Eorzea's Neo Talent Management
Parent category for all news pertaining to cycles past and present.
This week was our throwback fashion style swimsuit competition, a round first done on the OG Cycle 1 on the official FF forums. (Long before Gpose so they couldn’t be vertical, though.)
The judges and community had a much harder time this week since everyone was so gorgeous, but Val Viscera squeaked out a win by a single point against everyone else in the end. Congrats for a second week in a row!
Welcome back for our second week of the summer Classic Cycle of ENTM! This week is traditionally a “runway style” week focusing on the fashion, and we hearkened back to the original Forum Cycle 1 for inspiration with a swimsuit competition. (I don’t know about you, but someone definitely turned the heat on in the last week where I live.)
Our models were asked to take a vertical shot of their character, but otherwise they were free to choose the location and mood for their scene (and of course strike a pose.)
Each of the images is displayed below. Click on the center of the image to view it in a larger size, then use your browser’s back button to return to this blog post. After viewing each image, please vote in the Google poll below. Community voting will be open until midnight ET on Tuesday, July 4th, 2023.
If you are having trouble voting in the embedded poll, please click on this link to open it in a new tab instead: https://forms.gle/ZmRK3AUwFHPRvVJ57
Last week I asked our models to go take a scenic photo on an island, any island out there in Eorzea and beyond. Our models gave us some wonderful shots, but both the community and the judges agreed that Val Viscera had the loveliest island vista of them all for this round. Judges praised the choice of glam and pose, as well as the overall composition of this shot. It certainly makes me want to find a nice tropical island in the sun (or at least join Ona for drinks on the beach.)
Congratulations! We have five more weeks of beautiful screenshots to go, though, and it’s still anyone’s game!
Greetings everyone, and welcome to Classic Cycle 14 of ENTM! We have six weeks of screenshots coming your way, and as always with our Classic Cycle style voting, we need the input from the community to help decide the winners each week!
The theme for round one was Island Sanctuary and this was intended to be a “scenic style” shot displaying the character against a pretty background. The only other rule was that this had to be taken on an island somewhere in the game (not necessarily the island sanctuary itself.) Other than that, our models were free to interpret the theme however they wished.
We had seven models submit their shots this week for your viewing pleasure! To view an image in full size, please click on the center of the image, and then use your browser’s back button to return to this blog post. After looking at each image, vote using the Google poll that is embedded below.
Email addresses are not collected but are required to avoid ballot stuffing. If you are having issues voting in the Google Poll embedded above, you can click here to open the link in another tab instead: https://forms.gle/5T7pjeRnHarchuQ79
We have two veteran judges and one new community judge for a fresh perspective for this cycle.
Odharnait Greene – Pronounced “Ona” (it’s a Celtic name) – Initially a model in the Classic TUMBLR Cycle, Instagram Cycle 2, and All-Stars, Ona has been a part of ENTM for several years acting as a part-time admin/judge/Elessia’s co-mentor/host/Bard-only/village crazy lady/local drunk. Though she has never won an official cycle, she is always happy to cheer on the models and provide advice on how to win a cycle. Classic “do as I say, not as I do.” Ona looks forward to acting as a judge and bringing back her classic critique style which is 2/3 actual advice and 1/3 drunkenly telling the models how absolutely beautiful they are and possibly making inappropriate comments about how hot they are.
Married to her amazing Wife- Amalie Greene (Fresh Faces 2 Cycle S-Rank Winner), she is an IRL social worker and photographer.
Elessia Sedai – No stranger to judging for ENTM, Elessia started out as a guest judge; from there, she participated as a model in various cycles, including All-Stars. Elessia has mentored alongside Odharnait and judged a few cycles as well. She is the host of Renovation Cycle and loves housing almost as much as glamour. “Keep calm and blame the healer” is her favorite motto (she has been healing in XIV for what feels like forever) and is trying out White Mage this raid tier. IRL, Elessia loves to write and take pretty photographs.
Yvesoix Sellemontiere (Blix) – Blix is new to the Gpose scene, but is no stranger to art critique! In their spare time, they enjoy researching different techniques and styles to broaden their understanding of photography and art in general. They bring an impartial, quality focused view to the team. When they’re not hyperfocusing on what makes art art and other pointless philosophical questions, you can find them running their own venue, The Bloody Bastard Dive Bar (colloquially known as “Brume Bar”) and building an Ishgardian RP community centered around stories of Ishgard’s lower classes.
Katarh Mest has been a participant in ENTM since the old forum days, when she was a community judge for YouTube Cycle 2. She threw her hat into the race in Forum Cycle 5, where she was promptly eliminated. Undeterred, she kept entering, until she finally won her own S-Rank crown in the first Runway Cycle. She has been the ENTM webmaster since 2019 and together with Kai Ulric helps to herd the cats on the ENTM Discord channel. When not in Gpose, she can be found fishing, dabbling in endgame content, or grinding out relic weapons. IRL, Katarh is a business analyst for a small software team, and is married to a professor who doesn’t play MMOs but admires her enthusiasm anyway.
We have eight models competing in this cycle! Please look forward to six weeks of wonderful screenshots from these models.
Do you have what it takes to be Eorzea’s next S-Rank model?
It feels like 84 years since we ran a cycle, but with Patch 6.4 out and summertime giving us all a little bit more daylight and hopefully some breathing space, we’re going to give it a shot in celebration of 9 years of ENTM! That’s right, about this time in 2014 Rongi Pongi had the crazy idea to get a bunch of models on the official forums in swimsuits off the coast of Hullbreaker Island for what turned into a multi week screenshot contest, and the rest is history.
Classic Cycle 14 will be a 6 week contest, open to veterans and new models alike. Our models will be given all themes ahead of time, but asked to keep them a secret until the week the shot is scheduled. Judging is done two ways – juried by a panel of ENTM veterans and screenshot community celebrities, and also by a popular vote that’s open to all the friends, family, and fans of the models.
Classic Cycle 14 will run from June 23rd to August 1 with a winner announced by August 2nd, 2023.
We are in search of up to 5-10 models for this contest. To enter, you will need a Discord account. Send a direct message to admin Katarh (now literally just Katarh thanks to Discord’s weird renaming thing) and include the following information:
Auditions are open until June 16th! If we fail to meet the minimum of 5 models, the cycle will be postponed, so don’t be shy about auditioning. We love new models!
Please >>>click right here<<<< to join the ENTM Discord community if you have not done so already!
I am also looking for ideally 1-2 new judges to round out the panel of ENTM veterans. If you are a screenshot community member (with serious opinions about glams and gorgeous backgrounds), or you know someone who might be a good fit for a judge (because they have serious opinions about glams and gorgeous backgrounds) please send a DM to Katarh so I can talk to you or get in touch with them!
Well it’s the last post from your girl Ona.
We have had a wonderful journey thus far. We have had 6 unique rounds to build off for the future. I have learned some great things from this cycle, like how important it is to send reminders to everyone before the deadline and that time zones are a weird thing and your one judge could possibly be in the future…
But we also learned something about our models. Give them some strange concepts, such as the rounds in CopyCat and ask them to recreate them and they will go out and do just that.
While we lost two amazing models along the way, I am calling CopyCat a success!
Another really cool thing about ENTM’s cycles in general, is that they are really unpredictable when it comes to overall winners. You see, if each and every week our winner was the same, then a clear winner would be easily identified.
But that wasn’t the case this cycle.
Each week as I added the round’s numbers to the grand total sheet it would sway one direction or another. But when the final round was tallied and I looked at the point spread, there were only 1.1 points separating the top two models.
1.1 points. And that’s rounded. It was actually 1.08769841.
Regardless, the model who took our first place in this inaugural cycle has shown that they have what it takes to craft screenies with life and vigor and a level of consistency that earned them the edge on the 2nd place model.
So let’s not keep you waiting any longer….
Your winner is:
CHIBI BLU!
Welcome to the S-Rank Club my dear! (even though I still do not have the title myself) A cycle well shot!
Congratulations!!!
Please keep an eye out on the discord and here for our next round! I am not sure what is up next, but I know it will be exciting!
And as always,
Love from here.
– Ona
Doo de do do doot doot dee do
Well my models and friends. It’s been a journey. I wanted to try something new and hoped that you would enjoy it too. There are some specific areas I want to improve upon myself before I would run it again, but as a whole I do feel that the cycle went well. I enjoyed watching all the different takes on the themes, and seeing the models be so kind to each other! While I was sad to lose two models midway, we do still love them dearly and send our love and admiration to them!
But it wasn’t just about the models, I also want to thank my judges for being brilliant every week and giving critiques to each model. I’ve been a judge, it was a lot to ask of you all, and yet you still did it.
But without further adieu, our week 6 winner embodied their Zodiac sign with accuracy and poise. I learned this week that Zodiac have flowers and colors assigned to them, so it was an added touch to see it highlighted in many images.
But the winner stole the show with a simple, but elegant double take.
Netizyn!
A beautiful take on Gemini for certain!
The judges called your image thoughtful, beautiful, clean. I think it’s pretty awesome, and wonder why I didn’t get a cool astro sign to create 😂
Come back this afternoon for our Cycle Winner announcement and for the official crowning of our newest s-rank model.
Well hello fans! It was a tough round this week.
I gave the models a theme, they gave me amazing images that fit that theme. I made the judges judge. They picked the photo they loved the most and
THE STARS ALIGNED
into one of the most amazing rounds I ever thought up. I will have to say that I am pleasantly surprised at the work these models did for me this week. They had to find a reference image themselves that is a real life photo and then work within the game parameters and recreate it. I absolutely loved the creative liberties this round, and finding something that was close enough to get the point across.
The judges complained to me about the difficulty they faced with judging this round too, so each and every model should be proud of the images they submitted! But unfortunately, a winner must be crowned, and with that being said, our winner this week is…
DAMIEN!
Damien, your use of the motorcycle to stand in for the truck in your reference photo was a great choice, and waiting for the shadows of the day to elongate under the tires of the bike solidified your win tonight!
Tonight there is supposed to be a Lunar Eclipse, if I can wake myself up at 3am I may watch it. Otherwise, I will see you on Saturday morning with the final, round of the inaugural cycle of CopyCats!
And as always, Love from here
-Ona