joetheblow

Join Date 12/2001

On the verge of an epiphany!!! About to create one of the largest skins report on-line in years!!!!

OK guys, don't ask why I am doing this but I LOVE SKINNING!!!

So here is the deal:

A long time ago I wrote up a desktop customization report on mainstream skinning. I planed to have another one and while writing the second one I realized I needed a third one. So now its three parts. At a specific point I decided to ask what other people in the community felt about mainsteam skinning and its effect. Mayne of you here (well maybe not so many) probably gotten that email a while ago.

Well, allot of things happened since I first started the second part of the report. DX is in its second iteration, WB is at 4, the community has grown, The GUI Olympics had a pretty nice showing I think, Deviant Art has become a megalopolis of art, Depthcore release, blogging explosion... and lets not forget premium skins.

Things have gone and changed on me! I did, though, notice a change in the community. Its a little more rough around the edges. At the same time, I still see many who are very agreeable, kind and overall adult in maturity. It is my belief that if we want the community to be as good as it can be, then we have to help make it better (especially those who are against premium skins and free media content like Zippo Lighters).

So I wanted to help some skinners get contracts for their talents. This is why it took so long (among just being busy and lazy) to write the story. I have contacted a few places but it didn't work out yet. So I think the report is not going to have it. I am still working on the contracts though so other skinners can make some extra cash for their talents.

Well, anyway, long story short, I was hoping you guys can help me out with something.

There are a few categories I need help with. For one:
1)What skins do you like the best?
2)Which ones you use the most?
3)Who do you want to see again skinning something? Anything?
4)What do you think about the skinning community on-line? The art community in general?
5)what do you think about on-line communities in general?
6)What sites are great to go to?
7)what skinning sites are great to go to?

Thanks guys for reading and talking about this subject. I think with your help this can be a very nice report indeed. I will be emailing some of you guys too since I have known some of you on-line for quite some time and I have some more specific questions.

So what do you think? Is it ok to quote some of you guys? I'll let you know if I do in an email (and you'll get a preview of what the report will look like).

Again, thanks for reading!!!

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MarkMcQ

Join Date 03/2001

+18

1)What skins do you like the best?
Anything that's unique, creative and highly original.
Also known as 'Anythihng not minimalist or Luna derived'...

2)Which ones you use the most?
Same as above. I think I'm the only person who doesn't find creative skins to be totally unusable.

3)Who do you want to see again skinning something? Anything?
Chad Rumbut. He was my first big influence in skinning, and I miss seeing his stuff.

4)What do you think about the skinning community on-line?
It's dead. Everyone wants to be famous. Everyone wants comments. Everyone wants to be known.
Sadly no-one wants to actually put in the hard work that would make them deserving of it, so instead they port, copy, and generally pander to the tastes of 'the people', rather than make what they want to.

5)what do you think about on-line communities in general?
They're all the same. Some great people, some not so great people. Lot's of new people trying to interact as much as possible, even when it's unneccesary, so they can 'belong'. Lots of veteran members getting cocky because they 'done it all' and pouncing on anyone new to their scene and having views not in keping with their own.

6)What sites are great to go to?
Someone told me www.skinplant.com was great....

7)what skinning sites are great to go to?
I think I covered that one.....

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I.R. Brainiac

Join Date 05/2003

+281

I agree with Hippy

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1)What skins do you like the best?

Specifically Meltdown, BerrySkin, Prometheus, Topax,Pix Office, Doublet, Grift
BlackCat, Caffeine, Pixel8

2)Which ones you use the most?

Either Meltdown, BerrySkin,Topax

3)Who do you want to see again skinning something? Anything?

Dangeruss, or Allen Bond

4)What do you think about the skinning community on-line? The art community in general?

The community grows, shrinks and grows again, after Skinz.org went under it was bad, but it got alot better and this site and the community in general kept a marching to our own drummer. If anything we have expanded and grown closer together.Machines have become Cheaper, Better and this allows alot of folks with good ideas to come forward.

5)what do you think about on-line communities in general?

As long as the "infighting" is kept to a minimum roil, then I like interacting with an online Community.

6)What sites are great to go to?

My Regulars are few
1. Here (Duh!)
2. Slashdot.org
3. The Register UK
4. Fark.com
5. Olga.net (Guitar Tabs)
6. Cowpie (guitar Tabs Country) http://www.roughstock.com/cowpie/songs/

I hit the top 4 bout 10 times a day, at least Either via RSS or Surfing straight up.

7)what skinning sites are great to go to?

(Duh!) Here, or Deviant Art sometimes I slum @ customize.org, or for nostalgia, I roll over the Bones of Skinz.org.
(I miss the colors of Brown from that site) and the Turkey

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Thanks! Anybody else?????

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1)What skins do you like the best?

As with Hippy I like anything highly original. If it's done well and looks good, that's even better. Even though I like those original skins a lot though, I hardly ever use them. I just admire creativity.

2)Which ones you use the most?

The skins I've used for the longest periods of time are: Spectre (long time ago), BlueCrystal, Kewk-Hoe, Pixel8, and Ealm

3)Who do you want to see again skinning something? Anything?

I'd really like to see some more stuff from: Essorant, Greyhaze, MikeB, and Rokey. Rokey's icons are the best.

4)What do you think about the skinning community on-line? The art community in general?

Compared to the overall art community, I like how mature the skinning community is. It being mostly adults you don't have near as much crap like fighting and l337, and ect ect. The overall art community I really don't like. It seems there are WAY too many kids that just grab programs off the internet because it looks like a cool thing to do, have no clue whatsoever what the program is for or what to do with it, and then make some filterpile or other cliche' thing and think they're gods.

5)what do you think about on-line communities in general?

I think that if the people in them are honest, they're a great place to be, to interact and meet people and all that Jazz. They're also good because nobody judges you on how you look, it's all based on how you act.

6)What sites are great to go to?

tip.it/runescape www.runescape.com www.addictinggames.com dafont.com

7)what skinning sites are great to go to?

Wincustomize is the only one I ever really go to

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Hey, and what is this about Boxxi retiring???

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Snowman

Join Date 03/2001

+343

Bryan actually retired some time ago. New baby on the way, thus takeing time off for preparations.

Anyways...

1)What skins do you like the best?
As all the above has said, anything original (Especially BoXXis style catches my attention)
But mostly the old styled skins - they just dont make'em like they did in "the old days"
(Personal alltime fav is the WinStep suite by Dangeruss)

2)Which ones you use the most?
I mainly use my own skins cause they are "suited" for my system.

3)Who do you want to see again skinning something? Anything?
Richard Flathmann, Russ Schwenkler, Chad Rumbut and Steve Moss

4)What do you think about the skinning community on-line? The art community in general?
I think Hippy spelt it out pretty good - its dead!

5)what do you think about on-line communities in general?
I only visit skinning related sites, so I guess I cant give an answer to that

6)What sites are great to go to?
As mentioned above I only visit skinning related sites, but here they, in random order:
Skinbase (site admin)
Basehead (site admin)
Wincustomize (site Wizop)
Skinz.org (site admin)
Deviantart
Customize
Velocityart (currently under re-construction)

7)what skinning sites are great to go to?
See above
+ www.skinventory.dk

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1) My own.
2) My own (hmm, déjà vû)
3) Don't know, don't really pay attention to names
4) There is no "skinning community" and there never was
5) Loads of people with too much spare time on there hands and too little social life
6) http://donus.parodius.com
7) This would be the place to plug Tek, but let's not.

Now, the hipster reminded me of something. There's still a lot of noobs to put down today. craeonics wanders off

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Ok, I'll give it a whirl...

1)What skins do you like the best?
- A skin that understands style, form and function and blends them all together seamlessly.

)Which ones you use the most?
- I can't say...I change them too often.

3)Who do you want to see again skinning something? Anything?
- I sure would like to see a fresh Dangeruss skin.

4)What do you think about the skinning community on-line? The art community in general?
- The skinning community...hmmm...I really can't tell you. There's a WC community, a Winamp community, Customize.org community [etc, etc, etc]...but no 'skinning' community. Same goes with art, each site has it's own...there aren't any cross-site communities that I know of. To call them all a community is just too broad of a statement to pass judgement on.

5)what do you think about on-line communities in general?
- Most are a bunch of BS. I've been a 'lurker' in and around all sorts of community sites for years, but this is really the only place I speak up. Most other places are either filled with ignorant teens that make you want to run away 90, or stuck-up snobbish adults that make you feel unwanted.

6)What sites are great to go to?
- I visit deviantART daily, I check around the local skin sites for stuff that might not get posted here. The only other site I check daily is FantasyAsylum for fantasy football.

7)what skinning sites are great to go to?
- Aside from this one, the skinning site I like is Customize.org, but Skinbase is pretty good too.

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I have always felt that the Internet has a sense of community albeit different than the one you have actual visual contact with. As far as the skinning community I think there is one. I loved SkinIt before it went the way of the dinosaur and Skin Artistry seems OK so far.

But anyway, I really just want opinions. Al the opinions anyone has about skinning, what they like (to keep things positive) and what would you like to see.

You guys don't have to keep it to the questions I have, but in general what do you think about allot of the skins, the skin programs, wallpapers (are they skins????)

Even the news post recently about the most downloaded skins on this site seems pretty interesting to me. I think its funny how some downloads sometimes doesn't mean the best liked or the most complete skin.

I did a report on the most downloaded skin (I think ever):
http://esourcemagazine.modblog.com/?show=blogview&blog_id=242061

With a couple thousand comments and a few million downloads... but does that mean its the best??? Best for its time???

what I hope this report does is show how much talent is out there, how much was there, give a shout to the godfathers, current excellence and to up and coming newbies.

Of which reminds me, what new guys to skinning have made a dent to skinning recently???

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I also just thought of something joetheblow hopes he is not talking to himself... again )

Who do you think had the best collaboration for a skin? Who do you want to see collaborate on a skin?

What 2 skins would you merge together and put on your desktop?

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CerebroJD

Join Date 01/2003

KewK-Hoe and Origin would be together for me. Those are incredible skins!

Pixtudio has the best collaborations I think, and I'd love to see Jairo and Tiggz workin on a WB together.

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I want to see Fuzzy Logic and Boxxi come together. I wonder what that would look like. Or how about mindless puppet and _Martin_

2 skins that I would love to see merged into on skin is SETI and Plava. Call it Plava SETI. It will be some off blue color with thousands of buttons!!

How about andi18 and brewman? That would be a team!

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Apocalypse_67 and Mike from SkinPlant.

Jairo Boudewyn and Pixtudio!!!!

DigitalCHET, Tiggz and Dangerous!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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CerebroJD

Join Date 01/2003

I think Kol_ and Jairo would be good as well.

Heck, anything with Jairo would be incredible!

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How about Arjun Mehta Aka. Doodle Bug and Jafo.

And for skins I would like to see HG_Eliminators remake of Turtle soup 2 and Antares!

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Best Collaberation was Heavy Equipment.
That was one Huge assed Undertaking and I think we Skinned Every concievable I tem there was at the time. It had a massive forum, ftp Server, helpers, a great environment, and over all was something to be proud of. I think it involder something 25 or 30 Skinners.
Formula One was one of them as well.

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anybody else???

I'm sending out a request for views on skinning and design from some of the authors mentioned here and others I have seen around the net. I am hoping that in 2 weeks it will be finished. its allot of stuff and a few pages long so I want to organize it so it is easy to read, helpful links, images (of course) and if i can, hopefully some skinners can get some contracts to make something... maybe. That was what I was going for many moons ago so I could report on the status of how they did in the third installment of the skin report, but it doesn't look like its going to happen sooo...

Thanks for the input you guys! I'll put you in the credits. Also, if any one volunteers, I would like to translate it to Japanese, French and Spanish.

Once again, thanks allot!
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