Looking for Layout Design reviews

[Tsaharu]

Alright, so I've designed a few proboards layouts, but I would like some ideas, ^^

The first one that I designed completely: Falling Fangs This site belongs to a friend of mine, but I volunteered to code the layout and create the skins, etc. for them.

The second one is uncompleted and is fully mine. Misted Reality It's currently in maintenance mode, as it's not completed. As you can see, it's missing its header and footer, and I aim to fix up the background so that you can't visibly see the repeats in it, ^^ It will take quite a bit of work, but I'm working on it, ^^

Anyhow, what I'm looking for are tips. These are the first sites I've completely coded on my own without help from others, so I'm looking for codes I could try, ways I could make the layouts look better, etc. I know they have the same basic layout code, although I'm aiming to switch Misted Reality's layout format once a month or so once I get the hang of switching things up, ^^

I'm also looking for tips on photo manipulation. I use paint.net for all of my manipulation skins, but I've found using three or more images in a skin makes it hard to have them all blend together... Misted Reality's current skin should be able to blend a bit better, once I actually finish the skin for it, but FF's skin is kinda... wacky? I love the background and the current header and footer (since those are the best works I've done since starting manipulations) but I think I need a bit of help, ^^;

Please feel free to give me critics, ideas, tips, etc. I don't care if you're harsh in your critics, as long as you have points to them, ^^ What I don't want you to do, though, is completely code the layouts for me. I want to fix them myself, but I need a bit of help pinpointing the exact areas to work on.
~Kat/Tsaharu/Arkina/Lokiva/etc.

[Dove]

I'm not a big coder or anything, but can I just say, your Misted Reality is AMAZING. I would totally put that on my website, as it is now! It was really good!

PS Your plot is really interesting too. Everything with that and your skin flows really nice. ;D

[Tsaharu]

Thank you! The skin isn't nearly done on MR yet though, ^^; I still have to finish the header and footer, and I have a few small things that I think I still have to finish on that, ^^;

But thank you! My art computer isn't currently working... so I'm trying to finish all the boards and posts while I try and fix it, ^^

[Stinky666]

For both, I'd suggest making the backgrounds seamless.
You can see where the edges of the images are currently. The transition between the edges are very obvious.
I'm pretty sure Photoshop (if that's what you use) would have a seamless option. I know that PSP does and it's very simple to use, so I'm confident PS would too.

Edit:
Or of course a better solution would be to find a larger resolution image for both and have it as a fixed background (done with coding).