Alexandrie, the legenfary girl

Congratulations Alexandrie!
And here I thought she was just legendary.

I love legenfaries!!

Oh yeah, I always thouhgt too sha was quite a legend-faery girl!

That's increcdible. You're right though. That's definitely a new record by far.

Just so we have the number here, 8,160 downloads in a single day.

Certainly an impressive feat, but legenfary? She posted 4 XP-based skins in 2 days -- is it THAT surprising this would cause a flood of downloads?

This is not to belittle the accomplishment, and certainly not the work. Alexandrie has a lot of excellent skins on here. I'm just constantly befuddled by the ongoing popularity of XP-based skins ... even when they're of my own creation

Okay, I have no idea why I'm babbling like this -- congrats, Alex!

Pretend i dont own another design studio for a minute and i'm just a simple member of the community, which i have been for over 2 years now.

While i have no doubt Alexandrie has skillz and puts in ALOT of time skinning. I think its total BS that theres so much celebration about numerous color changes to an existing look (XP) that isnt even her own design. I mean please anyone can make a color change and a gradient change and name it what they want and right now it will be downloaded because win xp is in style right now. Take the "bluejean" one. Ever see Lorenela's blue jean skins? That LOOKS like blue jean material. Not some blue denim colored gradient. So you'll have to excuse me if i dont celebrate this big hooha about minor color changes to a design that isnt even an original piece of art except by the person who created it at microsoft.

Jesh

It takes me back to aqua days when a simple port of apple's look was heralded as the next coming. Sure it was cool as hell. But it wasnt original. Some artists at apple created it. I think theres too much emphasis on non-originality and less for originality. I'll take the greats like pordey, misery, everyone i work with on a daily basis over ports any day. They are the true artists here.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. If you look closely at her skins, they are original. She is just using the same style to them as XP so that there is some consistency. But she hasn't jsut taken an XP skin and recolored them.

It's all in the details. This is particularly true in the area of the Start bar which believe me, is a HUUGE pain in the rear to work on.

ok i'm not saying there isnt work involved at all. Because i know there is. But while there may be work to do on them, where's the creativity? Theres not even a texture! I dont think a gradient recoloring is worthy of praise in the slighest bit. I think works of art like waht treetog produces are. Those are creative works that should be praised over and over again for originality and design. But you will never sell me on someone recoloring another artwork. Not when we sit here and spend hours upon hours working on original material. Sorry Brad that doesnt fly with me. Go back and look at Lorenela's jean skins for the box apps and then tell me that the denim xp even comes close.Its a farce. All i see is praise for the same skin being colored over and over again. No detail. Just a color/gradient change. Sorry i'm saying what i think alot of people are thinking.

Jesh before critics someone else work without even tried to make one windowblinds skin, I think you should try to skin one time yourself. Ok it's simple, it's the way I like them, OS style. No it's not just colorize, just look carefully and try to put them side by side and you will see the gradients are not same place at all. I only use same shapes as XP, same arrows, same style. Yes I use the checkbox, radio and tabs. The rest is my creation. I just use them to keep it as feeling like Microsoft made them. I think I have win if you think I just colorize them.

The Forest one I made is more just colorized but Jeans, Nature and Coppery are different. And between the XP bar I can not change the way it feels because Windowblinds just skin it, it's not adding features in, so it will always looks like an XP bar.

This is not to say she hasnt put out some outstanding work either cuz she has. The MediaStep for LiteStep theme is beautiful and clean, as is alot of her work. Its the recoloring of win xp that aggravate me. And thne to see "oh look how great she is" becuase she made a color change. That is my gripe, not her original work which i think should be applauded.

what i'm saying alex is this...

add textures, add something. great you moved the gradient. whats the difference?

I dont have time to skin on my own. I do it with the artists i work with everyday. We must be doing something right as we're busy as hell right now. But if you want i'll be happy to make a titlebar for you that looks like the denim one then tell how hard that is.

the original I made was coppery I just give different colors STOP buggin on Jeans textures, and between this was an idea from treetog.

I dont need to create a skin on my own to be able to criticize like i dont need to be a politician to criticize politicians. You put your work in an open forum for review and downloading and i have every right to say how i feel. welcome to free speech at its finest. As far as my qualifications to judge, i think with all the skins i've had a hand in pertaining to the design aspect, i've earned that right hands down.

Guys.. stepping in here...

First - people make skins for themselves. Her skins are free. She made them for herself and shared them with people.

People obviously like them

Arguing whether they are original enough or creative enough is pointless because such things aren't quantifiable.

The fact remains that Alexandrie has created a LOT of original incredible skins in her career. Her claim to fame isn't XP skins. She's already been one of the top skin authors for the past year or so.

But there's no doubt about it - 8000+ downloads in a single day is by far a record.

I for one am glad she did them. I am really enjoying the coppery one.

yes i agree totally. People obviously appreciate them. My argument was the fact that theres a thread basically saying look how great she is for all these downloads when i think they arnte very original. This isnt about her talent overall as i think she is talented. This is about the subject of the thread not anything else.

I did not create the thread and this was not my idea, I just woke up and it was there.

Jesh,

Sorry, but I don't agree. This isn't like the slew of XP-based skins we saw a few months ago. Most of those were just direct copies, pixel for pixel, of WinXP, either colored differently or not. If you put the images that made those skins up against the images used by MS, they were (practically) identical (or a worse almost-identical copy).

Now do the same with the images that make up Alexandrie's skins. They're not even close. Sure, some of the shapes are similar (that's what she was obviously going for), but beyond that, there is little comparison. Add that to the fact that the skins come across with a completely different feel than the ones included with XP, while still maintaining a familiar shape and layout, and I think she pulled off something that no one else seemed to get right a few months ago: making an *original* XP-style skin (or several, at that).

Now, I'm still trying desperately to change the fonts she chose (why huge italicized Trebuchet I'll never know...), but otherwise I think they're smooth, gorgeous, and very original in their own right. And don't think for one second that that doesn't require talent, artistic vision, and a lot of hard work.

Well, I thik those skins are very nice, but we have already demonstrated a little while back that simply placing the two letters XP to the name of a skin greatly increases the download count. The great number of downloads on those 3 particular skins are probably du to a combination of both the fact that they look great and that they have the two magic letters...

It is the simple variant color changes that bother me, without any change to texture or anything but a color change. But these are my opinions only. Hell i could be the only one who feels this way. Should i not say how i feel? or should i participate in the community and express my views? I think being part of a community, people should be free to express dislikes and likes. If i like something i will certainly say i do. And if i dont, then i will also say something.

But if i'm wrong and the similar styles are different then i will take back what i said about them being direct color-overs of the actual MS GUI. I still have a gripe with simple color changes. I've seen her previous work and know she could have made them a lil spiffier and different.

Anyways, taking brad's advice i'm going to drop it. I said what bothered me and theres nothing left to say.

Just for the record, I don't think this thread was ever created to praise Alexandrie's work on the XP skins, or any of her other skins. It was just to congratulate her on the 8000+ downloads in one day. Whether any one individual appreciates the work or not is pointless, and I kind of regret bringing it up in the first place!

I'm sorry Jesh. I wasn't trying to imply that you shouldn't state your opinion. I was simply disagreeing with it, for the reasons I gave above.

Please, continue to express your opinion on what you like and dislike. I, for one, love a good argument.

And I fully agree with you that being a member of a community gives you a voice and welcomes your opinion. It is valued, even if disagreed with.

Just for the record, I don't think this thread was ever created to praise Alexandrie's work on the XP skins, or any of her other skins. It was just to congratulate her on the 8000+ downloads in one day. Whether any one individual appreciates the work or not is pointless, and I kind of regret bringing it up in the first place!

(whoops.. sorry, clicked twice there.. with five minutes between somehow!)

If there's anyone who doesn't need to defend themselves publicly here, it would be Alexandrie. Her range of skinning is superb and skill is obvious. Her download numbers speak for themselves.
Congrads on the record Alex.