Cry babies

Yes, it’s true…I’m one of the few, the proud…the cry babies.

So listen to me now, hear me later and think about it sometime…

Artists, CAN be a bit oversensitive at times (at least the type that grew up like me…without any formal training and starting with crayola and working up to the big gurl/boy stuff like oils and acrylics, clay etc. and later trying to work their way through a computer version of their own style and attempting to make what feels so unnatural with a mouse look as if they actually had their hand in the dang thing).

I grew up using art as my emotional outlet because I didn’t really have any other outlet that served me as well (okay, poetry and singing were good too). Perhaps it’s true that wincustomize is more strictly a skin site rather than an artistry type of site but I’d sorely miss the wallpapers that are here and let’s put this in perspective for a wee moment shall we? Wallpaper can set the mood for your whole desktop environment so to discount it as mere “fluff” that should *only* compliment the skins which define your OS elements seems rather dissident and ignorant in my opinion. I love to see a sunset on my desktop…I love to see the night stars and a city at night…I even love (gawd forbid) dolphins and beaches and palm trees…oh my

Food for question…

Is “skinning” even an art? And if we stripped *every* artist and skinner here of every filter or program known to mankind and made them do it without anything at all but a pixel by pixel…would this site even exist? And if we judge everyone by the program they use…(i.e. Bryce, Photoshop etc.) then…is our digital art just a fanciful example of one’s skill at that program? Does being a *digital* artist as a whole make that art feel as if it’s without soul and without feeling? Without the fingerprint that gives an artist his/her style? I think that a program or filter does NOT make the artist…but rather enhances his/her abilities… I liken it to…traditional artists from days of yore who considered using prefab colors in paint a *no-no* and felt that creating one’s own colors from a pot of the basic 3 (i.e. yellow, red, blue) were the only true way of creating art. They also seriously frowned upon black and white as actual paint colors because those are considered *shades* and one should be disciplined enough not to need those as long as one is careful…

Almost every windowblinds skin “screams” KPT 5 shapeshifter…and I love that proggy too…but does that mean…you are cheating? I hope not! I think the beautiful stuff that people do with that is reason enough to use it!

Did I just go off on a tangent?

Sorry, just ingore this post and move on to important matters! )
12,558 views 80 replies
Reply #1 Top
What is KPT 5 shapeshifter?
Reply #2 Top
A commonly used filter.
Reply #3 Top
Actually, many WindowBlinds skins are drawn by hand, pixel by pixel...and some of them are not even created with SkinStudio, or even the old 'Builderblinds', but with a text editor and a working knowledge of what the 'bits' actually 'do'.

I've no idea what a 'KPT 5 shapeshifter' is either....though it sounds like a bad episode from a Star Trek series...
Reply #4 Top
Ah...not that common, then....but a presumption of a Photoshop user...
Reply #5 Top
I SAID, "Almost every"
Reply #6 Top
And I don't use photoshop aka ram suck...
Reply #7 Top
I think your observation about KPT is a bit 'a priori'. It wouldn't scream that if you weren't familiar with it, and it was developed to replicate what many of us do by hand. I think you underestimate the average skinner here. The fact that I hate KPT doesn't mean I think it is 'cheating'; I think it is less convienent and not 'my' work. I don't want someone else's app to do my work for me.

If you look into how most of the best themes are done, I think you will see that most of us can do our work faster and at a better quality without filters. Filters are slip-shod, unreliable things. To someone that can do the same thing by hand, using them is like swimming with an anchor around your neck. I think your problem is that you don't know how this stuff is really done.

If I can get my XML straightened out, I'll have some tutorials soon. Maybe then you'll see.
Reply #8 Top
p.s. and RAM is what it takes to have 50 history levels of an image with 100 layers. Again, if you knew what was possible, you'd understand why the app uses ram. Educate yourself a bit and these things will make more sense.
Reply #9 Top
BUT do you consider *skinning* actual "art" oh great one?
Reply #10 Top
Oh? How great thou art bakerstreet? You make me

You obviously have no life to spend so much time bashing people here.
Reply #11 Top
And...I've put this off long enough...

F-OFF...
Reply #12 Top
Motion did Selene using just MS paint. I think there are a few other skins here that were done with paint. How can you define one thing as art and another not? I love the other type of wallpaper too, but when I am using my computer I don't see them that much. Using a well made skin, that is creative, skillfully constructed, one that makes my computer all that much more functional, and pleases my eye and spirit as much as these skins do... well, the experience I am having using these skins tell me that they are art. Functional art. I think of the people here as artists.

that's just me, though.
Reply #14 Top
Not so much as the elitists think of Art as God's gift to self-expression....
My quip was always that who is to say that one Friday night Pablo Picasso didn't just look in his wallet and think 'heck...not enough lira here for a beer and a pizza with my mates...better chuck together another pic and flog it at the market'.

Artistic self-expression or just 'something to do'?

Art Critics are too self-absorbed with their reflected intellect to realize/recognize 'crap' dressed up as 'art' by some 'flavour-of-the-month 'name''.

Skinning is more correctly a 'craft', requiring artistic endeavour, but a skin will never 'honestly' reflect 'Man's Inhumanity To Man' or whatever...
Reply #15 Top
All the titty babies come crying that they are purists...he he

Gotta love it!
Reply #16 Top
I agree with dark_seraphim 1000%, I just wish I could say it as well as she did. My lady, I am in awe of your wisdom. Various programs, filters and such are merely tools that the artist can employ in his/her own style to create something unique and entirely their own. That similarities in styles crop up like a harvest of weeds is only natural. We are after all, human beings with much the same likes and desires. Thank God for people like you, dark_seraphim!

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Reply #17 Top
Wah! Wah! Wah! And you call us newbies a pain in the arse!
Reply #18 Top
Ahhhhhhhhh JamMeister33...you're the only one on my side! TY ((((((((((HUG))))))))))
Reply #19 Top
It seems that 221b has rubbed another up the wrong way...

dark_seraphim....good luck with your joust. Methinks much blood will be spilled, come dawn...
Reply #20 Top
I'm with ya, gorgeous! Let them throw stones at both of us, I'll block them from you!

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Reply #21 Top
I've got the poison arrows...do you have the sharpened spikes hidden in the woodd, JamMeister33?
Reply #22 Top
I've got the poison arrows...do you have the sharpened spikes hidden in the woods, JamMeister33?
Reply #23 Top
Notice I corrected my spelling too late?

Oh fuss and bother...a joust at dawn...what shall I wear?
Reply #24 Top
I've got a lot more than that d_s, you can't tell them too much or you'll spoil the surprize!

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Reply #25 Top
light chain mail and your trusty "head lopper" will do nicely, my lady.

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