I have several contentions with what was done in my absence xP. Your’e the owner so it’s up to you to decide how you want the site to look, but the following is my opinion.
The original mockup plan was themed to be a modern, glassy, glossy skin. That's why both navigation bars look the way they do, why the logo looks the same, why the forum icons look that way, and why the layered glass effect was being used throughout the test site. This is also why the glossy 2D renders were a viable option over the 3D ones.
Changing the background tiles to brown and the removal of a lot of the layered glass - in my opinion- goes against the core theme of the skin. It drastically changes the direction we're taking this. And I feel, if you wanted a grungy feel to the whole thing, there were a whole host of other things we could have done. Of course, they can be done now, but it would take scrapping most of everything and "re-imagining" the skin.
There is also extensive usage of box-shadow that I think looks meh on the color it's on. Black shadow on white add little depth, and gives the theme a very blurry look, this is especially the case if no outline is used. Moreover, if you're going for a dent/hole effect, the gradient (from top to bottom) should go dark to light. On the other hand, a protruding object looks better with a gradient going from light to dark. Again I stress, this is all my opinion.
I'm going to need a quick briefing on how you envision TSC to look like so I can continue working on the test site. I would further recommend choosing either a modern look, or a grungy look, not both simultaneously.
The original mockup plan was themed to be a modern, glassy, glossy skin. That's why both navigation bars look the way they do, why the logo looks the same, why the forum icons look that way, and why the layered glass effect was being used throughout the test site. This is also why the glossy 2D renders were a viable option over the 3D ones.
Changing the background tiles to brown and the removal of a lot of the layered glass - in my opinion- goes against the core theme of the skin. It drastically changes the direction we're taking this. And I feel, if you wanted a grungy feel to the whole thing, there were a whole host of other things we could have done. Of course, they can be done now, but it would take scrapping most of everything and "re-imagining" the skin.
There is also extensive usage of box-shadow that I think looks meh on the color it's on. Black shadow on white add little depth, and gives the theme a very blurry look, this is especially the case if no outline is used. Moreover, if you're going for a dent/hole effect, the gradient (from top to bottom) should go dark to light. On the other hand, a protruding object looks better with a gradient going from light to dark. Again I stress, this is all my opinion.
I'm going to need a quick briefing on how you envision TSC to look like so I can continue working on the test site. I would further recommend choosing either a modern look, or a grungy look, not both simultaneously.
