TEK of the Month: DecalGirl’s Console Skins

I’m sure you’ve seen all the disgusting excuses for “skins” at your local videogame selling franchise and you were curious just as I was. Hell, I know you’ve come across those ones that are hard clear plastic ontop with a thinly and poorly executed (Just like Lindsay Lohan!) graphic glued to it. I bought one of those suckers probably about two years ago and it had this pretty lightning bolt effect on it and I was quite excited about it. I peeled the paper away from it and smooshed it down ever so expertly to the PS2 and found that it truly wasn’t meant to be there. It kept curling up on the sides because the plastic would get hot and just stick up. I’d cut myself on it whenever I went to move it because that sonofabitch was sharper than a page of Oscar Wilde witticisms and there was truly nothing to be done about it. Then, giving up on the puffy console skin, I peeled it back to find that it left the image’s stick on there - just removing the clear top part of the skin. SIGH. With some elbow grease and nail polish remover, I somehow got the glue off and just kept muttering about how difficult that entire process was and how that skin wasn’t nearly pretty enough to do that to me.

It was with much trepidation at that point that I even contemplated the skin market again. If they’re all that shoddily made, what the hell is the point? Well, I glanced over the DecalGirl website, noticing the huge variety and the fact they use vinyl and nothing else. Not stickers and glue and any G-damned plastic! I decided to give it a shot and within a couple days, I had a glorious set of Wii skins from the good people over there. They sent me the skin for the Wii in the same design as pictured here, as well as the Wiimote and Nunchuk skin and the rather fetching Classic Controller skin. Happiness washed over me in a very cool wave, for now I had these shiny and rather thin skins that didn’t make my console look like it was wrapped up in a quilt.

Putting on the Skins:

This part seemed to give me the most trouble because I’m way obsessive about making sure that every line and corner was where it was supposed to be. You clean the console off gently, then dry it and apply the skins. The good part about it though is that with this one, you can remove it and put it back as often as you need or want to. It’s not difficult and if you’re gentle, it won’t ruin the skin at all. If you’re super-pleasant about it, you might just have every piece perfectly lined up. I had an entire set of skins to apply though, as well as the very nice PSP ones they have over there at DecalGirl - you should make sure to check them all out.

Playing with the Skins:

A lot of people stay away from putting skins on their controllers because you touch those so often and more often than not, they shift around while you’re playing and make your hands ten times hotter than normal. I had applied a PSP skin to my PSP and honestly, mostly for this purpose and this purpose alone - to see if something I played with both hands and that got increasingly hot as you played longer, would heat up and annoy my sensitive hands. Not the case, I’m happy to report - since it’s a very thin vinyl, there really is no heat difference and the texture doesn’t warm up your hands anymore than the unskinned system or controller would. When playing Wii Boxing with my Dad? Not a single issue with the skin rubbing off or from my hands getting slippery from the slick vinyl.

In essence, there really isn’t a reason - if you’re interested in it - to not go to DecalGirl. They’re fifty times better than any skin you’ll get in the store and they give your consoles a case-modded appeal that doesn’t require soldering and frustration.

Last month we stated that you guys all had a month to come out to us with your Skinning Horror — and one guy had the scariest store about plastering his DS Lite with a skin and having to go through the same disturbing trials and tribulations that I had to. For this, Seth V. wins an awesome PSP skin compliments from DecalGirl! Read his story after the jump and let us know what you think!

Hello TEK!

I saw your invite to send in a horrific story about skinning your system and I thought I’d give it a go. A few months ago, I forget when exactly, I bought a skin from Gamer Graffix to put on my beloved DS lite. I wouldn’t and still won’t let it get hurt or scratched at all so I thought that a skin would be perfect for it. When I got the slightly wrinkled and bent packaging in which the skins were in, I was very excited to put it on my DS lite. I immediately washed it and applied the skins as carefully as possible. Fast forward four months. I start thinking that this skin wasn’t such a great idea after all. It was getting boring and I wanted to see that beautiful white gloss that my DS lite had given off since June 11, 2006. So I decided to remove the skin. Mind you, the package advertised that the skins were reusable, but obviously they didn’t tell my skins that. When I peeled the top of, the wonderful squishy covering that would cushion any fall peeled away from the design sticker, leaving my with two quite back-unstickable pieces of junk. I hadn’t removed it wrong either, because it happened when I tried to take off the bottom skin. They also left an icky residue all over my DS that I couldn’t get off except with nail polish remover. Some of that glue stuff got inside my DS, and I have been wondering if it’ll keel over any minute ever since.

That’s my experience, thanks.

-Seth

(Daaaamn, the fact this guy wants anything to DO with skinning after this is a MYSTERY! Keep fighting the good fight, Seth!)