June 9th Skin Thoughts and Reviews

Sunday, June 8, 2008 by wulfn1 | Discussion: OS Customization

Hello again all!

Above everything , I must thank those who chose to promote me, I am honored and will strive to live up to the new rank, THANK YOU!!

now,...

It's another week and another artist to be highlighted, but first to finish my last week's article:

 

I ran late last week and have now learned to be more organized in my information gathering. Hopefully this will help for future reviews. I never got to show off KittyMalone's  Igloo wb.

so here it is, hope you like it as much as I do!

I love the little polarbear in this skin, he just reminds me of the bears my husband collects (yes I have a whole room devoted to teddybears, especially white bears). I had some problems with it initially but once I reallized that I had the wb config set to "vista-ize me " and it was causing problems, all was resolved and the skin looks great!

 

I chose a wall that brought a slight bit of darkness to the skin, because I just love that look, and it was a bit too bright and shiny for my moods. Edge of Insanity by HOTRODLED fit the mood perfectly.  I was lucky that there was a skin out there that fit so well with the start menu as you will see, it looks like the little bear is sleeping under the branches of that tree there.

I have been messing with DesktopX lately and added some widgets and objects  to give some depth to my desktop. Corner Clock by MountainDragon fits nicely up in the left hand corner of my screen. the coloring matches the blind very well and there's a little button in the corner that if clicked will hide the clock if it gets in your way.

 

Hard drive meter by Xira is also colored perfectly for this skin. Though I am still trying to figure out how to make it work right , I like how it looks there on the screen. given time I'll have it working right I'm sure.

 

Circle Glass by Bilbo1930 is a great tool it includes a weather feature as well as a drive meter. You can use any background you want  with this skin because it is totally transparent.I'm looking forward to using this in the future so I expect you'll see it again sometime.

I wanted to get the best look for this skin, and so I chose Igloo V1 by Snowman . While I usually go out of my way to find skins that aren't considered part of the  whole package, in this case as well as one or two others, staying with the theme works best.

When I was installing Igloo, I imediately thought of Voidcore and since there are two great skins to use here , I did. First is Whitebear IP and second is my absolute favorite cursorfx theme Whitebear CursorFX I don't think I could add any more to that skin and make it look better. In this case , less is more, and clutter doesn't work with snow.

ok, now that I've shown you what I did with Igloo, on to this week's artist:

****************************************************************************

 

This week I chose to highlight Jazzymjr , simply because I noticed how many of Jazzy's skins I already had! Though sometimes her designs are a bit frilly for me, for the most part they really are versatile.

 

First to be mentioned will be Sea Jasper . Green is my favorite color , hands down. So when this skin came out , it was an "automatic download" for me(I some times go into auto click mode when confronted with a goodly amount of skins to dl! )

 

I recolored the greenish blue cursor from  M-drop color pack  by Artur Berk ,just slightly . It didn't need much , just a little shift.

After that I went on the hunt for some DesktopX items. I found Killer Weather by Tiggz and fell in love. Ok so now I have two weather objects to fight for supremacy on my screen! This weather object is really sweet, and will go with any pearlized wb you can find( I know I checked all the ones I have.) it also looks nice with the minimalist white blinds.

 

For my calendar, I chose HV LinearCalendar by XX . The calendar is slim, doesn't obscure my wall and very easy to view at a glance from across the table .

 

I found a neat little meter object that looked really sharp with this set up, Cpu & Ram Meter by vukovicnikola .

I chose to combine an Object Dock with this skin, as it just worked that the wall and skin could handle a busy desktop. The dock I used was Seginus by Messiah1 . The tile-p version dragged to the right hand side of my screen  balanced this look out nicely.

The right click menu I chose looked like it should be part of the skin, though it was created for another of Jazzymjr's blinds. Amphitrite by Fairyy~  is a perfect double for a SeaJasper blind.You would never know it wasn't meant to be used with this skin. I really like Fairyy~'s work, very versatile.

 

OHMY!Nitro Xtreme (lite) by D. Arnez is the Icon Package I used here. The coloring and style is on the nose and while not exact, they compliment the coloring of SeaJasper very well.

Lastly, I will mention the beautiful wall, which , though it's a fractal, has depth, color and style. The author of this wall, makes some of the prettiest fractal papers I've seen on the site. I read recently that the only reason the artist started making walls, was there wasn't one on the WC site that a neighbor thought would work with his setup. I am very grateful to that neighbor!!

Radiating by Frankeif  is a gorgeous blend of greens,blues grey's and purples. I know many think fractal papers are not stylish, but if you look at the depth each paper has, the different lines and swirls and convolutions they take, they really are a treat for the eye.

 

 

Now , for my next treat, I give you Bronze Daize  this is not one of Jazzymjr's  more recent works, but it's one I like when I am looking for some earthy tones.

 

I dragged out one of my water pictures ,( I live near the shore and adore the ocean and beach views .) Antares by Nefil .

 

This one, isn't your usual greenish blue with sunrise or sunset. The view is one of a sunset before a storm, where everything has that eerie reddish tone to it and you know the upper atmosphere is going to let loose in the next day or so. I think these moments are out of this world beautiful. Though now that I think about it I bet the scene was meant to look like something from a different solar system.

The Icon Package was more difficult to find this time. I looked at several before settling on a recolored version of Element by Skinhit. There really aren't many IPs that work with  water scenes that aren't decidedly nautical in design. So I found one that worked with the skin instead of the scene and blended the color in to match the hues of the scene.

 

I also recolored the CursorFX theme Lava by Cavan1 . The mottled look of the cursor worked well over the darker colors of the skin and wall.

 

You'll notice I went a little crazy with DesktopX objects and widgets on this theme. It needed something to give it the depth the wall couldn't so I added Tropik Weather by Lovely62 very pretty and the perfect color match for the wall.

 

The clock is Bubble Clock red v3 by Himangshu , and the news reader is Newsfeed Sample (joeuser) by _Martin_. I wanted an audio object and found this one Dark Glass Audio by MountainDragon.

Well I couldn't have all that and not have a meter , now could I? So I found Meter graph small(updated_revised) by Gnaw. It's a nice small transparent meter that monitors your cpu, memory, and the dataflow  over your web connection.

 

I couldn't forget the right click, I've been adding one to almost all the themes , couldn't forget this one. Dark Two Right Click by Messiah1 is the one I had on hand that matched the best with this look.

 

My last look at works by Jazzymjr is Hearts Afire. Now I know it's kind of frilly for me, but I know there are people out there who really like that look. I'm not big into space themes either but find that I should include those styles in my work too so, here's frilly for ya Wulfie style!

 

I just couldn't get too flowery , so I hunted long and hard (and I mean long and hard!!) for a wall that would make this skin pop, but wouldn't make me feel like I was visiting my sister's bathroom. Finally I hit upon Neon Poison by Teddybearcholla. I had to "mirror" the wall to make the design show up to it's best advantage (for those of you who are skinning impaired, I opened the wall in PaintshopPro, clicked on "image" then clicked on the word "mirror" that reversed the wallpaper so it could be viewed properly here)

To get the icons I wanted, I had to recolor Bright Icons Suite version 1  by Alperium. I was going to use one of the sets starone created but none of them would allow me to recolor and they just didn't match with the colors she's created.

 

I used Core Weather by Mormegil (another of my favorite artists) it was simple, had a slight band of that rose color, and promised me a beautiful moon in the evening.

 

One really cool widget I found was Ultima`notes by HAPTORK. This thing is SO customizable you might as well call it skinnable!!! I had fun with different looks but settled on a rose on the corners and a copy of the wall for the background(not mirrored) and chose a script font for elegance.

The CursorFX theme I chose here was Flame by Artur Berk (ya I really love his cursors! ) I recolored it to a nice rose shade and haven't changed it yet!

 

I stuck with the theme for my right click and used Hearts Afire RC by Fairyy~.  there weren't any right click menus that would work with the theme I had going as well as this one.

 

I tossed in a calendar , just because I could, and found one that was slim, and see thru! perfect for my very cluttered screen.

Linear Calendar  by _Martin_  fit the bill perfectly, it's a vertical calendar that is very neat and tidy.

 

For my "Grande Finale" I plucked a rose to compliment this rosy theme. Pink Rose Clock by Buzzh58 is a quirky lil thing with a faerie tossing around in the middle of the waterbubble clock. It was amusing to my granddaughter to watch that little girl twirl!

 

Well, I know this was a long one, and I appreciate your looking. I promise next week won't be so long . And I also promise I won't highlight an author every week . I think I'll do it every other week or maybe once monthly.. we'll see .

Have a great week folks!!

Wulfie

 

wulfn1
Reply #1 Monday, June 9, 2008 9:57 AM
bump
Wizard1956
Reply #2 Monday, June 9, 2008 11:24 AM
Wow,your best review so far.A very good mix of components by some great skinners. I also like Tiggz's Killer series of DX objects.They work with almost anything.Great Job,wulfn1!
wulfn1
Reply #3 Monday, June 9, 2008 11:46 AM
thanks wiz!! now where's yours?!?!
Philly0381
Reply #4 Monday, June 9, 2008 11:58 AM
Well someone has been busy.   

You have outdone yourself wulfn1, some very fine examples of what can be accomplish when you set your mind to changing your desktop.   
bilbo1930
Reply #5 Monday, June 9, 2008 2:26 PM
Thanks for head up
zakai1369
Reply #6 Monday, June 9, 2008 2:26 PM
A great review of some really nice stuff yet again wulfn And it showed off some things that, even with all my sifting through the galleries, I had not yet come across. Thank you.

I.R. Brainiac
Reply #7 Monday, June 9, 2008 2:44 PM
Busy little skinner aint you?  
wulfn1
Reply #8 Monday, June 9, 2008 2:58 PM
Busy little skinner aint you?  


lol!! Told you I was an addict!!
but is that skinning? or skin using?
Lantec
Reply #9 Monday, June 9, 2008 3:57 PM
I'm sure that was a lot of work. It was a good read and I see a few items I missed before like Buzz's rose clock. Thanks Wulfn1
butch123
Reply #10 Monday, June 9, 2008 4:04 PM
great review   
jazzymjr
Reply #11 Monday, June 9, 2008 6:30 PM
Thanks wulfin, for the feature! What a surprise! I love how you customized all of the blinds...I really like your choice of walls for all of them...thanks again!   
Vampothika
Reply #12 Monday, June 9, 2008 6:41 PM
thanks for the feature wulfin!   
skybright
Reply #13 Monday, June 9, 2008 7:05 PM
Great job as always!!!  
Xiandi
Reply #14 Monday, June 9, 2008 9:05 PM
Great review! You have a good eye for matching things up!
superman
Reply #15 Monday, June 9, 2008 10:13 PM
Great
wulfn1
Reply #16 Tuesday, June 10, 2008 11:07 PM
Thanks for the compliments all!
any suggestions on making it better though?
Wizard1956
Reply #17 Wednesday, June 11, 2008 7:45 PM
I put this together as a suite with TM.I didn't even know it could DO that..doh!I called it Silver Aero. AeroMetalWB by StardockDesign SilverSliderDXtheme by PuterDudeJim SliderIP by Jack Nolan MetalGlassRC by Mirsguy Silver BurstWP by Coolballer Here's a link,I don't want to take up too much real estate with a SS . WWW Link [edit]Sorry about the format,I tried for separate lines.ugh.
Vampothika
Reply #18 Thursday, June 12, 2008 3:32 AM
Thanks for the compliments all!
any suggestions on making it better though?


yes....hand me a cig and cola every time i comment........  
ArileenDesign
Reply #19 Thursday, June 12, 2008 6:17 AM
  

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