The problem with upaint is just that all shading effects and textures are lost when painting, so using photoshop/gimp/paintshop/whatever is a far better solution.
The skins in the second row are way better than in the first row, even if there was mostly a greyscale or colorize option used. I like the black jug in the middle, but for real good skins you should try to bring something new. For instance something like that:
Every start in skinning is difficult, I also started with recolors and enhanced the pack after gaining some experience in trying out different things. The key to victory is working with overlays, it`s always nice to see that there are still persons skinning for this great game :tup: