Skinning as a career.

Nope, that's what Johanne and Renato (Pixtudio) do. Nothing else. They used to each have their own job, but as they developped their talents, they became better and better and actually ended up with a solid reputation as amazing artists. So one day, they decided to get together, quit their day job and only do that.
Another example is The Skin Factory.

But note that all of them made hundreds of skins for hobby until they acheived the level they are at now.

Oh, and it should also be noted that they make most of their revenues not by selling skins to people, but by designing exclusive skin for companies, such as Nintendo and NVidia (Pixtudio), or Microsoft and Universal Studio (The Skins Factory).

Yeah, I saw the Mario Sunshine skins on thier site, its what prompted me to ask. Nice job if you can get it.

i'd love a job like that

see??? It takes allot of work to get to that level. I think since they are some of the first to venture into a career in making skins (don't forget their are some winamp artist who also achived this level) they might make it easier for others to also do it.

BUT it will take allot of expierience to rech that level. Years of skinning and understanding design principals and graphics is the basis of success.

If someone wants to achieve that level, my opinion is to learn electronic design and and different forms of mutlimedia. Web design, illustration, packaging, art history, interface design, and so on, will help in many ways.

Once you learn the different aspects of art and design, you will have many resources at your disposal for your art.

Or just take your time, and practise a lot....cut your teeth on actually DOING it...

hey didn't I just say that?

Joe...I did the Readers Digest version...

and we don´t even know many of the best skinners around. think about the people that do the interfaces for the all the gorgeous looking audio editing software for companies as Propellerheads or Steinberg ...

and Photoshop? actually I wonder who does the interfaces for these programs? is it in house or something more like outsourcing?

are you joking? Photoshop does not have a skinned interface ...

I wsa just gonna say that. You're kidding, right?
Photoshop has no graphical interface. It,s just the boring Windows look.

ok, ok... not photoshop, but some programs have interfaces. and even photoshop has those icons. somebody has to think about the placement of this stuff.