If you're talking about WindowBlinds skins, then I probably have the record for the longest time taken on skins. I tend to take anywhere from 3 to 6 months to make a skin, but I never work on it with any focus. Typically, I just work on it when I get the chance, or when inspiration strikes. I currently have three on the go, but only 2 will likely get released, and the one closest to completion will probably take another month or 2.

Now, Windows Media Player skins, on the other hand, I can bang together in about 4 hours of solid work. Thats really giving it all out effort though...hardcore work. Most of the time, I take a total of about 1-2 weeks, with an hour every day being put toward the skin. That gets it done in a reasonable amount of time, and gives me time to fix my own mistakes.

Litestep skins [themes] can take weeks or months of tweaking and improving.....especially when you get down to per-pixel editing...

Different types of skins, have different amounts of complexity. Since you've narrowed it down to WB skins, it's a little easier to answer you. Treetog has said it takes him 80 to 100 hours to produce a WB skin. I personally have never 'timed' it by the hour, and I too measure it in weeks/months. But I normally don't work on a skin continuously. I would have to say that I probably spend a fairly equal amount of time between creating the graphics, and testing/tweaking things. Of course tweaking things also includes redoing some of the images. And yes, as with anything in life, it does get easier the more you do it. But the more creative you try to be, the more often you'll run into a wall you've never seen before, sometimes forcing you backtrack.

It doesn't get easier after the first one. In fact, it gets harder. Because you want to do better after the first skin. With a new skin you need all new graphics too, and your standard is higher after the first one. So, your creativity margin is higher too, because you can't do the same thing again, and make it the same way. My first one took me two months, after playing around with the programs for two months. But, I had made skins before, so I knew my paint program. The problem is that once you start, its easy to get hooked and you may want to consider joining Skins Anomalous. Its really addictive.

I agree with Chas... each skin you release, you want to make it better than the previous, and it is highly addicting...

and for me, I spend most of my time tweaking a skin rather than working on the graphics... i start a skin with already a good idea of what I want it to look like, it just takes a long time to accomodate and find workarounds to putting everything you want into the skin. That's another time consuming aspect... finding workarounds for the shortcomings of windows skinning, such as finding ways to make something seem to be transparent, but not, or how to position an image in an area which wont accept an image... and of course, I always spend a day just trying to align the username in the startpanel perfectly