507 × 1011,328 previously.
			14w04a				Now displays the right arm's second layer in first person view.
			pre1				Added a new player model with smaller arms, and a new player skin called Alex.
1.9			15w47a				Overlay layers (hat, jacket, sleeves, and pants) correctly render semitransparent pixels, instead of just fully opaque and fully transparent pixels.
August 20, 2022							New skin textures for Steve and Alex were added in the Minecraft Launcher, including classic and slim versions.
October 15, 2022							Seven new default skins (Sunny, Efe, Zuri, Noor, Ari, Makena, and Kai) are announced at Minecraft Live 2022.
October 20, 2022							Added the seven new default skins.
							New skin textures for Steve and Alex were added in the Minecraft Launcher.
1.19.3			22w45a				Integrated player skin now stored separately by wide and slim model.
							Updated integrated skins of Steve and Alex.
							Integrated the seven new default skins.
							The seven new default skins can be assigned to offline players now.

Bedrock Edition

Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.11.0			build 1				Added skins. Players can choose 'Steve' and 'Alex' models or their own custom skin (uses the same format as in Java Edition).
			build 10				Added the first two skin packs: City Folk and Town Folk. Each skin pack has 5 free skins, and purchasing the skin pack unlocks the rest of the skins. Skin packs cost USD $0.99.
v0.12.3							Added the Halloween Costumes Skin Pack.
v0.13.0			build 5				Added Biome Settlers Skin Pack 1.
v0.13.1							Added the Holiday Skin Pack 2015.
v0.13.2							Added the Journey to the West Skin Pack.
v0.14.0			build 7				Added the Redstone Specialists Skin Pack.
v0.14.1							Added Story Mode Skin Pack.
v0.14.3							Added Biome Settlers Skin Pack 2.
v0.15.4							Added Villains Skin Pack.
v0.15.9							Added MINECON 2016 Skin Pack, available for a limited time.
30 September 2016							The Minecraft twitter starts tweeting out teasers for skins planned to be added in the Campfire Tales Skin Pack in v0.15.10
v0.15.10							Added Campfire Tales skin pack.
4 October 2016							The last 'teaser-tweet' for the Campfire Tales Skin pack is sent, after the skin pack was released.
7 October 2016							The limited-time offer for the MineCon 2016 Skin pack is over, it has been removed from all app stores and its redemption code is now expired. Players who obtained it while it was available are still able to use it.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0			alpha 0.17.0.1				Added Festive 2016 Mash-up pack.
1.0.4							Added Strangers - Biome Settlers 3.
1.0.5							Added Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
1.0.6							Added Chinese Mythology Mash-up pack.
1.0.7							Added Fallout Mash-up pack.
1.0.8							Added Magic: The Gathering Skin Pack.
1.0.9							Added Greek Mythology Mash-up pack.
1.1.0							Added Minecraft Marketplace, which has the community skin packs.
							Added Skyrim Mash-up pack.
1.1.3							Added Adventure Time Mash-up pack.
Bedrock Edition
1.13.0			beta 1.13.0.15				The character creator has been added in-game.
1.19.50			Preview 1.19.50.21				Added seven new default skins: Sunny, Efe, Zuri, Noor, Ari, Makena, and Kai.
							The textures of default skins Steve and Alex were changed.
1.21.20			?				Changed default body colors of all preset skins in the character creator to approximately match Java Edition.[4]​

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU3	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added Character Skin Selector to allow players to choose their skin from the default skins or from downloadable skin packs.
							The first skin pack is available as downloadable content.
TU7							Added skin-related animations for skin packs.
TU24	CU12	1.16	1.16	1.16			8 'Alex' model skins added to default skin pack.

Historical images

• 
  The first skins being tested in Minecraft Classic.
• 
  A camouflage skin in Minecraft Classic.
• 
  The first image of a skin's hat layer, from Notch's blog.
• 
  First image of the slim arms option.
• 
  Second image of the slim arms option.
• 
  Third image of the slim arms option.
• 
  Fourth image of the slim arms option.
• 
  Fifth image of the slim arms option.
• 
  The old Pocket Edition error message for attempting to upload (as a skin) a file that is not a skin.

Issues

Issues relating to "Skin" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• In April 2018, malware code was discovered inside of several downloadable user-made Minecraft image skins for use with the Java Edition of the game.^[5][6][7] Avast stated that nearly 50,000 accounts were infected, and when activated, the malware would attempt to reformat the user's hard drive.^[7][6] Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the code would not be run or read by the game itself",^[6] and would run only when the image containing the skin itself was opened.^[8]

Number of skins

The total number of possible unique player skins varies immensely, depending on version, as well as what is considered unique. Below are tables with the number of unique skins on Java and Bedrock Edition, with cells within rows and columns that correspond to different rules. Cells in the left columns consider all completely transparent pixels to be the same, while the ones on the right consider them to be unique.

The formulae below can be used to find the number of skins with a given width, template dimensions, etc. It essentially finds the number of potential states for pixels on the bottom layer, multiplies that by the number of potential states for pixels on the top layer, then sets that to the power of the total number of pixels on each layer.

, where:

is the number of possible values for each bottom layer pixel

is the number of possible values for each bottom layer pixel

is the number of possible opacity values for each bottom layer pixel

is the number of possible opacity values for pixels on the top layer.

is the thickness, equal to the number of pixels wide legs are: 4 for 64×64, 8 for 128×128

is the arm thickness/thickness ratio: 1 for wide, 0.75 for slim

is the "sameness" of 0-alpha pixels: True if all 0-alpha pixels are considered the same regardless of color, False otherwise

In an AntVenom video, he calculated a total of 2⁸¹⁶⁰⁰ × 5³²⁶⁴ (≈3.060 133 2201 × 10²⁶⁸⁴⁵) skins. The rules he used were to include only wide skins, allow transparent pixels only on the top layer, consider all fully transparent pixels to be unique, and include only 100 possible opacity values (α_b = 1, α_t = 100, t = 4, A = 1, s = 0).

Gallery

It has been suggested that this section be split into its own page.

^[discuss]

If this split affects many pages, or may potentially be controversial, do not split until a consensus has been reached.
Reason: a lot of these aren't useful when it comes to explaining the concept of skins themselves and may be more relevant for inclusion in some sort of dedicated "notable skins" page

• 
  Official artwork showing Steve and Alex variants from Minecraft: China Edition's website.
• 
  Marc's Heads are accounts with specific skins made for decoration.
• 
  An example of a custom skin.
• 
  A variety of Alex skins available in the Legacy Console Edition. Left to right: Tennis, Tuxedo, Athlete, Default, Swedish, Cyclist, Prisoner, and Boxer.
• 
  A render of the full cast, used when first entering the character creator.
• 
  A screenshot of various skins used to promote Minecraft spin-offs; Ivor from Minecraft: Story Mode, Buff Butcher from Builders & Biomes, and Bianca from Minecraft: The Crash.
• 
  Skins created with the skin studio.
• 
  Papercraft rendition of a custom skin.

Renders

• 
  Testvan's skin as seen in an early skin test screenshot.
• 
  Mezo's skin as seen in an early skin test screenshot.
• 
  Mezo in a camouflaged skin.
• 
  Notch's hat layer test skin.
• 
  Steve's friend from the Official Minecraft Trailer.
• 
  Notch's skin.
• 
  Jeb's skin.
• 
  C418's skin.
• 
  Jappa's skin.
• 
  Slicedlime's skin.
• 
  LadyAgnes's skin.
• 
  Kingbdogz's skin.
• 
  Searge's skin.
• 
  ExcitedZe's skin.
• 
  Dinnerbone's skin.
• 
  Grum's skin.
• 
  mollstam's skin.
• 
  slamp00's skin.
• 
  Deadmau5's skin (blue version).
• 
  Deadmau5's skin (red version).
• 
  DanTDM's skin
• 
  CaptainSparklez's skin
• 
  Mumbo Jumbo's skin
• 
  Grian's skin
• 
  LDShadowLady's skin
• 
  Technoblade's skin
• 
  Herobrine's skin
• 
  The base villager skin out of the 7 villager skins that all players wore during April Fools' Day 2014.
• 
  The butcher villager skin out of the 7 villager skins that all players wore during April Fools' Day 2014.
• 
  The farmer villager skin out of the 7 villager skins that all players wore during April Fools' Day 2014.
• 
  The librarian villager skin out of the 7 villager skins that all players wore during April Fools' Day 2014.
• 
  The priest villager skin out of the 7 villager skins that all players wore during April Fools' Day 2014.
• 
  The smith villager skin out of the 7 villager skins that all players wore during April Fools' Day 2014.
• 
  One of the 7 Villager skins that all players wore during April Fools' Day 2014. Of note is that Nitwits were unimplemented at the time.
• 
  Dummy.
• 
  Dummy but in Minecraft Earth.

See also

• Mojang API
• Character
• Mob (entity)
• Mobs
• Mob of Me
• Player
• Skin pack

References

External links

• How to Make a Custom Skin in Minecraft: Java Edition – Minecraft Help Center

Skin editors:

• SkinsCollection
• Blockbench
• PMCSkin3D
• NeedCoolerShoes
• Skindex

See Tutorial:Programs and editors/Skinning and texturing for a more detailed list.