female skinners

Sunday, September 23, 2007 by Vampothika | Discussion: Community

I am just wondering, are there any master female skinners?  and how long will it take before females are recognized as equals as males on this site, and get promoted almost as fast as the males........  As a female, i personally dont believe that we are.  I feel that its very hard to be recognized as a serious skinner being female......

 

153 Reply 9 Referrals
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Lantec
Reply #141 Thursday, September 27, 2007 11:11 AM
is only limited in that way by the [obvious] predominance of English as the 'official' language


But we do support different flavours (notice I didn't say flavors)

SirSmiley
Reply #142 Thursday, September 27, 2007 12:53 PM
A few days back I was going to suggest maybe someone should do an article on giving your computer's gui a "Makeover" but, I figured the typical person that if might attract would annoy all skinners regardless of sex.

But we do support different flavours (notice I didn't say flavors)


Yes, people of all colours and creeds.

PS. Zubaz starts and ends with a "Zed"!

unclerob
Reply #143 Thursday, September 27, 2007 1:19 PM
winmodify.net did some great interviews recently on kittymalone & jazzymjr, a couple of great female skinners. I thought it was a great idea, a way to learn more about skinners. If you haven't already, you should definitely check it out. It would be a great feature to have here as well. I'd love to learn more about some of the pro's (treetog, mike bryant, danillooc, etc.) and alot of the current top skinners on this site.

ZubaZ
Reply #144 Thursday, September 27, 2007 1:21 PM
PS. Zubaz starts and ends with a "Zed"
Now how die I get dragged back into this thread?    

Fairyy~
Reply #145 Thursday, September 27, 2007 1:27 PM
What we have here at Wincustomize is the closest you will ever get to "One World". If we can't get passed physical differences here in an imaginary world, there is simply no hope. Might as well build the walls bigger and with alot more voltage.


I really think what started out as kitty feeling she was being held back because she was female ( which she had a right to express ) has really taken a turn more towards why the lack of female skinners. I came here years ago with no interest what so ever in even skinning my PC never mind learning anything. I was dragged here by a male friend...I didn't enjoy looking at the Themes he was showing me and I more or less yawned at it all.

Then he gave me a link to Starone's " Silver & Gold " theme. I thought, I kinda like that...and that was why I stayed.

I think the turning point came when windowblinds 5 came out. Not only women skinners kinda dwindled off but men too. I think it just became to time consuming.

Maybe it can be rekindled..


RomanDA
Reply #146 Thursday, September 27, 2007 1:36 PM
I personally wanted to do this for a living, but since I cannot see myself being promoted to master for a many great years, i have had to think about my future.


And this can only be done on WC? If you want to skin for a living then make your own site, promote what you can do, find companies that might have a need for skins, and contact them.

Personally i would like to do this for a living, but that doesn't make it so, and being a "master" isn't a magic button that suddenly makes you rich. Yeah, RIGHT, if that was the case than i wouldn't be working 12+ hrs a day in a job i really dislike, but i make good $ and have a wife, son, and mom to take care of, so i do like MANY others, what is needed to make ends meet.

I wish you the best of luck, your stuff is very good.

SirSmiley
Reply #147 Thursday, September 27, 2007 3:58 PM
The income issue is discussed quite regularly and you probably could have a subforum of discussions on that.

Frankly - being on a disability pension just like Kitty - that was my main reason for purchasing DesktopX Pro with the hope of eventually to at the least augment my income or better yet being able to tell the government where to go.

Unfortunately, that hasn't happened...yet, mostly due to the part that I've let my graphics skills lapse and spend too much time on the scripting side of things.

I do think the future looks bright especially with Stardock Design now in the works.

Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread or anything but, are any of the masters making what might be considered a good part-time income?

vStyler
Reply #148 Thursday, September 27, 2007 4:11 PM
To elaborate on what Dave said being a master isn't a pot of gold, the only reason I can do it fulltime is my wife works and I maintain income off of Maxstyles as well..even with both combined I barely get by and thats by working 14-16 hours a day most days. So EVEN if you make Master , may not be enough to live on regardless. Do what I have been doing if you have faith in yourself and email some gfx design companies and offer up your services.

RomanDA
Reply #149 Thursday, September 27, 2007 4:33 PM
vStyler,

I have found my most lucrative jobs have been for private companies who want to show off something they end up giving away to customers. The 3 projects i have done that way have outweighed ALL my income from DesktopGadgets.com Wincustomize.com and CommercialGadgets.com combined by about 2-3 times. Two found me by doing a Google search, and looking at things i did on multiple sites, not just WC exclusively, and one found me when they were looking at some old skins i did for Windows Media, so just being on WC will not guarantee you anything.

DX is a HARD product to make $ with, WB is much easier, with DX you have thousands of lines of code (3500+ on the Holiday Countdown Pro) that YOU have to make sure works on all kinds of machines. Where as WB skins are mainly graphics, if WB doesnt skin its Stardock's issue.

Just my 0.02

Zoomba
Reply #150 Thursday, September 27, 2007 5:13 PM
Individual skinners selling their work isn't new, but it's still not a very widely done thing. If you want to make money from skinning you have several options:
  1. Make your own site to sell from.
    There are free/cheap ecommerce systems you can use to handle sales (usually for some cut of the sale). Hosting a website isn't that expensive anymore either. This requires a lot of work and personal initiative to pull off though.
  2. Team up with other skinners who have their own sales channels
    MaxStyles sells through their site. There are benefits here in that joining up saves you the setup work as it's already done, plus you get a little bit more early exposure.
  3. Become a Master at WinCustomize
    This is the longest path of the three. It can take years (as it has for some) and there's no guarantee you'll get the promotion since it's not something every user is entitled to. It's an honor we reserve to recognize some of the best overall skinners in the community. But the benefit is large since it's guaranteed to be the single largest potential customer audience you'll ever reach.
But ultimately, the success of selling your work rests largely on the skinner's shoulders. You have to go out, spread the word. Advertise your skin wherever you can. People don't realize how hard it is to actually sell something, especially online. You need to build an audience for your work, and continually grow it. This goes for WC Master skinners too. I don't see many of you out there pimping your goods beyond the walls of WC. It doesn't work along the lines of "If you build it, they will come" They have to know it's there!

vStyler and RomanDA are examples of how to maximize your income from skinning. They have multiple sales channels, and RomanDA has even done individual contract work.

The thing is, anyone who can skin can do this. Gender doesn't even enter into it. Alexandrie is a good example of a female skinner who is a go-getter and made it work for her. Remember Pixtudio? She worked with other skinners to build a business that was pretty successful. It can be done, and it can be done by anyone who has the determination. It's not easy, but then again going into business for yourself never is (which is essentially what selling your skinning work is, you're becoming your own one-man business).

ZubaZ
Reply #151 Thursday, September 27, 2007 5:22 PM
you're becoming your own one-man business
one-person

 

All jokes aside, what Zoomba says about being a business owne goes right back to Brad's post about being a winner or a loser.  Winners go out, hunt down what they want, kill it, skin it, eat it, and hopefully share a haunch with thier friends. (Then the hire a loser at minimum wage to clean up the mess and complain about how hard life is.)

ZubaZ
Reply #152 Friday, September 28, 2007 7:47 AM
I can't help myself . . . A web-comic about how women get treated on some parts of the internet: http://xkcd.com/322/ We are so much better than this.



vStyler
Reply #153 Friday, September 28, 2007 7:51 AM
Funny   

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