Hi,
I really can't get my head around the skin modifier, its VERY clumsy and feels too "randomish" that it becomes almost impossible to follow a tutorial with it, i also find it an extra complex layers to put in front of any Blender beginner, specially that most of the time, everything that is done with Skin Modifier can be done easily with standard box modeling, maybe it would take 5 or 10 extra minutes, but it would be x100 time clearer.
sooo, dear Kent, can you PLEASE not use the Skin modifier in your next course (or live stream)
Thanks!
What's stopping you from doing that stage with box modelling yourself then completing the rest of the tutorial?
The skin modifier step is just a "faster" way of creating the base mesh. I don't think it matters which way you build the base mesh. I would recommend using whatever is most comfortable for you.