Hiya peoples! Get comfy, this will be a long one, but worth it I think...

Been in the mood for earth colors this week, so I indulged and downloaded ERRO by Imzadi .

This blind is earthy, and neatly designed. The start menu and buttons are stylized arrows with the Start button animation creating a swirl with the arrow.

I enjoyed the way the Start menu was shaded to look almost like sunglasses, giving it an almost seventies feel to it (you who were there remember how popular the smoked glass look was)

The subtle mix of brown and grey makes for an  interesting look on windows and IE, with IE almost having a woody quality.

This skin is very "fast", easily loaded & utilized and is almost minimalist in design.

I chose Dark Shine by SUNX to compliment the whole earthy look. The package has icons that mimic that smoked glass look I mentioned earlier, with an orangy looking colorization .

 I know I show alot of KittyMalone's work ,but hey she's really a great artist that creates stuff that I can't help but want to use.

Having said that,I'll tell you that her Temple Oblivion CursorFX theme is really sweet!

I did a slight recolor to bring the browns out and it compliments the scheme I have created perfectly.

I love the clawed hand animation and find the pointer easy to use , as it's sharp and easy to find the target.(some cursors make finding the target difficult because of the rounded edges at the point.)

For the completion of this grouping, I used a wall that has depth and beauty. E Nomine by NauticalPixel (formerly Causticfx) is a real diamond.

E Nomine has  many themes within it, yet can be used with a desktop with many icons and still doesn't look "busy". The celtic knotwork within the cross is gorgeous, and the layering gives the medieval looking relief work  a nice 3-D quality. NP says the star is supposed to represent the pentagram, but I  think it just looks like  a plain ol' star, there in the middle of the cross, and doesn't impress me at all as the "devilish symbol".The circling Runes also add a great touch, giving it that timeless feel.

Believe it or not, there's a great sound package that also compliments this look.

I tried out The Beatles by Already Taken, thinking I probably wouldn't care for it, as the screenshot in the library looks like  yellow submarine.. figured it'd be a montage of those sounds. I was pleasantly surprised at the thought put into the clips that were used.

The package is a mellow mix of instrumentals and a few verses here and there from some really superb Beatles songs.I highly recommend that package to anyone who enjoys good music!

Now...,

Here's a fun little trick. I want to show you the difference between what a theme I create looks like before and after modification.

I picked out a wall Galactic Spectrum (widescreen) by Bebi Bulma and created my theme around that.

For windowblinds, I chose StealthOS by MikeB314 He's a great artist and all his designs are a combination corporate looking and spacey looking all at once. Because of the theme of the wall, I opted for this spacy  yet tidy look. The blind picks up the blues and greys in the wall.

I went with Blue by Nimbin for the RightClick menu. The starburst fits nicely with the galactic theme.

CursorFX I used M-Drop (colorpack) by Artur Berk . Artur is one of my absolute favorite Cursor artists. I have never seen a cursor he created that I  could just  pass by. The metallic exterior with rivets and crystal inset really looked pleasant with this grouping. I chose the M-drop blue color from this pack.

I wanted something that would both stand out on this dark theme, and still maintain the space idea. I dug in my personal library and found Core by Bohemy. A real treasure of an iconpackage. Well worth the download.

here is what this combination looked like:

Now here is where the twist comes in,

I recolored the windowblind ** and the iconpackage, and changed the Cursorfx to M-drop Violet, also doing a slight color tweak. I switched the rightclick to Violet Sky also by Nimbin.

and here is the product of that changeover:

Amazing isn't it? it's virtually the same theme, but the look is completely different!!

now one more twist...

I invert the colors on windowblinds & adjust the hue  and this is what it now looks like:

**this is one of those skins that  is Difficult to recolor.  you have to adjust to where you think you might like it and then click "apply changes" to see if it is what you want. takes a bit of getting used to but as you can see , spectacular results!!**

I know it was really only two themes this week, but I made it into four didn't I?

Have fun skinning!!

Wulf