Welcome everyone to the first week of voting for Classic Cycle 13! We’re kicking things off in a leisurely fashion with a theme called Free Time. This is a staple of the early ENTM rounds back when we were on the forums.
The models were given this clue:
“How do you spend your free time when you’re not being a model? Do you do dangerous raids, do you garden, do you fish? Show us your hobby!”
Please view each of the images below by clicking on the middle to view it full size. Use your browser’s back button to return to this post.
And then vote for each of the images from strongest at the top with #1 down to the weakest at the bottom with #8 using the Google poll found on the bottom of this post. (Remember, ENTM uses ‘golf scores’ so the lowest score wins each round.) Voting will be open to the community until Tuesday, March 22nd at 11:59 PM ET.
We have a panel of veteran judges for this first cycle of Endwalker. This trio has become the backbone of our cycles in recent years, and we’re excited to see Elessia’s sharp eye, Ni’ko’s puns, and Ona’s poetry make a return for 2022!
Classic Cycle 13 has started, and we have eight extremely talented contestants who have volunteered for the cookie grinder this go around. One of them will become Eorzea’s next S-Rank model….. but who will it be?
Your cast list is as follows. The first round will commence March 19th, 2022. At that time, we will need your community votes to make sure that there is a clear winner each week!
Do you have what it takes to be Eorzea’s next S-Rank model ?!
Classic Cycle 13
It’s time to get back to our roots and do another Classic Cycle! Cycle 13 will be a six week combination of modeling and backgrounds, with emphasis on theme interpretation , composition, and the overall “mood” of each shot. ENTM screenshots are “vanilla” to keep things fair to our PS4 participants, which means no reshade/gshade, post processing, or other editing will be allowed beyond the base game. However, every in game tool is at your disposal to make a screenshot that’ll wow our judges and our audience.
Call for Models New and Old
How does Classic Cycle work?
Each week, your host Katarh Mest will collect a screenshot on the weekly theme, submit it to our judges for voting and commentary, and provide a public poll for your friends and the general audience to weigh in. You are strongly encouraged to share this public poll with your friends and on social media.
We’ve found over the years that the public vote is the best way to break ties when our judges can’t decide.
The overall winner each week is announced, and judges will provide you feedback on your shot.
At the end of the contest, we will announce our newest S-rank model, and if the rest of the community disagreed with the judges, a separate S-rank Community winner as well.
Can I have entered an ENTM contest before?
Yes! Classic Cycle is open to previous ENTM contestants, even winners, as well as members who have never participated in any of our contests before. We encourage folks who have won an S-rank recently to consider being a judge instead, though!
How do I enter?
To enter Classic Cycle 13, you will need to send two audition shots to Katarh Mest on the ENTM Discord. These shots must have the following settings:
Shot #1: A battle or action shot that has a visible enemy and your character visibly engaged with the enemy. This can be taken in the open world, or inside any dungeon, trial, or raid. Think of your chosen monster as your co-star. 6.0 zones are allowed, but not required.
Shot #2: A head shot of your character, from the waist or shoulders up, with your character facing the camera or having their eyes look into the camera using the eye tracking tool in Gpose. This shot should be taken in any major city-state (Eorzean or otherwise** – please see a note at the bottom) with all characters besides yours hidden. This shot will also be your portrait throughout the contest. 6.0 zones are allowed, but not required.
Send the following information to Katarh along with those screenshots:
Your character’s full In Game name
Your character’s data center and server
Your character’s name in the ENTM discord, if it’s different from your Discord handle
Please >>>click right here<<<< to join the ENTM Discord community if you have not done so already!
Auditions for Classic Cycle 13 are open as of this posting, and will be accepted until March 9th, 2022, at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. The minimum threshhold of models to hold this contest is 6. The maximum number accepted is 12. In the event there are more than 12 models, judges will ultimately decide who gets left out. That said, we have not filled an ENTM contest for a long time, so don’t be shy! Send us an audition!
Classic Cycle 13 will run from March 18th 2022 to April 22nd, 2022. We realize this may run into Patch 6.1 at some point in April, so participants will be encouraged to submit shots early if that might be a problem. (You will be given all six themes ahead of time, so you can send them to us as soon as you get them, if you want!)
Call for Judges
ENTM is seeking at least 1 judge from an outside community. We tend to be very insular, and having a guest judge provide some outside opinions is crucial to keeping us from naval gazing too much.
If you are a leader of another community dedicated to screenshots and you have strong opinions about the quality of photography in the FFXIV screenshot community, we would love to have you be our part of the team. Or, if you are a photographer, a design or costume expert, or otherwise involved in art composition, staging, etc. out in the real world, that counts too!
As a judge, your commitment will be to provide no more than six 1 paragraph critiques each week, and to cast ranked choice votes for all models every week. You are welcome to offer models to ask for additional feedback, but you are not required to answer any model questions if you don’t have time. Having this outside viewpoint enriches our contests beyond anything I could explain.
If you are able to judge, please contact Katarh Mest on Discord to discuss things further!
** In ENTM, City-states are defined as a zone locked sanctuary, with no open world monsters inside. E.g. Sharlayan, Thavnair, Limsa Lominsa, Kugane, the Doman Enclave, Idyllshire, and so forth. (Conversely, Mor Dhona does not fit this definition, as it is not zone locked.)
It took a lot of effort and skill every week to design, build and tear down a room to take one amazing screenshot that conveyed the theme and wowed the judges! All of the designers grew and showed us some amazing rooms this cycle! Every single designer had real talent and unique style! AND I appreciate every one of these designers joining us for a first ever housing design contest on ENTM! I think it was a huge success! Thank you judges for your wonderful feedback and to the community for voting! It actually did come down to the community votes!
The winner of the inaugural Renovation Cycle and our new S-Rank Designer, Damien Montclair! Congratulations!
Second place AND the recipient of the community choice award having received the most community votes, Arilyn Moonblade! Great job!!!!
In third place, our beautiful Hollow Attrition! Her builds were unique and so full of detail! The community votes put her just ahead of our fourth place designer!
Please stay tuned for ENTM’s next fantasic cycle! Maybe YOU can be the next S-rank model!
You know, Harry Houdini used to use lots of trap doors in his magic act. He’s stopped now, he was just going through a stage. Ha ha. Ok Ok! It’s time to announce the winner of our last round! But first…Last week I saw a magician walk down the street. He turned into a drugstore. I swear I’m done. Congratulations Damien Montclair!!! The judges loved your witchy build and ode to Snow White. We love how you stuck that little Easter egg in there!
The winner of Renovation Cycle 1 announcement coming soon!!!!
Ready to go on the Magical Mystery Tour of the rooms our designers built? For the very last round of Renovation Cycle 1 our amazing judge, Daiyu Elani (AKA Daiyu-rama), wanted to start the round with a theme fitting for the spooky nights ahead: MAGIC! Many of Daiyu’s builds are magical, with her open windows and cute dioramas, it did seem fitting she would choose such a fun theme. So, to kick off the Halloween weekend, here are the magical builds this week from our designers ranging from Wicked to magical Fairy Tales! Please view the entries below and vote for you favorite at the end of the post!
Netizen James
Arilyn Moonblade
Damien Montclair
Killia Verenelle
Hollow Attrition
Scarleta Valkyire
And introducing our guest judge this week, the unforgettable Malkovich!
You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a two-time S-Rank model and ENTM Renovation Cycle guest judge. He’s whatever ENTM needs him to be. You’ll condemn him, set the dogs on him… because it’s what needs to happen. Because sometimes the medium plot isn’t good enough. Sometimes people deserve the mansion. Sometimes people deserve to have their hours spent making a stuffed tonberry float in mid-air rewarded. He’s the hero ENTM deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So, you’ll show him screenshots, because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero. He’s a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A Malkovich Malkovich.
The votes are in and the judges and community adored the steam-punk speakeasy created by Killia! Congratulations! Though she was limited on what items and gpose filter she could use, it didn’t deter her from making a very cool looking bar.
Tune in on Saturday when we reveal the final round of gorgeous (maybe even spooky?) rooms from our talented designers!
Sometimes SE surprises us and puts really interesting items for sale from the housing merchant: the disordered wardrobe, the really cool slanted walls and even some not-so-ugly wall coverings. This week, our designers were challenged with creating a bar scene using ONLY the items acquired from the housing merchants, including the NPC’s that sell…NPC’s. AND they had to take the photo using a Sepia filter from Gpose to give an old-time effect. They were also encouraged to use extras and NPC’s to complete the immersion. This challenge proved difficult because of the limited items they could use and the limited NUMBER of items they could use! How does a designer stand out from the rest? So scroll down and see how these amazing designers accomplished the task. And be sure to vote for your favorites this week!
*Two models are missing this week, Scarleta and Desya. Scarleta will be back for the final round. Unfortunatel,y due to real life circumstances, Desya will be withdrawing. But she will be here cheering her fellow designers on!
Arilyn Moonblade
Netizen James
Hollow Attrition
Damien Montclair
Killia Verenelle
Our guest judge this week, the wonderful, MARVELOUS Ni’ko Shae!
Host of ENTM’s Runway Cycle, winner of ENTM Classic Cycle 11, and frequent judge, Ni’ko Shae is a longtime housing enthusiast. One of Ni’ko’s biggest housing accomplishments was finally defeating the final boss: getting a couch to float over the stairwell leading to a medium house’s basement (okay, he got help doing it, but he tried for a long time!). For housing Ni’ko favours far eastern designs, plants and trees, and a healthy blend of pinks and purples (with a dash of rainbow). As a judge Ni’ko tends to favour those who think outside of the box and delivers the unexpected (though a bit of pink and purple couldn’t hurt any, now could it?). Now then, may the best decorator … win!
Congratulations to Damien Montclair for creating a beautiful attic room with lots of layering and structure which gave her the edge this week. It was a tough challenge to create a structured room in a small space!
