You realize, of course, that seeing the skinned model in blender is the best way to tell if you're skinning it correctly? Not just the UV but the actual look of the skin on the model. I mean, sure you can put color on an UV layout without seeing it in 3D, but it won't be as good.
Blender makes it really easy to see updates too. I use Gimp's "Save A Copy" feature to save the .tga while I'm still working on it as a gimp image (for the layers and whatnot). Then just switc to blender and there's a shortcut to reload the image (alt+R I think?). As soon as you reload it (and save it in gimp like I mentioned) you can see your changes! I find it great for tweaking stuff.
