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It's a good start. I would, however, suggest that since the forum and portal aren't a fixed width that you setup the banner to be capable of expanding in width to the left or the right. Take for example a forum skin for NHQ, say Brown. The copper tubes in the middle of the banner are capable of repeating on the X axis.

Designing the banner to be capable of doing this would be a huge plus, in my opinion, because then it would bring the body and the banner of the page together more seamlessly. With the way it is designed now, you have two huge gaps of empty space on both the left and right sides of the banner. It throws the whole site off.