Using the skinning document I've created my own skin.  I've added dnn controls and content panes.  The content panes never render their content.  I was just building the basic box layout for the skin to appear.  You can view it live here.

http://dnn.pixel-eight.com/

You can see the dnn controls but nothing appears in any of the areas as I believe they should.  What is missing?  Here is the contents of the User Control I used to develop the skin.

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="skin.ascx.cs" Inherits="Skins_P8_skins_skin" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="dnn" TagName="MENU" Src="~/Admin/Skins/SolPartMenu.ascx" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="dnn" TagName="LOGIN" Src="~/Admin/Skins/Login.ascx" %>
<div>
    <div id="ControlPanel" runat="server"></div>
    <div class="Header PageMargins Centered">Logo</div>
    <div class="LeftContent SideContent" id="LeftPane" runat="server">
        Left content
    </div>
    <div class="RightContent SideContent" id="RightPane" runat="server">
        Right Content
        <dnn:LOGIN runat="server" id="dnnLOGIN" />
        <dnn:MENU runat="server" id="dnnMENU" />
    </div>
    <div class="MainContent CenterContentMargins" id="ContentPane" runat="server">
        Main Content
    </div>
    <div class="Footer CenterContentMargins Centered" id="BottomPane" runat="server">Footer</div>
</div>

I see now.  I missed the part about inheriting from skin.vb.  I didn't include the logo control because it doesn't appear that it needs to (from what I can see).  I also wondered about the static text.  I was using it prior to deploying the skin so that I could see how thing lined up.  I'll update the skin with your suggestions and see how it turns out.  Thank you for your reply.