Recommended graphic software for panels and instruments

[FlightEngineer1]

When I bought airmanager last year, I quickly wanted to be able to create my own instruments and panels. I chose inkscape for the graphic design because I liked the operating concept the best. However, I could have saved myself a lot of work if I had known about the skinman software, which was created specifically for designing panels. You can do almost everything you need for graphic design in airmanager with this software.
So my recommendation for beginners like me:

• Use Skinman, you can find the latest version here:
  https://www.g200kg.com/jp/software/skinman.html

Read this
https://www.g200kg.com/en/docs/skinman/tools.html

• Watch Russ Barlow's tutorial videos:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kr7LQ1IYJA SkinMan Tutorial pt 1 - User Interface and Tour - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2tciNmJzpQ Skinman Tutorial Part 2 - Primitives, Tools and Properties - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1qgzXwRYeY&t=650s Skinman Tutorial part 3 - Step by Step Creation of Instrument Graphics - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C0KY2Lo1tk&t=262s Skinman Tutorial Conclusiion - YouTube

• Watch these other videos:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QwiFI4eMD0 The joy of creating instruments with Skinman - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwsuRNK1Kx0 Create a switch image in Skinman - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b9Zpbw853U How to create a hole in Skinman - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDU4q_r0fFo SkinMan, the new DrawTool in development Demo - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJvDz1tMej0 SkinMan Demo Korg CA 30 - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rONxcBau4g SkinMan 0.96 Polygon Demo - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmke4nimr94&t=7s Using Skinman- freeware graphics to create a background for a Halion 6 Virtual Instrument. - YouTube
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfL6at86zZY SkinMan Demo - YouTube

It may be a bit of a learning curve for impatient people, but compared to any other software it is much shorter and you can achieve very good results in a short time. The program also does not need to be installed. If you need additional textures, you can simply copy a corresponding image file into the texture folder, although you may need to adjust the size of this image file. You should pay particular attention to the emboss function. It is almost impossible to achieve this 3D effect in such a short time with other programs.