How to Use GIMP for IMVU Skins

IMVU is an online community that allows you to design your own 3-D avatar to chat and interact with other users. A skin is the graphic image that covers the avatar’s 3-D body, commonly making up the avatar’s skintone under clothes and other accessories. You can download the IMVU skin templates and use the GIMP editing software to edit the templates to customize your IMVU skins.

Instructions

1. • 1
     Download the IMVU skin templates from the resource section of a website such as Immortal-Doll, Pixelpusher or MissVixx. The template will download as a .zip file.
   • 2
     Right-click the .zip file and select “Extract” or “Unzip” to decompress the .zip folder. Your computer will create a new folder with the IMVU skin template file inside.
   • 3
     Launch GIMP on your computer, click “File,” and click “Open.”
   • 4
     Browse for the IMVU skin file and double-click it to load it in GIMP.
   • 5
     Refer to the 3-D mesh images on the Pixelpusher website to understand what each section of the template represents. The skin template is one file that includes the skin graphics for the whole body or head of the avatar. Edit different pieces of the graphic file to change the way the avatar skin looks on different parts of the body.
   • 6
     Select a brush or pen tool from the GIMP toolbar, and then draw on the template as you would any other image file.
   • 7
     Save the changes to your IMVU skin template once you finish editing it.