Equinox revolutionised EVE Online’s SKINR tool, placing more ship customisation power in players’ hands than ever before. To test those new powers out, we challenged our endlessly creative community of EVE players to make use of all the nano-coatings, customisation slots, and patterns for two antithetical SKINR competitions. The first one challenged EVE players to create the coolest ship skins possible, and the second challenged them to create the ugliest ship skins. They say you should save the best until last, so we’ll start with five of the most intentionally awful SKINR creations ever made. Look on if you dare! 

Ugliest EVE ship skins

Runners up:

First up, a couple of dishonourable mentions that just missed out on a prize, starting with LukaZaharin's Horror Heela:  

Then there’s Sturmer's Derpy Cockroach, which at first glance is pretty cool, but then you see why it earned its namesake: 

And with that, on to the main grotesque event!

5th place: TheGreatestBanana12’s ‘Murky Marvel’ skin 

We ranked TheGreatestBanana12's puke-coloured ship skin as the fifth ugliest EVE skin ever made. The colour pattern makes us think of a slushie-covered cinema carpet that hasn’t been washed since the ‘80s. Kudos to The Greatest Banana for making a skin so vile we think we can smell it. 

4th place: Fun Inc’s ‘Alcopop Vom’ skin

CCP’s tagline for the updated SKINR tool is ‘The art of war takes a new hue’. But by Bob do those hues not half clash in the wrong hands! FUN INC's Raptor is vomit-coloured too, only it’s the sort of vomit one might expel in one’s student days having ingested one too many fluorescent e-number-filled alcoholic beverages. Don’t blame us for that mental image, but do blame Fun Inc for this one:

3rd place: Wadd Enderas’s ‘JustAbout_Ugly’ skin

Someone fetch our sunglasses, because Wadd Enderas's JA-inspired and repulsively luminous Nestor is causing permanent damage to our retinas. We warn you not to look at it for too long; you might feel dizzy. 

2nd place: Nth Dimensional’s ‘Am I Pretty?’ skin

“I hope you enjoy what you made me do.” Nth Dimensional's checkerboard jester skin was a tricky one to judge. It’s on the cusp of awesome and horrific, but in the end we decided that horrific won the day. 

1st place: Kane Carnifex’s ‘Oh Bee Hive!’ skin

Warning: Just About holds no responsibility for nausea or visual impairments caused by the following entry. Kane Carnifex submitted two ship skins, and they’re both worth ‘showcasing’. Either one could have earned the first-place slot in our ugly pageant, but we’re awarding it to this little fella, who looks like he’s a few hexagons short of a honeycomb: 

As for his other skin, well, it looks to us like an incarnation of the Barbenheimer phenomenon, and the answer to the question on no one’s lips: what happens if you cross a super sweet 16th birthday party with a pile of rancid meat? 

Congratulations Kane, they’re hideous. We bestow upon you our highest dishonour. 

Coolest EVE ship skins

Runner up:

Well done, you’ve made it through the nasty part of our SKINR trick or treat, and now you get the skins that won’t make your cornea bleed. Lucky you! Just missing out on a prize, we have FirestormGamingTeam, who - alongside his pal Demon Gaz - went for a more cyberpunk take on the recurring insectoid theme: 

5th place: Limal’s ‘Pink Beauty’ skin

One of two baby-pink winners, Limal's titan might look cute, but it won’t take any prisoners.

4th place: Sturmer’s ‘Melamori’s Nyx’ skin

M for Melamori. That was Sturmer’s thinking when he designed this unique skin. That said, “it’s not just cool looking, it helps you identify your ship in a mess of supercapitals.”

He also shared this “bonus track”, inspired by Adidas and PUBG cosplay:  

3rd place: Rixx Javix’s ‘Black Hornet’ ship skin 

If you took Kane’s confused bumblebee design and dialled the rad up by 1,000, you’d end up with something close to Rixx Javix’s Black Hornet Kikimora design. Rixx is no stranger to ship design, and he has a bunch of skins available in the Paragon Store, including this showstopper: 

2nd place: BLND’s ‘Sakura Orchard’ skin

We’re in love with BLND's design, which is elegant, understated, and even comes with its own EVE Online haiku: 

“Cherry blossoms drift,

Like memories in the wind,

Sakura orchard.”

If you enjoyed BLND’s poetry, we’ve got plenty more EVE Online haikus where that came from.

1st place: Squizz Caphinator’s ‘Police Astero’ skin

Squizz Caphinator struck gold on his very first attempt at making a skin. It was designed for one of our favourite roleplayed EVE Online communities: The Wormhole Police Department (WHPD). Here’s Squizz: 

“The Astero doesn’t have an official police skin, so I created my own. To replace the cherries and berries (sirens), I coloured parts of the ship in red and blue; the WHPD alliance logo looks great with the skin too.”

Anyone else getting flashbacks to Future Cop LAPD? 

Bonus entry: Rixx Javix’s ‘Clown Prince’ skin

We’ll finish with an entry that doesn’t fit neatly in either of the categories above. It was Rixx Javix’s entry into the ugly ship skin competition, but frankly we love it - in an ironic retro Reebok sneakers kinda way. Rixx added: “I’m so sorry, proud Megathron.” 

Let us know in the comments if you think Rixx’s skin is awesome or awful! If you want to get involved in our next SKINR competition, check out the responses to our how to use SKINR bounty and keep your eyes peeled on our EVE Online bounties feed!  If you were tagged in this article or you enjoyed it, hit that copy button and share the link with your other communities. Some text has been amended for brevity. You can find the original wording at this bounty post and this one. Cover image credit: CCP Games.