First and foremost, WOW! I admit to having no knowledge of CSS or coding, but this is exactly what I want to see when I'm looking for journal codes/skins: dark with smatterings of color here and there; clean design with a modern, 3D look; and a new take on an overly-abused theme. *KovoWolf has brought it all together here with this CSS design.

The gradient of greys with black borders is very easy on the eyes. It's perfect for people whose eyes are light-sensitive in addition to being aesthetically pleasing. The pale blue text and the blues in the title text stand out against the background without creating too much contrast, and the little smatterings of lime green are a nice, attention-grabbing touch.

Wolves are extremely popular on dA, which should take away from the originality of the design, but *KovoWolf's take on that theme is different. It's hinted, not plastered everywhere. That, I think, helps maintain the design's simple, clean look, and it becomes a little for versatile for those who might not necessarily like wolves, but have and/or love domestic dogs.

Overall, this is a fantastic design. It's very well done, and I look forward to seeing it available as a CSS code or as a journal skin.

"Wow" would be my first response. I'm having a hard time figuring out where to start, lol.

I love the gradients; that and the way you've used shadows gives the design a real 3D feel that makes it stand out in both senses of the phrase. The header is quite simple in design, but it gives the focus to the content while still having great impact, and it looks lovely.

I would suggest centering the blockquote just to give it symmetry. I realise the rest doesn't technically have symmetry but it still looks smooth and centred and then the blockquote has unequal width with more padding on the right than on the left. For the same reason, I'd probably right-align the credit text in the footer, so it's exactly opposite to the mood list.

Now, the title text (Featured Artist, Journal Title, etc)... I feel like it doesn't fit, somehow, and would suggest sticking with Verdana, or maybe Arial Black or something like that. I do like the gradient effect and the darker border to make sure it stands out. I also like the splash of colour against the dark design, but the blue doesn't seem to quite match the header and that detracts from the overall design for me.

Speaking from a coder's perspective, you may actually have trouble with the Journal Title, as it's not possible (as far as I'm aware) to replace that with an image (like, you can make an image that says "featured artist" for use in the other headers, but you can't do that with journal titles because they're dynamic). I would consider plain text there instead, and plain text with CSS effects in any of the titles would give users more options (eg. if I wanted a title to say "Featured Dog", for instance, I'd only have that option if they were text headers (bizarre example, but I hope it makes sense...)).

I love the idea of having the avatar tabs like that, it really makes the design stand out. The icons are all really lovely, too, although I think I would have stuck to one colour against the black/charcoal base. A preference for monochromatic and complementary palettes may be a subjective thing, but to me the navigation strip with the icons at the top just seems a little unbalanced with the green and the blue-white.

That said, I really do love the +fav button and would leave that exactly as it is. As a browser, I really like the option of faving a piece directly from a feature. However, from an artist's perspective worrying about people fav+running without even visiting the artist themselves, so I'd suggest only linking to the piece rather than using the +fav link itself.

It's a gorgeous design overall, and I'm very interested in using it when it's released. Really good work (and perfect choice for the featured thumbnail, it really helps to show off the design there).