April 17 Skins reviews

Some looks that I've tried this week

Thursday, April 17, 2008 by wulfn1 | Discussion: Community

Here are a few of the skins I've tried in the last week. I've documented them each day I used and saved the information to post to you here in one lump sum.

Well I felt kind of beachy today. It's sunny and I live close to the beach, and I can smell the salt in the air  today. Very invigorating!
I decided today I was going to hunt through my skins for something I've already downloaded, and found seadream by Cathe Well Iconpackager was having some issues and I figured I'd redownload the package and freshen up a bit. I was dissapointed to find that the package is no longer available!! It was a cute little theme , with beach toys in a nice ocean blue , sunny yellow and keylime green hue. Well, I was going to tell you how well this package works with Sequel , by navigatsio. But since its no longer available, and my IP is acting up, things have changed.

Sequel is pretty all the way through, as navigatsio skinned all the menus to have a button look, this looks sharp on my computer and reminds me of some of the nextstart ( or was it nextstep?)menus I liked when I first started skinning my computer. It makes the list look like individual items instead of a long line of text to slog thru finding what you are looking for. 

For the cursor, I had used microzoa by  chuckeye for cursorfx. The colors work well with this grouping, and the animations are really detailed. Though it does get confusing sometimes when the little bugger turns upside down while trying to click on something, you have to get your bearings all over again.

 Now , because of the missing IP , I had to redo and find a nice beachy IP package to go with this grouping. So I slogged through the IP libraries on WC and found Bluewhales by nichoLU. its also a cute theme and works well with the other skins I'm using, but I wish the original package I chose was still available!! I chose the Beachy sound package  by k10w3 to go with the look. Beachy needs more sounds though. It almost seems like it didn't get finished. all in all, I just needed  waves and sun tan lotion to complete the feel!

Goes to show you , if you download alot, back stuff up!! you never know when you have to reinstall something that isn't available anymore.
oh well, see ya tomorrow!
Wulf


With all the things I've been reading lately about Rogue Proton by I.R.Braniac , I just had to find out for myself. I had downloaded the original and used it  for a week to see how it "felt", well I found it not to my tastes. So I decided to give this updated skin a second look and am glad I did, while it's not my usual taste, it worked well with the grouping I created.

I loaded the lime substyle , and  I paired it with a quirky IP called Secret Garden  by KerLoong, Looks quite cool! I Found that protozoa again by chuckeye works pretty good with this color scheme and skin style. Only drawback is it's size, it's a large cursor, but fits with the large style skin.

I found some greenish walls that I had and selected them for my change wallpaper themes, Those skins are , Pollen by inceptiona8, Pirate treasure by atomnet, Hear The Full Moon by tammitatum (this one I just really liked the dark moon look.),and Creamware by boxxi.
I chose those walls because of the similar colors and compliments they give the rogue proton WB. I have to say it was a pain to have  to re click every single wall in my WB wall changer, but the look really needed it. Maybe for future builds the creators will consider modifying that feature for easier selection. (I have walls for different seasonal holidays and such that don't always get selected.)

Though this is a very dark skin, I have found that it doesn't cause problems trying to view things , like some dark skins do. The backgrounds for text are just light enough to be easily readable. If you like dark skins, this one isn't bad at all, and the substyles have some nifty rich jewelcolored looks. Something that can actually be made slightly girly if you like, or quirky , like I like! I used sounds of the rainforest by robjk which gave it a nice earthy feel.
I'll let ya know what I find next.
Wulf


Tried Nutshell by thewer  today. I like the color combination , except the text areas are very dark and difficult to see, but over all very pretty, rich looking. Really liked the left hand buttons on the window frames! nice to see something out of the ordinary.
I used the MUKU icons by celldrifter. You would have thought I would go strictly with wood look since it's a wood skin , but wood looked kind of boring. The Muku look is very asian and simple. I used a simple wall of a tree leaf xrayed, so it was a black n grey look. Very nice compliment. I did use Wooden Claw by TOMCpl for my cursorFx because it fit so well with the theme.
while there are several really nice wood look object dock backgrounds, I wanted to stick with the asian theme so I opted for tile Woody by jimmyyy . I used wood5 tiles, they have a dark wood disk, surrounded by what looks like black laquer. Very sleek.
All in all, I would love this WB if it weren't for the fact that things show up so dark in all the text boxes.If you like this style, you'll have to mess with the windowblinds settings to get the text areas to come up a little. I added Ambient echoes by robjk for my sound packager. works pretty good.
See ya next time,
Wulf


I tried out the Dark Knight  blind by Dr Zeus, though it reminded me of a halloween blind or a batman fan blind, I figured I should download it just in case I forgot about it come halloween time. I like the colors and the textures used in this blind, though I was sorry that the pretty copper color that the "please wait" screen's bat had , wasn't a part of the blind itself.

The bats are a gold color which is also pretty but I think it would have been much prettier with the copper. There are parts of the blind that show just black, making it look less than perfect, but they don't distract from the whole unless you have your start menu open all the time. Wierd thing (I used the xp and the vista . both had this problem) the tray at the bottom right only had the time in it, all the other icons dissapeared. while this is very pretty, I wish there were a way of making them show when you want them to,... like maybe a mouse over feature. Because I was just trying it out, I didn't match icons and cursors to it. Maybe I'll do that at halloween.
Wulf

First Previous Page 2 of 2 Next Last
ZubaZ
Reply #21 Friday, April 18, 2008 9:57 AM
I'll see if I can figure out how to work useability into the descripts, it's sometimes hard to add info like that without looking like you're shooting down a skin.
  Your feelings or thoughts about usability isn't shooting down a skin; it's giving an opinion.    It also gives us a way to compare your tastes against our own.  Which makes your reviews more valuable.  Lastly . . it may be good feedback for the artist. 
ZubaZ
Reply #22 Friday, April 18, 2008 9:58 AM
Yes, Jing.  Sorry. 
wulfn1
Reply #23 Friday, April 18, 2008 10:03 AM
oki! thought so ,but didn't want to start dl till I was sure I was headed in the right direction.
inception8
Reply #24 Friday, April 18, 2008 10:46 AM
Today must be good karma day. Must have done something good for someone out there that I'm not aware of. *peace*   All the suggestions would be benefitial. *a monitor isn't just an interface*
wulfn1
Reply #25 Friday, April 18, 2008 11:04 AM
and your work isn't just a wallpaper inception8!
sViz
Reply #26 Sunday, April 20, 2008 6:41 PM
Love the article! Screenies would be nice. Your descriptions are great, and I like the fact that you took the time to explain how you put together a look. The article has wonderful personal narrative that is sometimes lacking in reviews.   Keep it up, wulfn1!
wulfn1
Reply #27 Sunday, April 20, 2008 6:48 PM
tanx! working on next weeks as we speak. Going to be tossing in a few surprises there.
and am working on putting in a screenie or two.

Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

  • Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
  • Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
  • Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
  • It's simple, and FREE!



web-wc01