I suppose this is nothing new - I imagine people have been talking about this repeatedly on the Forums. But then again, the more people address critique, the better we'd be.

Someone said some important things about it, and I guess it'll be nice to see how many people have had critique in these many styles.

Constructive Criticism
The kind of critique that brings both the positive and negative - some do it in a sandwich (positive-negative-positive), but some do it half-and-half (positive-negative). This is the kind of critique that most people want, although they don't always get it. Shall I say they don't often get it?

Destructive Criticism
Objectively speaking, this is a form of criticism which dismisses a piece of artwork as junk and doesn't substantiate why.

Some people (and I'm afraid I have to say this) - of the thinner-skinned variety - would assume that destructive criticism is either one of these two things: 1) critique that focuses on the flaws, or 2) critique that doesn't offer advice. Even thinner-skinned varieties think that constructive criticism is destructive to them. One can only shake his head in sorrow, send him off with a polite message and bid him farewell, perhaps? : (

Sucking up to others
Spot something where someone is giving a piece of work seemingly endless praise without stating why or what in particular has moved him? Spot something that suggests that "one's work is the best thing since sliced bread"? I smell an oxymoronic critic. Or rather, a rat.

NB: Bear in mind that it is always best to see the spirit behind the person's criticism or response. Just going through a rigid formula of what makes criticism constructive might just not help the situation at all. It could be that someone you know has good intentions of making your piece better, but just doesn't have a way with words - he'd say, "This is utter crap". Whether critique be in text or in real life, it is hard to see the person's intentions unless you know from what point of view he's speaking. Trust all the seasoned users on Newgrounds. We've been there.

Rating Reviews
There are the reviews which will be deemed as 'useful', 'useless' or 'deleteworthy'. Axman13's celebrated review "Dot, Dot, Dot" was popularly deemed to be deleteworthy, though some people might call it a waste because people didn't see that little bit of constructive criticism.

And this is where question time comes in!

I'd like to know -

1) What constitutes constructive criticism in your opinion?
2) What would make you rate a review as 'useful', 'useless' or 'deleteworthy'?
3) How do you generally respond to reviews?
4) If there's a review you don't like, how do you tackle it?

Happy New Year 2012, everyone!

Some beautiful things are coming up, and even beta soundtrack listeners are quite happy about them. That is all for now.

It's the final week of Advent, leading up to Christmas, and I am quite anticipating the day! :D I haven't cared enough about shopping, décor and the like - all I got was tinsel and table confetti for the house and crackers for the housemates, but other than that, nada. I'm looking forward, more than anything, to midnight Mass, the actual joy behind Christmas, sharing that joy with my friends, and my trip to Stonyhurst College three days after Christmas. I'll have every reason to rejoice over the next week.

I haven't submitted anything to Newgrounds or even YouTube over this month due to 1) coursework, 2) Merlyne (Christo), Mark212 (Mark) and I recording the music video for lyrical Arise Once More, 3) the fact that I have been working on a bit of OST and artwork for Project Chaplaincy.

I've released a few 45-minute samples onto Newgrounds. There are seven in total, and they can be found here -

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen /461846

The full OST is going to have 20 tracks, and well, this is what I'm able to preview for now. Feedback will be much appreciated!

Also, before I sign out, I include a thumbnail I made of four characters in Project Chaplaincy. The one in yellow is Fr Marcus Cohen, and the other three are unnamed for now. All of them began as oekakis, but I edited them just because I wanted to give them some sheen.

Alright, bye for now.

I'm also aware that I might not be writing anything on Christmas Day, so... have a happy and blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Happy birthday Mark212! ^_^ We at Kingdom of Herts love you! <3

* * *

Some time ago, I introduced a project that Mark212, Merlyne and I are working on: a bullet hell shooter game. The project title, as you might have seen a few posts ago, is Project Chaplaincy.

I'm updating to let all of you know the progress of this project.

All three of us are contributing to the story. I'm doing the OST and artwork. Mark212 is doing the programming, and all three of us (and possibly more?) are going to do voiceovers. Some projects can run concurrently.

Three cutscene images are finished (out of sixteen, maybe slightly more.)
As for the OST, the full thing has 20 tracks; I have finished 12.
The background images have been assembled, pretty much. Some may need to be made tileable, but well...

Once these are done, I'll have to design enemies (I may need Mark's help for this), and Mark must then get on to designing bullet patterns. Then once all this is done, we may be very well out of alpha!

I know my artwork is nothing much, but here is one piece of concept art that I shall release. You may see this picture in the final work, who knows?

That's it for now. I'll update when more things happen.

Toodles! x

Hey guys. TroisNyxEtienne [say trwa-nix-eh-tien] here. Alternatively, you may call me TNE.

After having submitted my track for the Newgrounds CD project and after having contributed a T-shirt design, I do realise that it's awfully late, and we have about 1 hour and 15 minutes before the results are announced.

I place it all in the good Lord's hands right now - whatever the outcome was, whether or not the track got in, I resign myself. I'm aware that by the time the results are announced, I'll be fast asleep, and I'll be checking those results at 9:00-ish across the pond (which is 4-something in the morning for you guys). I can say this for sure - making the track was fun, and not solely fun: it was something I looked forward to, and doing this with the help and support of my friends from the university, from the chaplaincy and from Kingdom of Herts has been wonderful. That song stretched me to the limit, at least at the time I wrote it.

I remember how, when in the midst of completing the music on FL Studio 10, my PC had this awful overheating problem (dusty hardware -___-), and I had to rely on my friend's PC instead... I was glad when I got mine back, though it took me a week and some £45 to get it sorted! Then came the point where we had to find a place to record the voices. We started in one of the group study rooms in the library. Then when we realised how bothersome it was to us and to others, we proceeded to Merlyne's room, where I did the rest of the vocals for the song.

Now, I listen to it and I feel it's a mixed bag. But I guess people who are either self-critical, or want to constantly improve themselves, may feel the same way. May. I'm not saying they will. There's always the possibility is all. I can't say I'm self-critical, but in hindsight, whatever I do now seems to be better than whatever I first did. Although this isn't always the case.

My song is the song of Kingdom of Herts. Our song is called Juventud.

It's almost time for me to lay me down to sleep. If anyone should come across that track at all (in any manner possible), please, do be so kind to let me know.

I bid all of you cheerio and goodnight.
May the best men in the NG CD project win!

UPDATE 12.11.2011 1:36 GMT : I did not get into the final Newgrounds CD project, but I'm glad I at least tried. I'm glad Christo, Mark and I at least tried.

This is a shout to DaMPCer50210, Levus, Flaminglog, SuperDragonMasters and Buckyboy.

All of us handle Mario Paint Composer 2.0 (or its derivatives) with different skill levels, and we're part of a commune known as the Mario Paint Hangout.

I was introduced to the Hangout after winning my first Original Composition Contest early this year, and from time to time I've kept track of their submissions. Of all of us, I'm the least skilled in Mario Paint Composer 2.0, but I get away with (and without being prideful) musical competence. BuckyBoy, SuperDragonMasters and Loggy have both skill on MPC and musical competence. DaMPCer... well, I'm yet to see his original works, but he's G-majored several very good works from others. Much to our delight.

I know it's been a while since I spoke to you guys, but I'm glad to see you on Newgrounds.

Granted, one of the songs has been submitted for the Newgrounds CD project. But anyway.

Some time before this, I announced that Merlyne, Mark212 and I banded together to form a music group known as Kingdom of Herts. The two of them have not submitted much to NG (Mark has done one solo Flash project so far), but it doesn't matter - ultimately, our project is going to be 75% outside NG. I say 75% because if I were to reveal the contents of the album, you might recognise two songs, and a third might be recognisable by users who submitted their content to the Newgrounds CD.

The album title has been confirmed: 'A Story Told in Songs of Faith'.

At this point, two songs are being worked on and three are complete. I feel as excited about the whole album project as Mark and Merlyne do.

We've decided to have all net profits from the release of the album go to a charity of our choice. Which one it is, I'm not yet sure.

I'm also aware that our genre of music (which is semi-liturgical) may not sit too well with everyone. I took the plunge and decided we should do it anyway. ^_- If you're into stuff which is liturgical, or reminiscent of praise and worship, and you'd like to anticipate the release of that album, I welcome your feedback.

It's a bit of trouble I've been having on Newgrounds since the first time I uploaded audio.

No matter how untransparent the GIF is (yes, even when the BG is all black with no layers, nothing), whenever I try to put a 46x46 GIF as an album image thing for any song of mine, it keeps on failing with this message:

Error: The GIF you used is transparent.

This picture below is one of the pictures I used in an attempt to get my songs to have a thumbnail image to them. Does that even look transparent to you?

Merlyne, Mark212 and I have started a music group together, and we've decided to call ourselves Kingdom of Herts.

(Herts is pronounced 'hearts', because the 'Hert' in 'Hertfordshire' is pronounced just like 'heart'.)

So the three of us have been working behind the screen for the big surprise *hint hint*. If it doesn't get released on Newgrounds, rest assured, we'd release it elsewhere.

I'm getting caught up with coursework too, and that is delaying my music production by quite a bit.

So here I am, just checking in, and moseying along once I have checked in.

This came to me as a rather pleasant surprise.

The beginning of Arise Once More...
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen /439289

...was used in a film which landed Daily Fifth Prize, known as Let's Creep!
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
580718

My thanks go to DingoWalleyStudio for featuring my work, even if in part! I'm really honoured! This is my first ever Flash feature (chronologically speaking), and I'm glad and grateful that my audio is going somewhere.

On a related note, I must make things clear about the usage of my songs. I'll be more than willing to have my work featured in E- and T-rated submissions, but not beyond that (unless the Flash creators e-mail me about the purpose of their work). Personally speaking, I would not like my work to be associated with anything utterly subversive. Things like Let's Creep!, on the other hand, have come to me as a pleasant surprise not only because of the rating, but also because of the content, message and delivery of the Flash work itself.

Completely unrelated side note: I have an album idea at this time, as well as a special submission to finish for all of you on Newgrounds. I have two weeks to finish this special thing. What it is, I shall not tell. Some of you might find out eventually, but I'm keeping it hidden from Newgrounds for now. Please, stay tuned, and enjoy the music!

Also, I would love to thank everyone who's reviewed my works in recent times, particularly from the Review Request Club. ^_^