AnimeAppeal.com Presents
 

Both of them are a work in progress. But of the two colors, which one would be best to pursue?

Neon Green
http://www.animeappeal.com/?styleid=103

I am so blue
http://www.animeappeal.com/?styleid=110

Coming from someone who used to do CAD work (Computer Aided Design) in a program w/ a black background I can tell you this, both are a strain on the eyes. Granted your niche is anime which may draw a much younger crowd I feel that's just too strong on the eyes, either of them imo, meant to be constructive feedback of course :cool:.

Any suggestions for a background then?

yes i cant stand these colors either, plz keep it the way it is, grey color in existing forum design is lookin fine.

Ok so what about this one?
http://www.animeappeal.com/?styleid=111

um well that one has a LOT going on. It's hard to see the forums for the background image. The header is overly huge. I would go with some PNG's myself. Your pictures on the left almost blend in to the point to where it's hard to see them. Upon viewing some of the posts, you can't even read the posts because the lettering is black against the background. This one is extrememly hard on the eyes.

I think the first style looks best, but the body of the forum is pushed to the left, it's very noticeable in a widescreen monitor. :)

If you gonna go with an anime Themed forum, go with something that like Animesuki.com, But instead of grey, Go with a Sky blue color, for the Forum header, And if you did that, I would think it would be a top-notch theme.

But, That's just my opinion though.

I can change to a darker filter. That'll make the text stand out more.
As for the header that's just something I threw up there to have something up there. It's not staying.
I guess I need to put the block decorations back in so the side pics stand out.

Thanks for your input.

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I assume you're talking about Ninja Babe. It's 45 left. 50 right. With the doc width set to auto. Not quite dead center but if she's off to the left on a wide screen it's because it was constructed on a smaller screen at 1280x800.

Thanks for your input.

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I have to assume you're looking at the black and gray theme. I didn't make that. That a VB freebie. The header was made for me by one of my members.

Thanks for your input.

On style 103, the "Help" and "Register" text is black on dark gray only visible on hover. The greetings box am unclear as to purpose, but it's making forum wider than need be an there's all that wasted space under it. So consider making it into a horizontal box with the pictures an maybe welcome text. The gradients used in the "what's going on" table looks weird, but an don't really mach with the other gradients used. Your Icon legend appears to have the default icons an not your updated ones. On your post page the similar threads table the time color is almost the same gray as your background. Lastly the house icon from the navigation looks to dark for the background.

I do have to mention the quotes icon on your posts the dark gray with lighter gray text, I really like that look. Enough where I'm gonna see if I can get the same effect on my white forums.

The black and gray theme you were looking at was not created by me. It was a style generator theme put together by the staff at vbulletin. It was made for version 4.0.6. I was running that at the time I installed it. When I made the jump to 4.1.2 the pitstop at 4.0.8 broke a lot of the features. You should have seen it before I sat down and fixed over 80% of what was broke. There's still some odds and ends to get straightened out.
As for Greetings!, it's a 1000+ thumbnails that show a cross section of anime artwork. If you refresh the browser you see 2 different pics. Move it? That's the forum sidebar. I'd love to make it horizontal.
And the little forum home icon came out of the box like that.
Like I said I didn't make that one but I sure do like its look. I made the rest of them though...

Hi setishock,

After looking through your skins I'd say I like Ninja babe and black and grey the most. (I don't know if you made Ninja Babe or not).

An important thing to remember is that less is more when it comes to skins. I think today more than ever, people want to look at something clean, streamlined and easy to navigate.

Background images are tricky, and I'd say most backgrounds in "cause and affect" don't work well, but as long as it's not your default theme it should be okay to have a skin like that because some people like it. The Ninja Babe background was fine though, because the image is more subdued and the rest of the skin colors actually matched the image.

"I'm so blue" hurts the eyes, as others have said. That electric blue with black just never works.

I wish I could help you make a skin.

Well, the thing that worries me even more that you have a forum up and running but not that many members, the ninja babe one looks better than the rest. Why not go for a High Quality free theme?

As you just need some sort of kick start, the domain you have is good, the market you focus is huge, what methods of promotion have you tried out?

Miss Baruku,
I made:
Ninja Babe
3.8 style
Blonde
I am so blue
Cause and Affect

Sage Knight,
Word of mouth and sigs. I've seen a couple of better looking sites than mine go belly up recently. I can't afford to pay for any services.

the artwork is amazing. I like your site. I find that I dont like many sites now a days. But I like yours. I think there could be some fine tuning of the shades you use to contrast some of the buttons and links (specifically the login and help button at the top right and the thread count links) but overall I think you have done a fine job. one final piece of criticism, I didnt get a quick understand of what your sites purpose or drive is. Maybe a tagline somewhere to let people who what your all about.

hope that helps.

now go review my site thread "New maps design, need your review"

Most of the buttons were just thrown together. Guess I need to stop with the tinkering and fix those little buggers up.

The site revolves around the artwork of anime. I have a story section where members can post stories they're working on. Seems I'm the only one using that part though. I'm about to put up the final chapter of the Ghost in the Shell story. Some time this week I think. It's gonna be some thing no one has ever though of in the GitS series.