Introduction
The aim of this tutorial is to teach you how to extract skins from your World of Warcraft game and edit* them or swap them with another skin. Editing example: If you wanted to completely re-colour or remake a skin you can extract the skin and edit it using graphical editing software then apply the new skin. Swapping example: If you had a Swift Red Wind Rider with the default brown skin and you prefer the skin of the Blue Wind Rider you could swap the skins so that your Swift Wind Rider had Blue fur with the red armour instead of brown fur with red armour. * please note that this tutorial will not show you how to graphically edit skins in something like photoshop, it just explains how to get the skin to an editable file and usable again in game.

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Warning
As far as I'm aware Blizzard does not allow you to use custom skins on their servers and they can and will check and your character/account could be banned because of it.
For this reason I would only advise you to edit skins if you plan on playing in a private server not run by Blizzard.
You have been warned and the decision is now yours, I hold no accountability for an account being banned for these reasons, use custom skins at your own risk.

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Preperation
To be able to use this tutorial there are a few things your going to need need.
Tools: My Warcraft Studio AKA MWCS - [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] - [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
Knowledge: If you wish to edit/create skins you should already have graphical design skills(skinnig, texturing etc.) as they will not be explained to you here.

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Tutorial - Editing
Step 1: Open up MWCS and open your patch.mpq file ready for editing. Do this by going to "Pack(P)/Edit MPQ Archive..." and then open the patch.mpq located in the "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Data" directory. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] Step 2: Once opened you will need to browse through and find the skin you wish to replace/edit. Skin files are .blp. Once you have found the skin you wish to edit right click it and click "Extract File To..." and save it somewhere safe out of your WoW directory. [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] Step 3: Extracting the file will save the skin as a .blp file, to be able to edit the skin we now use the BLP Converter by clicking and dragging the .blp file over the BLP Converter which will create a .png version of the skin in that same folder. Now that you have the skin as a .png file you can edit it as you wish in Paint/Photoshop/GIMP etc to your liking.
Step 4: After you have edited the skin you need to convert it back to a .blp using the BLP Converter in the same way again by clicking and dragging the .png file on to the BLP Converter creating a new .blp file, this will replace the old .blp file in the folder if it still has the same name.
Step 5: You now need to put the new skin back into the MPQ archive replacing the old one(the new skin must have the exact same name). Before you put the new skin in you must first remove the old one, to do this right click the skin in MWCS and click "Remove File". Once removed you can now import the new skin by right clicking the skin folder and clicking "Import File".
Step 6: In MWCS go to "Pack(P)/Save and Close Archive".
Step 7: If your WoW is running restart it and then go on and check if the new skin is visible. If an error has occurred and the skin is not visible you may have chosen the wrong skin eg. you edited an NPC skin instead of a mount skin or most likely you may have done "Step 5" wrong.

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Tutorial - Swapping
Step 1: See "Tutorial - Editing, Step 1"
Step 2: Once opened you will need to browse through and find the two skins you wish to swap. Skin files are .blp.
Step 3: Once you have the two skins you will need to right click them and click "Rename File". This doesn't just rename the file it also edits the files directory(could be called Move File as it does the same job) so you have to put in the directory of the skin you wish to swap it with and change the file name to. Do this for both skins but don't try to have two skins with the same name in one folder because you will receive an error.
Step 4: In MWCS go to "Pack(P)/Save and Close Archive".
Step 5: If your WoW is running restart it and then go on and check if the new skin is visible. If an error has occurred and the skin is not visible you may have chosen the wrong skin eg. you edited an NPC skin instead of a mount skin or most likely you may have done "Step 3" wrong.

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Info
Hi, I'd just like to thank you for taking the time to read this tutorial and I hope it was useful to you, it is my Third tutorial and therefore I'm aware it might not be very good and I would like to get as much feedback as possible to help me improve it to help people better.
Please try not to hate on me too bad if it's not that great because I'm only trying to help others here and not myself if you get what I mean.
If anyone requires further help or seems to be stuck on something please don't hesitate to give me a shout and I'll try my best to help you out.
Thank you, good luck and happy skinning.
XBJKCHRISFANBOY.