Eorzea's Neo Talent Management
Parent category for all news pertaining to cycles past and present.
Hello everyone and we are now on week three of the third Scenic Cycle! This week the theme was “Starry Night” and we have five gorgeous shots submitted by our photographers. Please enjoy these amazing night time scenes and enjoy some tranquility under the stars.
Our photographers submitted six great shots this week, taking us down pipes inside factories and out into the open prairies along a winding road. This week’s winner took us up the down staircase, edging out a win by just one point.
Congratulations to Schan Starfall for Traveling up the Stairway! The judges appreciated the interplay of light and shadow and the inclusion of the clockwork cogs and waterfalls that beckon you to explore this delightful area further.
Happy weekend, everyone! It’s time for Round 2 of Scenic Cycle III! For this week, I asked our photographers to snap a shot on the theme of “Traveling.” They had to use Echo filter in Gpose, but there were no other restrictions, so our photographers had a wide field to play with for this shot.
Here are this week’s entries!
Happy Wednesday everyone! Our third Scenic Cycle is starting out with the usual judges disagreement and the voting was SO SO CLOSE. So close, in fact, that we are starting out this first round with an actual three way tie.
Congratulations to Simwell Waverider for “As Wisteria Blooms,” Schan Starfall for “Fancy Wedding Venue,” and Lucifer Mourningstar for “Look Gently and Smile Upon Me.”
To all the entries this round: Don’t worry, I’m gonna drag my waifu to every location in the game for screenshots for our vow renewal ceremony!
Welcome to the first round of Scenic Cycle III! July 30th is my wedding anniversary, and that served as the inspiration for this round. After all, in the real world, photographers are expected to take wedding photos as their bread and butter.
For this round, we asked the photographers to take a photo anywhere in the game world that wasn’t in Sanctum of the Twelve, using the Eternal Bonding frame. Each entry provided is a lovely example of a place in the game world that future couples might consider if they want something different from the stock cutscenes from the in game wedding!
Note that because Scenic Cycle is anonymously judged, we do not have community voting. However, we have our public critiques channel on Discord if you want to say something nice about any of the shots directly to the secret photographers! Critiques will also be provided by our judges for each shot each week.
Click on the center of each image to view it in more detail. Use your browser’s back button to return to this page.
We have six photographers for Scenic Cycle III. Because this cycle is judged anonymously, this will be the only post where we have each of the shots listed with the names of the photographers in the captions!
Their first shots will be coming this weekend, but in the meantime, here are their audition portfolio shots! Click on an image to view it in a larger size. Use your browser’s back button to come back to this page.
We’ll be meeting our photographers tomorrow, but for today we’re going to talk about our judges, who will be graciously providing feedback to our contestants each week.
Odharnait “Ona” Greene – Previous judge, host of Scenic Cycle II and most recently Fresh Faces, failed model, Challenge Winner of 2018, poet, mom friend, and avid drunk, Ona has agreed to give loving tribute to the shots each week this cycle. Welcome back Ona!
Elessia Sedai – Fat Cat Chronicles veteran and most recently Ona’s partner in crime, as well as our Challenge Winner of 2019, Elessia started out as a community judge and is now one of our MVPs on the judging and hosting team. Welcome back, Elessia!
Ni’ko Shae – Host of Runway Cycle, and winner of Classic Cycle 11, Ni’ko is temporarily back from a nice vacation in PSO2 to give the photographers some flowery feedback and prolific puns every week. Welcome back, Ni’ko!
And introducing our newest community judge, Reese Direson – A participant in Fresh Faces Cycle 2, Reese is joining us as a judge to bring us a fresh perspective to Scenic Cycle III as well. Reese has worked on set design and fabrication out in the offline world, and we’re excited to see what advice and thoughts he will bring to the table!
Katarh Mest – Your host! ENTM veteran, and winner of Runway Cycle 1, Katarh started out as a community judge in 2014 thanks to her penchant for glamour design, and became the co-manager of ENTM with Kai Ulric in 2017. Now she manages the website, in addition to hosting cycles and judging.
Scenic Cycle is our unique, anonymously judged landscape photography cycle. Unlike our model focused classic cycles, Scenic Cycle hides your characters behind the lens of the Gpose camera and challenges you to put your background and compositional skills to the test instead.
The deadline for photographer and judge submissions is July 24th.
The contest is scheduled to run from July 30th to September 3rd.
Scenic cycle is a smaller, more intimate challenge with no community judging, since all our shots are submitted under a veil of secrecy. The anonymous submission each week allows our judges to weigh each screenshot wholly on its own merits, without any fear of possible bias.
Scenic Cycle is open to ENTM veterans and newcomers alike. You do not have to have entered any other ENTM cycle before to participate. You do, however, have to commit to at least six new unique screenshots created for this contest during late July through August 2021. It is also strongly recommended that you be at least level 70 with access to the Shadowbringers zones, although it is not a hard requirement for the contest. (Just saying – your competitors might accidentally spoil you if you’re not careful.)
A maximum of 12 contestants will be accepted.
Each week, a shot will be shared to the public and judges will release their critiques as well. The judges will rank each shot, and a winner will be announced for that week. At the end of the cycle, all the weekly rankings will be tallied, and a winner announced. Only after the judges have voted will the name of the photographer be matched to each shot.
To audition for Scenic Cycle III: Please send Admin Katarh Mest a portfolio (via a Discord DM) with the following:
* Your character name * Your server and data center * Audition Screenshot: A Gpose screenshot that is taken while flying using the Picture Frame border. (Not the Instant Camera frame, or any of the ornamental frames. Only Picture Frame!) This screenshot can be in any weather, at any time of day, in any zone where flying is allowed. The Square Enix copyright information must be visible on your shot. No Reshade or Gshade allowed: the challenge of ENTM is to use only in game tools to produce a beautiful photograph. Other than the requirement of the Picture Frame, you can also use any other effects or filters you want for this audition shot. Send me the prettiest picture you can!
Please >>>click right here<<<< to join the ENTM Discord community if you have not done so already!
In addition to our photographers, we would like to have a panel of 3-4 judges. The responsibility of the judges are to review the shots each week, rank them, and write up a brief critique sharing your thoughts on the technical and artistic composition of the photograph submission. Like our photographers, this is a six week commitment, but the way our schedule works judges usually have a full weekend to review and critique their shots! Depending on how many photographers we have, critiques may be split into groupings to avoid too much work for each judge.
To apply to be a judge, you must have at least one of the following qualifications:
To apply to be a judge, please send a DM to Admin Katarh Mest with your character name, your server, and your qualification! New judges are always welcome to give us a fresh perspective.
Fresh Faces 2 has come to a close and our weekly winners have been able to stun our judges with their amazing shots.
Though we lost Portia to IRL needs partway through, we kept 9 amazing models right through the final!
I kept reminding the models that we have had models who never win a round take the whole competition, and this I think helped the models keep focused on their weekly challenges. We had six weeks with unique challenges presented to the models, and six weeks of shots highlighting the unique personalities of the models.
The winners each week were as follows:
So now it is time to officially crown the winner of the 2nd installment of Fresh Faces 2 – 2021 Edition.
Now where did I put the crown… Looks around for the crown… Here it is!
With placement in the top three five out of six weeks, and a first place win, this model proved that she has what it takes to wear this badge of honor, the elusive S-Rank tag, the most coveted golden name in all of Eorzea’s Neo Talent Management Discord.
Please make way for the new S-Rank Model….
Amalie Greene!
A special shout out to my judges:
Kat, Escher, Yomu, and Forth…
And an extra special shout out to my co-mentor Elessia for being the one person I could squee about shots to …
Now come join us over at ENTM’s Discord for the next cycle! I forget what it is, but it’s probably Ni’ko’s turn to host.
https://discord.com/channels/285270099487621121/285270099487621121
Until next cycle –
Holy Moly! What a competition! I am usually trusted to complete the scenic cycle because I can be super creative with the themes, so when Kat and Kai gave me the go-ahead to host Fresh Faces 2—- well, I got a little excited! But my amazing models worked with me and produced some fantastic images which frequently caused my judges to go “ugh Ona, they all did so well!”.
But with all competitions a winner was announced each week.
And like all other weeks, this week a model danced her way to a win, and with that epic studio setup, well it’s no wonder she was let into the weekly winner’s circle for a second time this competition!
So without further delay, CONGRATULATIONS to
KILLIA!
I don’t really have words to express how epic this shot was, but it wowed the judges and landed you first place! Ona just wants to know if that was a shower in the foreground…. or did you have a friend manipulate some fancy skill to get that look?!?
Up next, the winner of the entire competition will be announced, and that elusive Golden S-Rank Title will be awarded…. I still don’t have one of those, but looking back at this competitions shots, I don’t want to go up against any of these models!