When most people consider Zodiac, we immediately think of the typical 12 month calendar based on the stars, however one of my models noted that we also have the Chinese Zodiac, and those a pretty awesome ideas as well! So I was asked if they could also be included…
Um…
So they were given the chance to create an image that embodies their own zodiac signs. This round is the only round that isn’t based specifically on an image, but instead on the characteristics or feelings associated with the Zodiacs. So without further delay… Your models…
Alastor – Gemini
Amalie – Aries
Damien – Rabbit
Hilda – La Capricorn
Kimiko – Taurus
Netizyn – Gemini (and Horse)
Voting closes on Wednesday and the post will go up shortly after!
I am not a Swiftie, but I cannot say I wasn’t happy to see her boyfriend played really well during the Usher concert and won the sportsball prize! Go Taylor’s boyfriend! However, I am fully aware of the bombshell of a superstar T-Swiftie is. As such, I figured why not bring the Eras Tour to Eorzea!
Our beautiful models were given free range of anything Swift. Album covers. Music Videos. Photo Shoots. Whatever worked to encapsulate the essence of their chosen Era. I think Taylor would be proud of what they produced!
It’s been some time since a full blown cycle has occurred but we are back and so excited to launch the second variation of CopyCat! I was so excited to host it last time and even more now! The themes this time, at least in my opinion, are SO MUCH BETTER than last time! So hopefully everyone enjoys them!
This cycle will run for 6 weeks with weekly winners announced and an overall cycle winner at the end of the 6 weeks! Models will receive weekly critiques as well! If you haven’t yet joined our discord please go here –> https://discord.gg/r6UeEVcb
Please check back next week for the first week’s submissions!
But for now… let me introduce my amazing models!
Alastor Izunia – Mateus – Miqo’te
Amalie Greene – Goblin – Hyur
Damien Montclair – Odin – Au’ra
Hilde Garde – Odin – Hyur
Kimiko Naeuri – Phoenix – Hyur
Netizen James – Balmung – Miqo’te
Let’s wish our models luck and laughs! Here’s to an amazing Cycle 2 of CopyCat!
Six week contests are just long enough, we’ve found over the years, through trial and error. Long enough to give our models enough of a challenge and inspire learning and growth, but not so long that the models and judges get burnt out and have the contest stop being fun.
We started with 8 models this cycle, and finished with 6 (IRL always comes first.) And while we had some incredibly close rounds, we have a clear top three now that we’re at the end of the cycle.
I want to thank all the models who stuck with us throughout the contest. Without models, our contests wouldn’t exist. Through nine years of ENTM, we have helped coach hundreds of models, but each contest starts with you guys taking a risk and putting yourselves out there, sometimes having never done a screenshot contest before. Even if you didn’t win, I hope you learned something from the feedback, and are inspired to keep taking more screenshots (and if you want, please send me a screenshot of chocobos for the monthly contest ASAP.)
I also want to thank the judges for contributing their wit and wisdom each week. Judges like Ona and Elessia are the backbone of our contests. Outside community members like Judge Blix bring in a crucial, fresh perspective (because we can sometimes get a little bit too cliquish in ENTM without a new pair of eyes.) And Judge Escher provided valuable back up services to our primary judges, prepared to step in at any moment should something go awry for our main three. Thank you guys, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And now, it’s time to announce some winners!
In third place…. Gadriel Nephilim!
In a sea of Au Ra and female characters, Gadriel’s unique Elezen male definitely stood out week after week. Gadriel won second place multiple weeks, and consistently scored well from our judges. Congratulations!
Gadriel Nephilim
In second place and also our Community Winner, Damian Montclair!
Community votes are an important part of ENTM. They act as tiebreakers when the judges are divided (and that definitely happened a few times this cycle) and also allow our models a chance to share their work with their friends and followers on social media. Damien is an ENTM veteran and brought that fierceness week after week.
Congratulations!
Damien Montclair
And now, the end of six weeks of screenshot torture, drunk ramblings from Judge Ona, a new perspective from Judge Blix, and quietly kind recommendations from Judge Elessia, we have a new S-Rank model in the ENTM family.
The winner of Classic Cycle 14 is Val Viscera!
Val came in as a newcomer to ENTM and knocked it out of the park on the first try. Throughout the cycle, Val was neck and neck with Damien, but at the end of the scoring, had enough of a boost from judges votes to claim the crown. Judges praised the careful attention to composition, color, and light in each shot from Val. Some of the submissions were right up against the deadline as Val worked hard to make them as polished as possible.
We have two veteran judges and one new community judge for a fresh perspective for this cycle.
Judge Ona
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.
Judge Elessia
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.
Judge Blix
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.
Host Katarh
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.
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 Cycle14will 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.
Call for Models
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:
Your Character Name and Race
Your Server and Data Center (ENTM contests are open to all data centers!)
A screenshot of your character from the waist up that will be used as your debut portrait for the contest, so make it cute with the best lighting you can muster! NO MODS AND NO RESHADE ALLOWED. Also no NVIDIA filters. You can use Gpose and the in game tools to your heart’s content.
A screenshot of your character in battle or an action pose, with a cool background and some kind of flashy effects (I call it “battle glitter.”) Again, no mods or reshade or Nvidia filters allowed.
ENTM contests are vanilla only to keep it fair to our PS4/PS5 contestants.
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!
Call for Judges
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 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.
We all have our favorite holiday, for me it’s always been Samhain (pronounced Sao-wen). In Celtic tradition, Samhain begins the evening of October 31 and ends with the end of November 1. In many cultures, children dress up as ghosties and goblins to trick the fae folk into thinking they are not a human child but instead a fae. They then go around to houses and in turn, pretending to be a fae asking for a treat or threatening tricks and mischief on their homes.
Sounding familiar? That’s because Samhain is the old name for…
Halloween
This week I gave the models a list of classic Halloween movies to choose from to create their copy cat image.
The allowable movies included:
Hocus Pocus Halloweentown A Nightmare on Elm Street Friday the 13th IT Leprechaun Child’s Play Texas Chainsaw Massacre Halloween Nightmare Before Christmas
Here are this week’s photos and poll! Vote your favorite Spooky model!
Ardyn – Friday the 13th Chibi – I Put a Spell on YouDamien – Oh, there’s an empty place in my bones, that calls out for something unknownMalkovich – My Family’s always been in MeatYurimi – Earlier last weekNetizyn – Sarah Sanderson, Hocus Pocs
As always, Voting ends Tuesday at 12am! We will see who knew their lines best, and can walk away with best supporting image!
Well wouldn’t you know it! Another round has completed!
This past week we told Alejandro to not call our names, it was a Bad Romance and we all know it. We wandered through the American Horror woods after finishing the halftime show and taking in all the Applause. It was a busy week being Gaga!
Honestly, I did not know how the judges were going to choose this week! They were all so good! Which is why I leave the judging to them and spend a full day getting ready for my favorite holiday, Samhain.
But we still needed to have a winner this week! Someone to hold the round trophy and call themselves a Gaga Imposter!
Our Winner this week is…
DAMIEN MONTCLAIR!
Damien, the judges thought your shot was Simple yet stark and contrasting and commanding! It deserved all of the applause!
I think I really wish I would have went to her concert when it was in town…
Come back next week for a new theme, and new photos to vote for!
