SouSTAR 2025-01-04 08:29:36

It is not possible to have 5.00/5.00 on a anything really, there will be always someone who will rate in half a star or something

Don't put take these ratings too personally. People tastes vary, some don't want to see watermarks, some don't mind it (which seem to be the majority) so really, it's nothing :)

But yeah, rating less because of a watermark, unless it cover and practically cover the whole drawing, is a bit... Yeah

Your art is beautiful btw! :D

Robman275 2025-01-04 09:04:21

There's no set criteria, it's just a personal thing what people decide to give. Like the previous comment says, you will never get 5/5 because anyone could give you any rating for whatever reason they choose. Newgrounds is one of the last remaining media creation sites that is completely human driven, with no algorithm, so 5/5 is all but impossible.

Watermarks are a good way to protect your work so you shouldn't stop doing it just because you don't get 5/5. Your watermarks aren't obnoxious and don't detract from your work. You are trying to protect your IP, which is perfectly understandable and if someone marks you down for it, well like the other commentor says don't take it personally.

I've been on NG since 2006, trust me when I say your art is getting views, favorites and high ratings so you are doing well! I'd say views, being frontpaged and any awards/recognition matters more than ratings anyway, so keep promoting your stuff and getting your name out there!

Keep up the good work 😀

kmau 2025-01-04 09:54:50

Many users tend to deduct 0,5 - 1 points for minor things they disagree with, that's just how it goes! Some just don't care for art protection and that's alright, it reflects the current reality we live in.
In the end this is more honest than having a polarizing like/dislike system, anything above 4,4 is pretty much a perfect score in my book.

Edit: Don't let the overexplaining here get to you, it's really not worth it to stress over weird voting decisions of a few individuals.

Wegra 2025-01-04 10:03:02

Pretty simple really

5 is Perfect. Pretty much flawless

4 is Great

3 is Good

2 is eh

1 is shit

ChronoNG 2025-01-04 10:19:41

I'd say don't take people's judgment to heart, some people have different tastes and they have different things they like and dislike. It's their opinion at the end of the day and you can't control how others view your art or some of your descisions with your art, which is why you should just have fun with your art instead of constantly feeling like pleasing an audience. Also, don't worry about not getting a perfect rating, the 5 star system is meant to be an average of all ratings, it's not decided by Johnathan Newgrounds himself or something, it's just meant to be an average score of your work based on everyone's score, and plus, usually if you have a 3.5-5 star rating that means a majority may have rated it 4 or 5 stars usually. I do 100% agree that it's unfair to dock points for a watermark though, but you should just ignore those people cause they obviously have never actually dealt with art theft before.

OnixDark 2025-01-04 12:10:29

i made a post explaining this in the help forums the other day. a TL;Dr of what i said is that people sometimes subtract a star or 2 for arbitrary reasons: they didn't like the license you chose for not allowing derivative works, your watermark/signature breaks immersion, etc.
sometimes people also subtract stars because of technical flaws normal people are too dumb to detect: your perspective is off by ~15°, your shadows have the same hue as the base color and/or are in places that don't match the light source position, etc.
full thread, if you're interested: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1536345#bbspost27911291_post_text

there's no rule against watermarking your works to protect them from theft, but there are ways to watermark your piece without polluting it. a strategically placed discrete watermark can also help expose an art thief if they fail to see it (specially if they know how to remove it with AI). someone among their followers WILL notice and point it out. for example, in this piece of yours:
https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/supnovagy/halloween-pikmin
the signatures look good on 4 of the pikmins, but the purple cupcake one would look better if the signature was placed on the candy warp to look like part of the piece instead of some text slapped on top (that's a great font for candy warp). and the text slapped on the top right would have looked better on the top left, where there's some void to fill and there would've been less overlap with the character underneath, not to mention it would be more readable for someone who stumbled across your piece and for whatever reason didn't have an easy way to reach your gallery (such as seeing it on someone else's machine's screen).

like others already said though, it's best to not worry too much about the ratings. or better yet, think of them as percentages instead of stars (1 star = 20%, 2.5 stars = 50%, 4 stars = 80%). a 4 star rated piece is rated 8/10, that's a pretty high and good score.

OnixDark 2025-01-05 11:30:28

@SupNovaGY when you upload art, there's a checkbox that says "this is not a sketch". just pay attention to it when you upload sketches and doodles and you should be fine. also take a look at the other checkboxes present under the area where you add tags and check/uncheck them accordingly.

alternativelly, you can go to the art forum and create an art thread to dump your sketches in (though brace yourself for criticism. i advise you to add a link to your gallery in the thread).
somebody else who asked about art thread in the forums, if you're curious or have further questions: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1436942