First-time visualstyle desinger?

Hi. Didn't know exactly where to put this, hope it fits here.

Heh, this is hard to write. I don't know where to start. Here goes: I'm a big fan of graphic design, especially when it comes to skinning applications for computers. The community is really just topping themselves over and over again in terms of visual styles, icons, program skins, you name it. It's all great. I've decided, now, that I think it would be neat if I could work my way into designing things, especially visual styles. As for making the acutal graphics, I think I'm well off, but I don't know where to go after I've fired up Photoshop or Maya . This is when I throw myself to the community.

I guess what I'm asking is, where should I go to start learning about designing visual styles? Are there tutorials for the average ****ie? What programs should I use? I've already played around in Stardock's SkinStudio and TGTsoft's StyleBuilder. Are there any other programs I should know about? What would be your advice?

Thanks in advance.

#306975

Hallo, imho the best and always actual rule about learning, is this one: fire up stylebuilder or resedit and import a work done by someone skilled. Then practice and practice till you figure out how to do your own thing.

#307317

the easiest way to create visual styles is modifying a pre-existing one.

i personally use reshacker for most of my work, resedit when i need to deal with textfiles. stylebuilder is good too, but i don't like it.

#307436

I've used Reshacker and Stylebuilder. Whichever program you decide to use, the best way to learn is open a pre-existing style and mess it all up.

I don't know of any comprehensive tutorials though, it's more a matter of opening some else's and looking around.

here's what I found though:

StyleBuilder 101

Stylebuilder Interface

#307439