The Forum Skin - Help to make it better?

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Hi there, everyone.
Not an Announcement from Luke for a change.

But it's something that I've been thinking about for a few days now.
(And it might be one reason among others, why we haven't gotten any new members for some time)

I mean, the skin isn't bad or anything. But to me it still feels too generic.
So why don't we pretty it up? Go for our own custom, Shantae-themed skin?
I see no reason not to do this.

Of course, my knowledge on this is rather limited. Though Luke seems to know skinning works.
Which is why I would like to ask the community:
Would you like to see a custom, Shantae-based Forum Skin?

And not to forget:
Would you even contribute to it? By making some graphics for it?

I am sure we can do a lot, if we just work together.
And I for one would seriously love this forum to have a stunning, awe-inspiring skin, that blows the current one out of the water.

Who knows? Maybe it even attracts some more people?
Good looks can do wonders sometimes.


So much for this topic.
Discuss!

[.Luke]

Yay for Paragon's first announcement! ^_^ I was feeling pretty alone in this section.

I was comtemplating it a lot when these forums were first created, but I wanted to see if it would get any attention first to justify skinning it. Now, it has gotten more than what I expected, actually, and come to think of it, we could use a fresh coat of paint. =P It's a good point, really. While looking attractive isn't everything, first impressions are, and having a little polish would do us a lot of good.

The biggest obstacle for me is knowing where to start. I'll have to download a complete skin to gage what goes where, what the file names are, whether some parts need to tile, etc. Will probably do that later. ^^

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Exactly.

I know that you might have trouble to get the skin done.
But we have some great drawers in here. So I am sure, we can get some of them to help out, if the need arises.

Just go to the Admin Panel, take a look at the skin and its parts and make a list of what you need and maybe how it must look like and stuff.
That might help possible helpers to do their task properly.


That is just my idea though.

[.Luke]

I just recently got a crazy idea to skin these boards! =P

Whenever we create a fan game, I would draft a logo of the Shantae Fans Portal to display on the game's start-up with a link this site at the bottom-right corner, and a fan-game disclaimer splash-screen would follow afterwards. In other words, it would be our "brand".

So pretty much, when I create a unified UI for the game, I would use its tiles to create a forum skin for the place, and use the in-game logo as our banner. Think about it, we could give a Shantae fan game a fancy, cool, defining user interface that isn't a mixed bag, and the pixel art graphics could be repurposed to give our forums a similar look and feel. It would be both nostalgic and appear consistent with the community's fan game.

So, does it come as two birds with one stone, or uninspired? Granted, I would have to change a lot of the tiles to compile it into a forum skin, but if it doesn't seem right with you guys, I'd like to know so I can plan out something else for our forum skin.

EDIT : And either way, any ideas for a forum logo are welcomed! It will be what we use as a banner, so it's pretty important, especially if other sites or communities decide to affiliate with us in the future.

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I love the idea. Nice thinking.

GO FOR IT!

[.Luke]

Definitely on it as soon as I get the time to play around with a UI, which I can do no matter what project I'm working on, really.

Also, seeing as I forgot to disable autopruning before, a few older announcements got deleted! ;_; So I'll use the opportunity to bring up the idea of Shantae-themed smilies again, I'd really like our communities feedback on this one. =P



Should we go in this direction with smilies, after I change the faces' color to yellow? Or should we try something else?

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