Back when I posted my Medal of Honor skinning tutorial, I was deluged with e-mails saying "thanks for the great tutorial, would you make a skin for me?" Which I thought was kind of odd, since the whole purpose of a tutorial is to teach others how to do something.

To stem the tide of skin requests, I added something to the FAQ: I'd be delighted to make skins for others, at a rate of $25 per hour, with a two-hour minimum payable in advance.

The requests stopped coming. Hardly surprising, as the game itself costs $20 nowadays. And yet...

Last night, I created my first skin-for-hire. I tried to dissuade him, told him I'd answer any questions he had about how to do things, but he really wanted me to make him a skin. He insisted on sending the money via PayPal rather than waiting for a check to arrive and clear the bank. So I figured what the heck, fifty bucks is fifty bucks. If he wants it that badly, I won't turn down the money.

Of course, I'll also report it on my taxes. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I can't for the life of me why someone would be willing to spend two and a half times the current game price just to have his face show up in the game, and then only when the skin is installed on the other players' machines, as well as the server they're playing on. Especially when there's a comprehensive tutorial showing how to do it for free.