This is just great, Bryan. I like it a good deal. I also like the sounds of the second skin's idea.

Cp...eat your heart out.

Looking good so far, a couple of suggestions I'll put forth are.. on the frame and start menu top left lighting\bevels, perhaps try using an overlay or vivid light blend mode in the bevel section of your layer styles, it will give you a brighter blue highlight as opposed to the more white looking one you have now.. will make the lighting more natural. and 2, same thing with the Horiz. grad in the start menu, might benefit from being more  light blue than whiter color it is now.... perhaps.

Hope this helps Brian. 

looking good

E = mc²

I'll never be a skinner!  *Sigh*

hey CP, even VS had to start somewhere, his first skins were no where near as polished as his recent work.

We're all "WIP"'s LOL!

Don't be so hard on yourself bro, just do your thing, it's all good!

As for this miricla wb, I'll say it, it's sweet.  If I had to make a suggestion, the titlebar buttons (min,max, close) make them 2 pixels taller, other than that, the blind is saaa-weeeeeeeet!!!!!!!!

I should've thought of the 'natural lighting' thing--Bert Monroy writes about the same thing in his book Photoshop Studio with Bert Monroy; Digital Painting.

Your suggestion does help; now I've just gotta figure out how to best execute the concept.

Oh, and so far it looks like overlay & lighter color are the blend modes to use.

Thank you to everyone for your supportive comments! Glad you're liking it. I'll try not to disappoint...

Thanks Ulcerbob, I'll take that into consideration. However, I'm afraid if I make them any taller, then I'll diminish the effect I was going for; but I'll consider it nonetheless.

New "natural lighting."

Actually just changed the highlight color to a light blue and left the blend mode at screen. That ended up being the best solution. Thanks for your input, John.

Looking great Mg...Excellent work my friend !

Looks awesome.. But must have a "Send HG free pizza" button to be perfect. ..   

Great job Mirsguy.

Is this good enough?

Looks better

Thanks!

Just decided last night that I'm going to rework the window frames and probably the window close buttons. Now that I think about it, those frames don't (entirely) match where I'm going with the skin. But hey, that's what the development stage is for, right?

Quoting myself here to correct myself:

My wife is not the only tester. Z71 is also helping me along.

Looks awesome, Mg!!!    

Brysgirl, you're one lucky lady