[Sean S]

It's not that bad Shelley . I do agree with Dean on the colors. Also, I am a big fan of the pale/lighter colors that you have used, however, there is a advantage and disadvantage to using colors like that as I have come to notice on my own designs.

The advantage is that no part of the design tries to gather too much attention to itself, meaning that the visitor has room to check out everything and not be distracted by another thing in the page.

The disadvantage is that the colors are too soft and calm, and these colors may not really show the true activity of your forums or the busyness of it, as the smooth colors really show a calm place instead of a busy place (not sure if I'm making sense here, but I hope you get the idea) .

but again, looking at the wings (fire) style, it is a good opposite balance and if you let users pick either one, it will be good cause the name of the skins really describe what they really are.

Keep up the good work Shelley