If it works and is not a rip, then it gets uploaded(approved).  If its crap, that doesn't matter as a lot of people will download it and think its great.  With over 3 million members, there will be some, most of which are the newer people that don't really know what is crap, good or great.  I have only about 40 skins on my machine(running VISTA), and most of those are older skins as they were great.  Granted, they don't have the latest wb6 stuff but they are still great.  I have no crap (vista or XP clones) and only a few good skins in that 40.  As most know, I'am not a skinner but have been exposed to skinning since july 2001 and lived with a skinner, so I think that qualifies me to speak.  I've seen what it takes to produce an origional skin and the time it takes., with all the bitching to get it right.  Just ny dime(inflation). :) 

Many good comments and tips from Masters and others.

It always comes back to 'skin for yourself and what you feel is good'. Most skinners I know are their own worst critics.


If you are skinning for points, praise, or promotion, you don't need to skin .. you need a therapist.   

Danillo got it 100% right in #7 ....;)  [even with the dodgey English].

One thing to remember, folks....even Masters really only have an 'opinion', like any other member.  Yes, they may also have time and experience/competence...but their 'opinion' is still just that.

This thread/topic would benefit a damn sight more by NOT referring to specifics...aka singling out ANY ONE individual....'good or bad', for that matter.

Skinning is quite simple....it's an artform that can be appreciated on many levels, and practised by any level of 'expertise'.  To discriminate is generally to be elitist - somewhat of an undesirable trait...in anyone.

This thread could be a handy forum for suggesting improvements in skinning and skinners' expertise... such as those '10 commandments' posted above, but let's not have it as yet another thing a poster listed as detracting/degrading Wincustomize.com....;)

I'm no Master, by a longshot, but I am a bit anal-retentive about skinning and my advice would be:

Refine, refine, refine... then refine again.

For me, a skin is never really "finished." I use a skin for several weeks in an effort to expose all the potentially affected windows, toolwindows, dialogs, etc., of the apps I use routinely before I consider uploading it, and often that isn't long enough. I'll upload one I think is as finished as I can get it, only to find something subtle weeks later that bugs me & needs to be polished up. There are also so many skinning nooks, crannies & attics that no single user alone can hope to stumble across - you can't really "complete" a skin without feedback from users who do different things & use different apps, which is why I really have no problem with skinners posting updates. I don't care if that puts it back on the front page.

There's also the fact that many of us can only develop on one OS platform, which is likely true for most non-Master skinners, leaving us unable to take skins for a shakedown cruise on both XP & Vista. The differences between SKS5 & SKS6 are also proving to be challenges to many part-time skinners.

.02. And thanks, Kitty, for stimulating the discussion.

To add to Fuzzy and the folks advise.....

Details details details. The more time dedicated on a skin the better. It will show your dedication to perfection, slaping out a skin is not enough, one must strive for the next level at all times. Also never be afraid to take a plunge. Stepping out side your norm style and broadening your range of either skin types or styles, is always rewarding, even if the skin flops, you still gain knowledge.


Being a master IMO not only pertains to skinning but your presence within the skinning community. Time, Effort, Dedication, Community support/service , are all part of being a Master.





Exactly. Slamming another's works instead of offering constructive criticisms, Will benefit no one. Not everybody wants to dedicate the time and effort needed to be a Master, not everybody wants to become one.
A true master offers those who are willing to learn ,the opportunity to expand their horizons by offering help and constructive criticisms. Yet knows when to back off and let those who don't want the help, sink or swim on their own

Snobbery is an undesirable trait...but elitist?...not such a bad thing if aquired honestly.

If vStyler was here he would tell you why he does this and is so good at it.Its his job and he believes he is good as the best and better than the rest.He aspires with every pixel to move closer to perfection.

I wanted to be like Mike...and Hippy,Treetog,Dani,Tiggz and so on...if I didnt believe I could some day get there...I probably would have quit already.

Mediocrity is no sin...contentment with it is.  

IRB....that's 'ego', not 'elitism'....there's a difference.

It's healthy to have an ego....just not quite as healthy to be arrogant with it.

And I don't think being content with one's mediocrity is a sin...but I do think that despising it in others is....;)

"I think I'm good" is better than "I'm better than everyone else" ....;)

...for the record, i just want to state that i started this thread not to red flag anyone, ask for people to make appologies and the like, or point fingers.....

i just want basic tips, suggestions, ideas of what masters would like to see from us up and coming skinners.......

I guess that protecting the integrity of skinning and being an elitist are opposite sides of the same coin.

Just because I'm bettern' thems...dosnt mean I shant grant thems an audience...or allow thems to touch the hem of my garments. :SURPRISED:  :LOL: 

Arrogance may not be an attractive quality,but it may be a necessary(or at least somewhat unavoidable)trait in those who are driven to excel.

Lets be real here...admit it not,conceil it well or not...I havnt met a talented person who didnt harbor some level of at least mild arrogance...I think its darn near a requirement to be successful at anything.(maybe thats why I'm not doing well,I'm just too sweeeeeet  )

Despise may be too strong a word for the contented mediocre...I dont despise the stupid either(stupidity cant be helped)...but the lazy ignorant that refuse to learn should be ignored.Same as the mediocre...if thats the best they got,thats cool...but like NT said...some of them can do better. :HOT:  Dont despise them,ignore them.

Nt's reasons for not ignoring Butch go deeper than is proper to be discussed here.

1.SirSmiley has no arrogance. He doesn't mind these little things jokes or taunts...and he never encouraged fights. He is really helpful.
2. Hankers always acts for peace..and he too has no arrogance.
3. And only sugar and girls are sweet....not me some great men said...

I have.....but each to their own and so forth. thanks for the insites and tips that everyone has given.

I suspect they were just intelligent enough to keep it well hidden...as is best.  

If arrogance is hidden it has no meaning...but if you express it, it's really childish.

While having an ego is healthy, having an ego to the point of being arrogant to others.. is not typically healthy and stems from feeling inadequate and needing to prove ones self worth.. Ego is healthy in doses (It can inspire some to achieve goals they typically wouldn't strive for) But having to much ego to the point it over takes your better judgment and it becomes a driving force to the point you feel the right to stomp on others. Is not healthy and can actually hinder your daily interaction with the community around you.

I will state this. No one skinner by them selves will break skinning or the skinning community. Many fantastic artists of the highest caliber no longer skin,Dangeruss,Doodle,Lonerunnr,Thredz for example, while I loved their skins/programs and sorely miss them, they did not make up skinning (even tho they helped it get started). Nor did skinning cease to exist when they took leave of it.

I have been around skinning since it's infancy (mid 1997). I have seen skinners come and go, Sites come and go, yet desktop customization remains.

Any one skinner who deludes him self to believe he/she is the be all of skinning, and that it would crumble without his or her contributions,is sorely mistaken.

My post is not aimed at any one in particular, I just get bummed when I see my fellow Community members behaving badly towards each other. We should be helping each other grow and achieve higher levels of awareness within our skinning and our daily lives. We,like society at large, have the choice to either better our selves and each other in turn.. or destroy our selves and all thats around us....please choose wisely...

I think a good example of the "balance" we may be looking for here is the manner in which Tiger Woods expresses himself. Every time he tee's up his ball he thinks he can win and has confidence in his ability. If he doesn't win he's humble about it and can easily note why he may not have. If he does win he's humble about it but able to note why he was able to win. To me, he has a very good balance of all of the issues that are being discussed here. Let's face it, he's under a very large "Looking glass" and if he were to abuse any of the factors involved here he'd get hammered like a finish nail with a sledge. There's a balance in everything and like anything else in life, however it feels inside, it needs to be CAREFULLY MANAGED publicly.

Kitty's opening post opens the door and gives 'Masters' a permission to speak perhaps in a way they may otherwise not. It's usually pretty hard for someone to just say "Well, I am a Master and so this is my advice". I would welcome any advice in such a setting and not interpret it as 'ego'. If that were the case, no Masters could even reply in the thread.

Let's see now, from reading all this; Remember everything is just someone elses opinion - don't mention skins or skinners good or bad by name - don't skin for praise through the rating system - only skin to please yourself..... Well, I guess you get what you get with that approach.

I wish we had a 'sort by' - Masters only, so I wouldn't even have to look at the rest. Oh that's right we do .... Maxstyles.com.   

NM

Well said HG for reply #41.

Had to correct you IR. The way you said it makes me an elitist.   

Everyone can always do better. ( weeeeell except for Tiggz )

Love the Tiger Woods analogy, except remember when he first started out.  He sometimes (win or Lose), would say he only had his B game.  Took a hammering for that and thats when he changed to what you said. ;)  Everyone learns from the past or almost everyone. :) 

A Citizens thoughts :I am generally not in threads but this one is really very helpful and encouraging thanks to all the masters for their Tips..

Just a suggestion all of us visit the site almost everyday and maybe spend most of our time here all i would love is to have a master commenting on my skin sometime and saying this is where you could improve the skin or technique.It will be even more helpful.

and i skin for the colors and trying to improve my skills on PS and trying to see can i really improve or not.

Danillo, your english is just fine by me and you echo the context of what I was trying to say in a previous posts.

Skinning is fun, when it ceases to become fun, you have a problem - a big problem. For some skinners (myself included), I skin what I like to skin and the parts that I feel are necessary for the skin to look good. If that is 3/4 skinning so be it. That is my personal choice, if one day I want to take it to the next level and skin everything completely, that will be my choice as well, no one elses. I don't need to judge someone else's skin and tell them they're doing it the wrong way or they're skinning just for downloads and I also don't have a need to argue with someone if they are just skinning for downloads, if that's what they want to do, why should I tell them different.

I will also argue that most of the users on this site are not sheep as previously eluded to. Think about that kind of statement. If that were true, the bulk of the people visiting wc and downloading skins and buying products from this site are sheep, this site basically caters to sheep... does anyone want to believe that! I sure as heck do not want to believe that. I'm sure the everyday users of this site that download skins on a daily basis don't want to be labeled as sheep. These users just like everyone participating in this discussion come to this site because they made a decision to come to this site, a personal choice to visit this site, all of it's skin sections and they also made the decision to download the skins that they want to download. I can't control them, you can't control them - they will download what they like just like I will.

Control is basically an illusion, the only actions & thoughts you can really control are your own. You can't control someone else's actions & thoughts. The most important thing is to be happy with yourself (even if that means mediocrity in all of it's glory). That's why I guess NT is allowed to make those comments, it sucks for me to read them but I guess I could have chosen not to read them. But I did choose to read them and I even chose to respond to them. Because just as much as certain "master" status users on this site have had an opinion of certain skinners and their work for apparently a period of time right now, in the end it doesn't really matter. Myself and the other skinners that don't have "master" status and quite probably never will, can continue skinning and uploading skins that aren't "master" quality and be happy with them. I am happy with the skins I've uploaded to this site (even the ones that I titled with a color, an act I am "guilty" of performing, fyi - my skins labeled with a color were easier to find when performing a search on this site before the keywords function for the skins was added)

The freedom to skin what I like is something that I have, it's my personal choice to do so and if I receive crazy downloads for it - GREAT! If I don't, guess what, I was happy with the skin before I uploaded it, I liked it and in the end, that's the most important thing to me. I actually use the skins I create on my own machines (novel idea, I know).

Bashing someone's skin in the skin comments isn't constructive criticism, it's destructive. Maybe I don't know anything about the diamond skin and that it's possibly included with the new version of sks, heck I still use sks5 (because it took me forever to get used to it and now that I know it, I'm a little cautious about moving on to sks6) but I was told long ago by other skinners that if a skin is a blatant rip of another skinners skin (say skinner's skin 10 times really fast), you don't post a comment in their skin section, you contact a moderator or admin, present your findings and then let them do the detective work and make the necessary call. That's the accepted way of doing this. It would seem to me that someone with the "master" status should know about this accepted protocol and act accordingly instead of posting comments that could possibly be considered as hurtful, not just to the skinner who uploaded the skin but to the users reading skin comments.

Reading the first few comments in this discussion about how skinners should be skinning fully, doing this & that, etc. Well if that's the case and we're setting such high standards for normal skinners, the unfortunate or possibly more fortunate result is that "master" skinners are held to a higher standard but not just in skinning but in the way they represent this site and the "master" status. If you've been granted the "master" status on this site, you need to take into account that you are held to a high standard, possibly the highest on this site, not just in skinning but in how you represent yourself to this site and it's users (aka sheep) and the skinning community in general. Don't expect to hold me and any other regular skinner on this site to any standards if you can't meet & exceed the expected requirements of a "master" skinner.

There's my 0.02 cents, they were free but still hold alot of value.
Hopefully you can see that I kept this discussion respectable & mature.   

Worth way more than 0.02c, unclerob ....;)