One of the most impressive cinematic pieces I've ever heard to be sure. Really dark, really intense, and just epic, awesome work!

I like your work and welcome to NG. Don't worry you will get better and better. Follow what samulis wrote as well as your instincts and listen to a lot of music here on NG from good composers. Best of luck.

Hey there! Welcome to Newgrounds. :)

I like your work with the tone of the music here. However, there are a good number of things that you might want to look into.

First with the strings- you really need some more reverb or something to make those clear. Also consider having this repeated an octave up/down, as is sometimes found in traditional string writing. You really don't have much of a bassline in this. Here's a chance to have some marcato/staccato contrabass/doublebass lines going on under all of it, perhaps in a pattern like "quarter-quarter-quarter-triplet" on the root note of each chord or so.

The next thing is that there isn't much of a melody persay... something rising up over the rest. Here violins in octaves would work, or horns, or anything really, but a melody is very important to having a continuity in your song. You should look at the works of some other cinematic composers here on Newgrounds such as Bosa and Emid... both are superb and write pieces that have good solid melodies that rise out above the rest.

You should really try using more orchestral percussion in the mix too, in addition to the tribal stuff going on. All these taiko drums and tribal percussion are used so much in film music, but adding back a nice big gong (since you have EWQL SO, try the 60" gong... should be the first one, and then a F... it is a nice hit that gives a good roar without too much accent) or some timpani or crash cymbals.

A tip for low brass orchestration... they sound best in octaves when in their lower end- tuba/bass t-bone then tenor trombone up an octave from that with whatever other fixings and notes you want above that. Always gives a good bassline. This piece kinda reminds me of my work for Art of War...
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/liste n/499662
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/liste n/499663

You might recognize the brass samples from that. ;)

Biggest tip with cinematic- never be afraid to step outside the mold and the usual!

Keep compos(ed/ing)!
-Samulis

Awesome! I can totally see this in a film!
I'm really digging your music, keep up the good work :)