Calvin and Hobbes skin
 

A skin I'm making based on the great Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. No WSZ this time, because I'm submitting it into the GUI Olympics.

In a way, the theme kind of asks for a more full-on-'picturey' skin, with cute pictures all over the place, like my SHAG skin, for example, but I'm making it for my girlfriend who has never used winamp before, hence it needs to remain highly functional.

Comments and criticism appreciated. :)

Please click HERE for the preview.

I like the vis with Hobbes on top of it, and the orange color works well. I'd change the numbers though, they dont fit at all. Good luck in the olympics

VERY impressive stillwater. i love the vis with Hobbes on top, the equalizer, and volume circles (that's what those are, right?).

my only complains is that the reflection "glint" on the vis, song ticker, and other items is a bit too harsh. maybe fade it in more, or make it a bit darker? then again, i'm not much of a skin-creator, so my advice could very well be poop.

1) calvin and hobbes font @ your service :D
2) the background of the c-buttons and the shuf/rep buttons bothers me. Make the "indentation" shading closer to the buttons like in the playlist perhaps, but as of now it just looks....weird.

Its sad how finished skins get so few comments compared to barely skinned main windows.

Comment:
Consider the severity and contrast of the black shirt on the mother in relation to the whole format.

I like it. Good background, love the pawprints. My only complaint is that it's very difficult to tell what's going on in the playlist vis area.

because comments now aren't much good because the skin is already made, and changing somethign could be a huge pain in the arse.

Actually, I'm not finished with it yet. Once I almost complete a skin, I like to step back and look at it with other people's eyes so that I can improve it. I agree with almost all of the comments so far, and will change a few things before I submit it.

I think it would be cool to make another one based on Calvinball, the made-up game he plays sometimes.

tydogg: you're right - I'm going to change the numbers...As it happens, I will be making a second version with different pictures on it, so this sounds like a good idea. What exactly is Calvinball though? I remember his contact-sport version of golf, but not Calvinball :D

inthegray: Thanks :) I think you're right about the glints. They make the text a bit hard to read too. I'll soften them

dlinkwit27: thanks for the font. Actually, I already have it (it's used on the top of the MAIN). I also have a "Bill Watterson's handwriting" font, which looks like the text he writes in the bubbles in the cartoon. That one unfortunately doesn't include numbers, which is a shame, because it would be perfect for the PLEDIT.:mad: For some reason, I didn't think that the other font (the one you attached) had numbers either, but it does - so I'm going to use that in the NUMS_EX

Xerxes: Although it's not as much a pet hate for me as it is for you, I totally agree about the comment thing ;) I also agree about the black shirt, though I didn't think about it before. I've already changed her jeans from a bright blue acid-wash colour (ugh!), so I'll change her jumper as well.

flatmatt: hmm, I was worried about that....

Pimp: By the way, for any fans of the cartoon, I made a somewhat similar Calvin and Hobbes skin for skincalc, a skinnable calculator, a while back :)

the black shirt looks fine to me...just add some black to other areas if it really bothers you.

give the buttons a comic style black border....or add a simple black bar to the bottom of the eqbars...but really, it looks pretty done to me.:)

With those changes I'd say it will probably be done. Calvinball was the sport he made up where the only rule was that you cant play it the same way twice. They'd put on masks and run around with croquet mallets looking for the secret zone, or something like that.

I've never seen the mom wear a black shirt. I think she normally wears purple.

I just had a quick flick through a C&H book I have, and the parents, unlike Calvin, wear all sorts of outfits/colours. I guess I'll just make it whatever colour suits the skin best. Though I quite like xeno's idea of putting something else in the skin which is black...

lookin sweet

I hate to suggest a really huge painful change to a skin that looks this done, but I don't kow if the "plasic" look of the buttons goes with the theme. I mean, couldn' you mae them cartoony? They don't necessarily have to be pictures of things, but you could make them into usable but hand-drawn-looking buttons. It's your skin, so it's up to you. The layout is good and the eq looks reallyclever, so even if you ignore my suggestion completely, it will still be a very good skin. Good luck in the olympics. (and with your girlfriend ;) )

edit: The more I look at it the more that most of the plastic looks fine... it's just the c-button andshufrep symbols that look too blocky to be C&H. Maybe just hand-draw those symbols, to look more like the buttons that have letters on them?

I tend to agree with Luigi. The unscarceness of the plastic buttons makes them seam less out of place, though.

DOH!
 

It turns out that the skin is inelligible from the Olympics because it contains copyrighted material. I was worried that might happen. Oh well.

The complete skin is now available at DA and 1K1WS.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback - I appreciate it. :)

Nice. The backgrounds of the c-buttons and shuf/rep buttons still bother me, mainly because of the shadow you gaev them I think, but it still looks good.

Looks neat, I like the colors and the buttons.

YEAH, nice skin SW! It's more popular than Bang&Olufsen on 1001WS.com! What the hell is with that skin anyway? I don't get it . . . . .

Thanks jjpotter :)

I don't get what it is with that skin either :D

That skin sucks. It's not explainable.