It is taking forever to skin stuff

from WinCustomize Forums
I can not believe how long it takes to make and test new skins out. Maybe because I am new at it, but it seems to take forever. I am still working on stuff. I want to release some of it but then I find a annoying bug (magic pink showing or I'm off a pixel)

I'm still working on improving Thoth X and other Thoth skins and trying to complete animations for Dreamy (for desktop x) and Directional

Then there is object bar. I would think it is easy but it isn't. I haven't even touched Windowblinds!!!


I think getting permission to base designs off of peoples work is the easy part.

Then I have these wallpapers. Before I knew od Deviant Art and WinCustomize I use to make wallpapers with ease. Now I see that what I was making back then was so ameture. I have improved my skills and soon will be releasing some of them and basing skins off of them.

How do other skinners design so many skins especailly if they have a job or are in school (or both) and have families?
2,361 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Joe...welcome to the 'Real World'[tm]...

Skinning CAN/DOES take a lot of time....and alas, the permission bit is sometimes the longest AND hardest.
I have quite a few bits of 'stuff' to upload, but the 'Permission.txt' is missing [still]....

A 'good' shell theme can take days, weeks or even months to get 'just right'....my last [as yet unreleased] WinAMP skin....better part of a week...off and on...

It's when you do it yourself that you fully understand the marvel that is the masters' work, like treetog, for example.

Many people still take skins 'for granted', which is a big part of their subsequent disdain and irreverence when it comes to 'copying', 'ripping' or simply just 'distributing without permission'....
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
After you've done it for a while it will become easier. It will still take a while to do, if you do original stuff, but you can do the lazy way and just change colors and maybe a couple buttons like some do, then you can crank them out.

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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My 'Skinning' folder is full of begun and then dropped stuff... (Not only ports )
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I know what you mean c242. I've managed to upload just 1 skin in the past 2 months. Meanwhile, my 'skinning' folder is 25 MB big and growing. It's stuffed with bits and pieces of half finished skins.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well, there is for example one fully blown Desktop X theme I am very proud of on my HD, that will never get released because I use DOT Studio icons in it, that I altered to animations. DOT dissapeared, I could never reach him and the theme is worthless without those icons. Some good ideas for Sountox II are sleeping on my HD and waiting for some more work. I could continue this to an endless list... And I have an IT job, so I can never spend too much time for skinning and learning more...

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Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It's definitely very time consuming. Which is one of the reasons why people get so upset about rips.
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
yeh it aint half time consuming, im really starting to hate rendering walls spent 5 hours rendering one last night and another 5 today :/

wish i had a 4Ghz + CPU