The basic design concept is to have a futuristic tech skin, but pushed a little further into the future than when it was actually designed. A corroded future tech type of skin. DREAD and I have been discussing the lack of future-tech skins out there. He came up with a design concept he called 'Mech', but it's been stalled, so I decided to take up one of my own. I may be borrowing a couple of his ideas (I like the scrollbar) if he decides to let me ;)
I saw this weathered metal plate on a Photoshop tutorial site that you have to have a (paid) membership to view, so I decided to try to reproduce it without seeing the tutorial itself. I want Heavy Metal to have bolted plates like this in certain parts of the skin. (I was thinking about a button panel or an information panel or something like that.. or mounting brackets for the 'display terminal' (see the buddy icon tests below.) Also, I want the background of the skin to be corroded metal of some sort. I haven't decided on rust or other type of corrosion (i.e. acid). This will, however, lock windows down to a specific size until Kevin provides us with 2D tiling.
I want to also have some chrome (i.e. on chains) in the skin. I was disappointed by all of the chain tuts I found, so I decided to experiment and do one myself. (Don't worry, the pink marble will NOT be in the skin.
So, when we combine these elements, this is what we get. This is sort of the feel I'm aiming for in the skin. A worn-out tech sort of ambience.
Display control. As part of the feel of the skin, I want the display control to appear as a transparent LCD type of display. Something a bit futuristic. However, in keeping in the corrosion feel, I want it to appear like it would be perfectly functional when it was new, but at some point the buddy icon (see below) smashed into it, cracking it and making part of the display non-functional. This can be achieved by overlaying a bit of the background on top of the display control. I couldn't find ANY place that had a good tutorial on simple broken glass like this, so I decided to experiment and see what I could come up with. What you see here is the overlay on the left and on the right what it would look like with the display control. Of course I would have the overlay as a config option so a person could actually USE the skin :D (If Kevin gives us a %rand% variable for skins, I would like to make this randomly show up say 10-75% of the time based on user settings.) Again, until we get 2D tiling, this overlay will lock the windows down to a specific size. (I'm not entirely sure of the overlay will work yet, but Kid says overlays on the display controls work now.)
--->
Buddy Icon As I mentioned above, I wanted it to look like the buddy icon was a glass sphere that actually smashed into the display control, cracking it. (This is what it would look like without and with the icon being set.) No, the buddy icon won't be resizable or have different sizes for different mediums. This skin is about looks, not usability :P If you want a usable skin, try SETi :D
Finally, some experements with contact list icons to go with it. I
want icons that look a bit weathered and somehow 3-D ish on the background
(like you're looking at a sign of some sort. I wish we had more control
over fonts to design out own multi-colored fontsets, but alas.)
Just another corrosion test...
