The Skinning skill alllows you to gather hide resources from monsters you have killed. The can be learnt by anyone by speaking to the skinning skill trainer although to use it you have to be capable of killing monsters.
**Skill Trainer Location
**Kaelia Kaka at 31, 59 in Knotwood Valley
Hides are used in Leatherworking to create prepared hides, which is the basis for most of the leatherworking recipes.
Skinning is a very useful companion skill to take if you plan on doing a lot of fighting, as it offers a good amount of bonus experience after killing a monster and has no penalties or negative effects.
Skill Use
The Skinning skill is incorporated into the loot screen, after you kill a monster one of the available choices at the top of the screen will be to Skin.
Skinning a monster and failing will not destroy the corpse, however you should make sure you have taken everything you want from a corpse before attempting to skin it.
Once you have skinned something the hide will be added to your inventory immediately as this skill does not use the queue.
It is worth noting that the level of the hide you receive at the end of skinning is based on the level of the monster that you are skinning, so a level 15 to 19 monster would provide a level 15 hide while a level 25 to 29 monster would provide a level 25 hide..
Formula
Skinning = ((Target Level * 5) - 5)
i.e. To Skin a level 10 monster you need 45 skinning skill ((10 * 5) - 5).
Successful use of the skinning skill will provide experience and a guaranteed purple skill gain.
Finding something to skin
Pretty much any monster in Myzan can be skinned, this defies real world logic I know but this is a fantasy game and If only certain races could be skinned it would severely limit your ability to raise the skill or require that I add specific skinning spawns to each map.
If you are looking for a specific level of hide, you should use the Library > World > Maps screen to find the level you are looking for, fighting and skinning monsters of that level (or no more than four levels higher) should provide the level of hide you are looking for.