From technology to politics to video games; these are the random thoughts of a geek with too much time on his hands
You draw, we write
Published on February 13, 2008 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News
For an artist new to skinning, few things can be more helpful than a step-by-step tutorial walking them through how to create some element of a skin, or learn a new Photoshop trick that could save them hours of time and frustration.  The people best suited to providing this knowledge are our community of skinners, the people who spend their free time actually making skins and using the tools.

But, as many artists have said to me, just because you can make a skin, doesn't necessarily mean you can explain it or write about it clearly so others can understand. 

That's where we can help out.  I'm looking for a few skinners to work with to create some new, detailed tutorials to skin things like WindowBlinds, ObjectDock, Icons, WinAmp, Xion, Dreams, Cursors etc.  Full tutorials, mini tutorials (i.e how to make just one element of a skin) etc.  You provide the pictures and walk me through the steps, I'll write it up and format it for general consumption.

If you're interested, please post a comment below.

(Additionally, if you can't skin, but feel you can write and want to pair up with a skinner to write a tutorial yourself, let us know in the comments too!)



Comments (Page 1)
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on Feb 13, 2008
hmmm been there done that.. LOL.. I loved making the ones i did, it helped me to organize my scripting, and thought processes more as well. Its a great thing to do. Wouldnt mind doing some more.. just need that 4 letter word.... TIME.
on Feb 13, 2008
Time's always the catch.  That's why I'm trying to meet folks half-way, take some of the burden and time investment off their shoulders.
on Feb 13, 2008
Sounds like a job for . . . the Masters.    
on Feb 13, 2008
Sounds like fun. 


on Feb 13, 2008
One of the biggest obstacle in skinning from my experience is knowing the little tricks to get things working as you expect. Many of these problems are raised and answered on the forums. Some may have never been discussed on the forums but resolved by directly interacting with Masters. If these can be collected and placed in the wiki it would be really helpful.
on Feb 13, 2008
I've been thinking of doing a video tutorial to show how to make a simple video loop using Movie Maker.
on Feb 13, 2008
I already did a tutorial for making a dock background but I guess it could use some images to better explain how the codes work.
on Feb 13, 2008
I could do a Xion tutorial,............. I could provide the words and the images, but someone else would have to put them into an html document for use on the web.

Is that any good to you?
on Feb 13, 2008
I've already mentioned elsewhere that the next cursor I create from scratch will be used as the basis for a tutorial. Just need to come up with another good concept.
on Feb 13, 2008

Is that any good to you?

Perfect!  I'll catch up with you on IRC.

on Feb 13, 2008
Beat me to it Zoomba.
on Feb 13, 2008
I can't skin but, if you don't count spelling, I can wrtie moderatly well and do pretty good copy-editing and QA.
on Feb 13, 2008
Zubaz said:

I can't skin but, if you don't count spelling, I can wrtie moderatly well and do pretty good copy-editing and QA.


Zubaz, do you have some difficulty with spelling?

Actually, I like to think that I'm a pretty good writer too, so if I can help put words to something or edit, I could contribute in that way. I'm not too good with skinning either, although I can "skin" SoundPackager fairly well, given sufficient time and inspiration.
on Feb 14, 2008
Well, it looks like there are quite a few writers on here offering their services. Time permitting, I'll put my name in that hat as well.

I wrote quite a few tutorials on different programs at my last job. I just don't have the patience for most graphics programs, which gets in the way of my skinning.   

But if anyone needs, as Zoomba says, someone to put it in a format for mass consumption, I'll certainly do what I can.

Of course, I don't IRC or IM, so it would have to be done mainly through email (or white-boarding through NetMeeting or the like if I can figure out how to get that to work).
on Feb 14, 2008
I'm a novice In my first step I went my own way. Comments and replies are important. The experts offers are more important (tnx WebGizmos: He sent some pictures and codes with notes)
One pictures say more than 1000 words.
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