Old school, kind of thing people were making 3 years ago. Border needs to be destroyed, it's out of style and just doesn't work anymore. the black over the render needs fading out a bit, + you need a light source with some form of shadow to try to get some depth in there.
Easy border tut ; Don't do them. Borders themselves are out of style now, I occassionally do "Movie" style borders which you won't notice on GRs background either way. If you have to do a border (And don't advise it), 1px black.
V2 is an improvement aye. Think the background needs sharpening, and the bright patches on the far left/right need shifting as they don't really fit, remove them and try get a light source to the top-right of Mario. Then darken the far left/right.
