Ms Sharra
Oh I see. Well, I thought it was allowed as long as you get the artist permission for the bases. Usually they just tell us to give them credit for the bases and they will be fine.
Ok I will make sure to put those changes into the shop. Oh and I meant by, "Legit" is what will bring in customers more.
Well firstly do you have their express written permission allowing you to use it? And do you follow all conditions they have laid down to allow you to use it? No permission (or can't contact artist) = don't use. That's the rule.
By the way if the base artist traced the base from a picture they didn't own then they're idiots.
That's my little segment on base permissions.
Now personally I prefer the second one. The text in the first one is splashed all over the place as well as light coloured and it feels as if my eyes are drawn everywhere except where I should be looking. In the second shop the alignment is uniform and the colours are obviously coordinated. It's so much nicer to look at. However I agree with Ms. Aurelias; for the somewhat visually impaired the text could be a teeny bit hard to read, but small text seems to be fashionable as of late.
This thread is very good for telling you the do's and don'ts of art shop creation and you can see if your thread is 'legit' there.
Really though, people are only there for art. There can be the most beautiful shop but if the drawings are fugly nobody is going to buy.
I would also advise that you make your samples as prominent as possible for the above reason. Often I browse art shops only to fly straight past the samples, reach the bottom of the page and then have to backpedal through the thread. Your post in the second shop is pretty big, whereas in the first shop I almost completely missed them. Perhaps you could make thumbnails of your sample art or make bigger clicky-things so that people notice them and then don't have to play sharpshooter to look at them. But if you're going to hang on to the second shop then there's no real need for change.
Good luck ^~^