Hey Giz!!!  Good to see ya!!

Hey Web ... good to see ya buddy. Feeling better I hope.

BTW ... the detail is awesome!

Looking awesome, John!

Thanks MG, as if I hadnt tweaked and tweaked enough.... I tweaked it some more... added a bit more brightness, shine, color, and reduced the texturing a bit.

Definitely the final version now..

Time to start assembling.

John, you may have my new favorite skin here. Just don't "strain" yourself...

Did someone say "Art"?

This is going to look very nice on the desktop. 

I want it to look nice on mine.

RedneckDude wonders if anyone gets the "strain" connection...  

Duh

Lookin very sweet!!

like candy for the eyes great work man!!!

Killer screenshot love the design  im just thinking will there be a sub with a trade for gold into greyish antrazit something ?
Alo im interested in what you did to get that rugged metal look overlay a texture anyway very impressive

Thanks

Nope

Well, it's 4 different textures blended in Photoshop, flettened, then dodged and burned, then set to overlay mode over the start menu vector shape, then about 7 extra similar start menu vector shapes stacked on top and used for the lighting via layer style bevel settings, set to vivid light.

I can post the PSD if anyone wants it

Jim.... yes... of course

Thanks to everyone else too

I'd love the PSD, maybe for a rainmeter set, or just to look at how other people create their skins. Y'know, learn some tips 'n' tricks.

Here you go, although, it will more than anything just be a lesson in how disorganized I work, although it's all straight in my head of course

Might surprise some folks too,  just how many damn layers make up this start menu... More than I care to spend time counting

regardless, will give u some idea of my crazy workflow and methodology behind the madness.

Good luck! 

http://www.maxstyles.com/vstyler/Andromeda/SM.zip

So, how much will change between now and release?    

Release? I just got started..

I'm really looking forward to this one, v.

Will we be able to recolor the blue main section?

as well as WB can I suppose, The rule of thumb with recoloring is the flatter the color, the least amount of gradients... the better.

Thanks Po

I generally don't recolor blinds because it's not always easy to recolor the peripheral skins.

Plus recoloring would alter what drew me to the skin in the first place.

That's just me. I usually use all skins in their default state, to get the effect the author envisioned.

Thanks V. I'll give it a proper look later, but it seems like you work like I do. If it weren't for putting things in groups, I'd be totally screwed, 'cause I can't be bothered with naming layers.

If I don't name the layers I get totally lost. I use modules in my smx's now and keeping them straight in my head is one thing but remembering them all and in what order .... no way. Looking forward to this baby.

Layers? What the heck are "layers"?