I'm working on a project where the architect wanted a complex LAF. It looks *very* nice, except when it doesn't display correctly (like, drag and drop doesn't highlight list items).
I suggest starting with Metal and the Ocean theme, which is the current default LAF and theme. It's actually fairly attractive. Build out your UI using that for a start. Buttons and labels can take images along with their text, which provides a lot of the flexibility you need.
I have tinkered with the Ocean theme, changing some of the colors slightly and changing a few component borders. It's very difficult to sort out initially, but then it is relatively easy.
Last, you can override the paint() method of the standard components. I made a button with rounded corners and all kinds of shading using Java 2D. The performance hit isn't that great, since the UI will do similar actions anyway.
If you send my a private message with an e-mail address, I'll send you a .zip with a bunch of utility code. A lot of it I created for a production system, so it's not just hacked together. It should give you some ideas as you look at Sun's Tutorial...
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