• Any loss of information.
  
• Possible VAC problems (Keep in mind it's forbidden to play on official servers with modified game files)
  
• Game files corruption.

Greetings.
Every Workshop contributor want to see his creation inside the game.
After reading an awesome guide Use Your Weapon Finish In-Game [How-To] I've come to a conclusion "There must be a way to see stickers inside the game".
We will be creating a "Dummy Gun" for this purpose. (Or you can use any weapon you have with your own stickers)

PS: You can't use stickerless weapon. (At least I didn't find solution for this... yet)
PSS: I tried to explain everything as simple as possible, so the guide might be a little bigger than you think. Sorry for this.

"Dummy Gun" is a weapon that have new stickers on it. And if you're planning to create new stickers in the future, better to save this gun only for preview purposes.
PS: You can lend the gun from your friend.

• If you have a weapon with stickers on it (and you do not want to create a new "Dummy Gun") you can proceed to Step 3. Or read at least about stickers.

To create our "Dummy gun" we need a weapon and stickers.

Weapon:
Any you see fit for this purpose.
My friend suggested 3 weapons:

• P250 pistol
  
• AUG
  
• PP-Bizon

He thinks they are the best for sticker previews.
Buy or trade which one you want to use.
I'm using P250 | Boreal Forest pistol.

Stickers:
You can use as many stickers as you want (from 1 to 4).
If you want to see 2-3 styles of your sticker on the weapon you need to use 2-3 "unique" stickers.
"Unique" stickers means they must be different.
For example:

• Virtus.Pro
  
• Cloud 9
  
• Fnatic

or

• Banana
  
• Llama cannon
  
• Death comes

You can use basic stickers (no need in "foil" or "holo"). Just buy or trade the cheapest ones.
I'm using dAT team, Vox Eminor, London Conspiracy stickers.

This step is easy;)
Just apply your stickers on your gun.
PS: Now you can lend this gun to your friend:)

For our stickers to work we need to edit a file:

• items_game.txt

Let's find it:

• Right-Click on CS:GO in your games library. Choose "Properties"
  
• Go to "Local files" tab
  
• Click on "Browse local files". This is CS:GO root folder
  
• Navigate to csgo/scripts/items

• Final path: F:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\csgo\scripts\items

Here it is > items_game.txt.
Now to avoid any loss of information or data corruption lets backup this file.

• You can create a new folder "Backup" and copy items_game.txt file there.
  
• Or you can create a copy of this file and name it items_game_backup.txt

Now the fun part begins.
Open items_game.txt.
Push Ctrl+F (hotkey for "Find and replace" in text editor) and type in "sticker kits".
You will see this:

• "sticker_kits"
  {
  "0"
  {
  "name" "default"
  "item_name" "#StickerKit_Default"
  "description_string" "#StickerKit_Desc_Default"
  "sticker_material" "default"
  }

Now we will search through numbers for names of stickers we have. (looking at "name")
If you have Team Stickers you need to know exactly which tournament they were attending. Sticker gives you this information. Just inspect your inventory.
Reminder: I have dAT team | Cologne 2014, Vox Eminor | Cologne 2014, London Conspiracy | Cologne 2014 stickers.
You can use "Find and replace" or look through all of the stickers (because some stickers have weird names).
Example:

• You have Basic "dAT team | Cologne 2014" sticker applied - search for "cologne2014_datteam"
  
• You have Holo "dAT team | Cologne 2014" sticker applied - search for "cologne2014_datteam_holo"
  
• You have Foil "dAT team | Cologne 2014" sticker applied - search for "cologne2014_datteam_foil"

So after searching for dAT team | Cologne 2014, Vox Eminor | Cologne 2014, London Conspiracy | Cologne 2014 entries, I've found them all and they look like this:

• "138"
  {
  "name" "cologne2014_datteam"
  "item_name" "#StickerKit_cologne2014_datteam"
  "description_string" "#StickerKit_desc_cologne2014_datteam"
  "sticker_material" "cologne2014/datteam"
  "item_rarity" "rare"
  "tournament_event_id" "4"
  "tournament_team_id" "34"
  }
  
  
• "150"
  {
  "name" "cologne2014_voxeminor"
  "item_name" "#StickerKit_cologne2014_voxeminor"
  "description_string" "#StickerKit_desc_cologne2014_voxeminor"
  "sticker_material" "cologne2014/voxeminor"
  "item_rarity" "rare"
  "tournament_event_id" "4"
  "tournament_team_id" "32"
  }
  
  
• "144"
  {
  "name" "cologne2014_londonconspiracy"
  "item_name" "#StickerKit_cologne2014_londonconspiracy"
  "description_string" "#StickerKit_desc_cologne2014_londonconspiracy"
  "sticker_material" "cologne2014/londonconspiracy"
  "item_rarity" "rare"
  "tournament_event_id" "4"
  "tournament_team_id" "36"
  }

Now look at your Created Sticker *.VMT files.
You have something like this:

• my_sticker_basic.vmt
  
• my_sticker_holo.vmt
  
• my_sticker_foil.vmt

I'm using Sticker || DefuseD for my guide, so I have this files:

• Defused_basic.vmt
  
• DefuseD_holo.vmt
  
• DefuseD_foil.vmt

Now we need to change "sticker_material" entries.
Before:

• "sticker_material" "cologne2014/datteam"
  
• "sticker_material" "cologne2014/voxeminor"
  
• "sticker_material" "cologne2014/londonconspiracy"

After:

• "sticker_material" "Defused_basic"
  
• "sticker_material" "DefuseD_holo"
  
• "sticker_material" "DefuseD_foil"

Final result:

• "138"
  {
  "name" "cologne2014_datteam"
  "item_name" "#StickerKit_cologne2014_datteam"
  "description_string" "#StickerKit_desc_cologne2014_datteam"
  
  "sticker_material" "Defused_basic"
  "item_rarity" "rare"
  "tournament_event_id" "4"
  "tournament_team_id" "34"
  }
  
• "150"
  {
  "name" "cologne2014_voxeminor"
  "item_name" "#StickerKit_cologne2014_voxeminor"
  "description_string" "#StickerKit_desc_cologne2014_voxeminor"
  
  "sticker_material" "DefuseD_holo"
  "item_rarity" "rare"
  "tournament_event_id" "4"
  "tournament_team_id" "32"
  }
  "144"
  {
  "name" "cologne2014_londonconspiracy"
  "item_name" "#StickerKit_cologne2014_londonconspiracy"
  "description_string" "#StickerKit_desc_cologne2014_londonconspiracy"
  
  "sticker_material" "DefuseD_foil"
  "item_rarity" "rare"
  "tournament_event_id" "4"
  "tournament_team_id" "36"
  }

Save the file.

For our stickers to work we need to create some folders and copy our "material" (vmt) files there.
So here we go:

• Right-Click on CS:GO in your games library. Choose "Properties"
  
• Go to "Local files" tab
  
• Click on "Browse local files". This is CS:GO root folder
  
• Navigate to csgo/materials

Now we are creating a bunch of folders inside one another:

• Inside materials folder create folder named Models
  
• Inside Models create Weapons
  
• Inside Weapons create Customization
  
• Inside Customization create Stickers

• Final path: F:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\csgo\materials\Models\Weapons\Customization\Stickers

Now copy "Your sticker" VMT's inside Stickers folder.
In my case I have this files inside Stickers folder:

• Defused_basic.vmt
  
• DefuseD_holo.vmt
  
• DefuseD_foil.vmt

After launching the game inside Inventory window you will see, there are no stickers on your gun.
But if you inspect the weapon you will see a bunch of "Your stickers".
Now you can start the game with bots and make some cool screenshots or even a video.

When you're done playing with your stickers.

Don't forget to change items_game.txt file to it's original state.

Goes to .... The Honey Badger for lending me a gun to play with.

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