Teknidermy Issue 11 out now!

It's too bad that a real index of articles/etc isn't on the link. That graphic is a horrible tool.

Scroll down dude, scroll down.

hehe hey someone picking on the dutchy's graphics? and yes you need to scroll down to the text menu for the more simple minded ppl...

I rather like hide and seek for my links... hehe

I liked this issue overall, the Honz12 interview is my favorite feature.

Heh, sorry, didn't mean the front page. But once you click a link you are stuck with the hide and seek navigation.

for an art mag, someone needs to build a decent website. ease-of-use factor is next to nil and the main graphic is a joke. A newbie is supposed to know what that says?

Yeah, these people who contribute their spare-time for free to bring a service to the community need to try harder, right? I just find it hard to swallow that so many people go out of their way to do things for others and people can't just repect them for that. I am not against criticism, but why the need to talk down to people?

Indeed, kudos to the tek crew for contributing their spare-time to bring us an interesting read, for free...

Thanks you guys for sticking up for us
but it's okay cuz criticism is healthy, I just the critics don't sway crae to stop drawing bunnies, cuz crae's bunnies turn me onnnnnnn!!! hehe

and I think actually crae is working on other things to make the site alittle better
so just be patient VERY patient cuz crae is half sloth hehe

can someone please stick a "hope" word up in there before the "critics" word?
Thank you

The big question is: are newbies supposed to know what it's all about? If you think of the target audience, will interviews with skinners and other noteworthy persons in our small world be interesting to those new to it or more to the ones who know who they are?

Then again, can anyone read my scribbles, besides moi?

virophile: spare me please. So you're saying that just because they do this for free it's ok for things to be illegible? umm yeh you'll go far in web business.

The big question, of course is, was this released quietly?

Well I see that they aren't going to cover the GUI Olympics because they can't avoid editorializing it to death.

If they had simply covered the events, as they happened with just the facts (like who won, which skin won, etc.) that would have been cool.

But Kenray wanted to wait until it was over. But I suspect that the article Kenray's friend did is full of partisan judgements.

And so, the "skinner's journal", which had time to interview Shoggot's rantings fails to cover what was probably the most significant single event in the skinning community of 2002 (130 skins created in a month's time by dozens of skinners representatives of half a dozen different skinning sites with the judges being the admins of the leading skin sites and one of the judges being the man who wrote the book on GUI Design).

Don't get me wrong, I am glad Teknidermy exists. But at this point, it really seems more like a personal blogging site (I have a blog site at www.joeuser.com) than a skinning journal since the things they cover are increasingly related to the types of things that interest a very specific clique of users (a clique I am admittedly part of which is why I read each issue).

But it's a lot less like a skinning journal and more like a "people magazine" about the personalizties of the old guard skinners (and increasingly people who don't actively make skins now). There's nothign wrong with that, I just think a skinners magazine having a heck of a lot of potential. It's just everytime I read it I can't help but imagine that it's really being written for the handful of people who hang out on a skinners IRC channel and not trying to reach out to the tens of thousands of people who now create skins.

Doreen...I left a comment on your Aafuss interview...

I know what you're saying Brad and respect that, just that it is difficult for such a small handfull of us (actually 3 at this moment) to cover so much when we get side tracked w/ that dreaded real life stuff, if we had more time to branch out more we could cover more, but unfortunetly it's not like that so it's hard enough to bring the things we do to the table these days...

as for IRC neither me, crae or ken hang out there at all, so we are not part of any IRC clique, so you're alittle off there...

Shog was a pleasure for me to get to interview cuz of my past history on skinz.org & never really knowing who he was other then him playing referee on the msg board when I upset ppl back then w/ my Doreenosis so getting that opportunity to interview him was fun for me to get to know him alittle better, plain & simple.

"His opinions" were part of the interview but were "not" the main reason for the interview, I simply needed someone to interview for Teknidermy asked him for an interview (never expecting him to say yes) and he did and that was that, I was never one of his many IRC groupies as you may have thought.

I get no pay for admining on artuproar or for Tek, it's all just for enjoyment okay, there's no motives here, I do this stuff for Teknidermy only because I really love the skinning community nuts & all, just like everyone else.

so bottom line is crae, me & ken do this for you guys if it's not good enough to please everyone, we could consider calling issue 11 a final wrap? no use doing it for you guys if it's not doing what it set out to do.

/me goes to see what comment Jafo put (now I'm nervous to go look!) hehe

okay Jafo me went there *phew* was expecting the word "Sucker" somewhere mixed in there... hehe
(I think he is just extremely young & different)

Hrm...I wouldn't call it a day just yet, there are far more positive opinions than negative, and the negative ones aren't exactly scathing, just people pointing out their opinions, which they are entitled to do.
Take a look at the articles in this edition.
Of the 7 articles, 1 is an interview with a current skin site owner, and there are 4 interviews with currently active skinners. Perhaps the impression that it's old guard related is because its created by some of the "old guard"? I mean, its going to reflect the personalities and interests of the people who create it, that is a fact of life. Anyhow, it brought to my attention 2 relatively new skinners that I had not yet heard of, so it can't be all bad

Was that a cheap shot?
Now I'm depressed.


No sleep for me tonight - I'll be up worrying about being one of the "old guard"...

yay! I get to explain myself, directed mostly at "the skins factory" for now

"So you're saying that just because they do this for free it's ok for things to be illegible"

Yep, if they are doing it for free then can do what ever they want, plain and simple.

"umm yeh you'll go far in web business."

Again, why the need to talk down to people? ......maybe you have your reasons ..... though I'm not in the "web business" so that's probably a bigger factor against me going far rather than not caring what people put on their own webspace.


Now as far as me pointing out it was free, was not a shot at anyone, just the way it is, and I was thinking much broader than teknidermy. Being that 99% of what is uploaded here and every other skin site is done for free in peoples spare time. I'm sure everyone has there own reasons for uploading, but in the end we get free art/skins so why bitch, don't like it move on. Lots of choices there. *click click*

/me is loving this

Content is what pops up really. Not like we're holding weekly staff meetings or anything. We used to, but nothing related to Tek was ever discussed there.

Woha Doreen, talk about double standards.

When Shoggot was calling me "evil" and worse, you were the one defending his right to his "opinion". But when someone offers the most mild of critiques of Tek, you suggest that maybe you guys should just take your ball and go home.

You know, Pat and I did the GUI Olympics on our own time. Like Tek, it was a volunteer effort. So after doing our 60+ hours per week at Stardock, we'd go home and have to dela with stuff like the Consortium and Kenray and Shoggot and other people making striking attacks on us personally and the whole event in general. And we carried through months of this to finish what we started.

And all through those attacks, you, Doreen, were one of the leading voices defending Shoggot's "right" to say vile things about people. So where is the defense of Jesh's or my rights to express an opinion?

Integer: Like I said above, I visit Tek because it has stuff that interests me. But it has changed from being a skinner's journal to being more a a "people magazine" about the personalities of skinners. This particular issue interviews newer skinners (which is good) but the site increasingly feels more like a personal blog.

Heck, Doreen argues that it's pretty much a blog now. Which is fine. I have a blog too. It's a gropu of friends that go out and chat with skinners they like and post the logs from those interviews. Nothing wrong with that. But it always seemed that the goal was to be a skinner's journal to deliver tutorials and advice on tools and actual happenings.

The lack of coverage of the GUI Olympics in Tek is really just a symptom of the difference in views of what some of us thought Tek was going to be versus what it actually is.

Please note that nothing I have said implies that Tek is a bad magazine.

I can't see any change in Tek since it's inception. I just checked the first issue, and it is almost exactly as it is now - it contains interviews with four skinners, and 3 other articles

It keeps coming back to the gui olympics....

/me thinks that is the real issue here...

I think the GUI Olympics is just a symptom. It would be like a magazine that calls itself "US Foreign Policy Journal" not having any articles on what's happening with Iraq but instead having interviews with Chancelor Schroeder of Germany instead.

The articles section on WinCustomize was created FOR Teknidermy originally. But over time, we've had less and less to link to on Tek because we're not going to link to interviews of skinners.

I don't have an issue with interviews. Only that they seem to be the only thing in this "skinner's journal". That and the not so subtle biases of Kenray.

But what about tutorials? What about close looks at various skinning programs? What about articles on skinning techniques? What about articles on the different skin websites? What about a summary of the major software and skin releases since the previous issue?

Perhaps Teknidermy should be called "People of skinning" or something. I'd still visit it. And at least it would be more about what the site is about.