Devastated Eyes

After finishing my earlier Soft Eyes set, I found myself wanting to make a much more detailed eye. So, starting from the Soft Eye as a base and modifying just about every part of - hrmm, come to think of it, it was every part of it! - I created a layout that includes stroma detail (the radial lines in the iris), tear ducts, a softer shadow along the upper lid, and a less shaded-to-black schlera. The iris is just slightly larger then for the Soft Eyes, and the pupil smaller, which gives a little more room for the duotone colours of the eyes to be shown. That's right, duotone. These eyes incorporate two separate areas of colour, the main (outer) colour and a secondary colour around the pupil of the eye. And by just sitting there and playing with the HSV sliders, I can create pretty much any imaginable colour combination. I whipped up 25 different combinations for this set, and may make more at a later date. My main reason for wanting duotones? My own eyes are a muted blue-green with golden-brown around the pupil (aka one of the many combinations lumped into the "hazel" category) and I wanted to recreate them for in-game use on my self-sim, who is currently making do with a muted green eye colour. Not an exact match, but close enough! :)

Soft Eyes

I've always wanted to try to make a good set of eyes. After looking over the sets of eyes I use most from my three favourite artists - Enayla (MTS2), BitzyBus (TSR), and schuldig_seiben (MTS2) - I wasn't terribly surprised to find that they had used very similar proportions of schlera, iris and pupil. The main problem I find with most downloaded sets is that the proportions of the visible part of the iris and pupil are incorrect, usually too small, giving sims a disturbingly pin-eyed look. The sets I was looking at were all ones where I was happy with the proportions of the eye. I then created an eye of my own in Photoshop, using roughly the same proportions, and constructing it in layers so that all I had to do was alter the Hue/Saturation/Lightness of one layer to create different eye colours. And then, of course, I sat there for a while and did just that :) I'm very pleased with the end result, it's the first custom eye I've done since the Toad Eye that I thought was good enough to share with others.

Cryobed Mark II

After far too long a wait, my Cryobed Mark II is finally finished. A great big thank you! to everyone on both TSR and MTS2 who helped me to modify the functionality of the vampire coffin from Nightlife to get the effects I wanted with the Cryobed. This bed, unlike the original, includes a functional lid, and also has a fog effect when characters open the lid to get out. Vampire occupants also get the traditional crash of thunder, bat squeaks, and howling sounds when entering and exiting this fine piece of ultra-modern scientific hardware. One known issue with the bed - the occupant's shadow does not completely disappear when the bed closes. In the original coffin this would have been hidden by the stepped stone base of the bed. If you hate how it looks, putting a mesh-based rug under the cryobed will hide the extra shadow. And if I ever figure out how to fix it, I'll post a corrected version of the bed.

Comfy Dining Chairs

Ever since turning my "Lap of Luxury" and "Luxuriare" armchairs into dining chairs, I've been meaning to tackle a project of converting Maxis armchairs to dining chairs as well. Finally got a start on it today by converting nine base game armchairs into dining chairs. I'll likely convert some of the assorted armchairs from expansions also, eventually, but right now I'm starting to feel burnt out on manipulating meshes someone else had made, and feeling the yen to work on some of my own creations again.

By the way - to anyone who loves Maxis-Match items, I highly recommend you also look at the work of Ailias on ModTheSims2, he's done a number of Maxis-match items also, including a completer set for the Durable Value Sofa, which is one I know I've received more then a few requests to tackle in the past.

*Whistles Innocently*

Okay, that was a rather longer then intended break between the last time I published something and now. As usual, I blame my Legacy sims! They just will not shut up about their storylines, and every time I sit down to work on meshes or recolours they start nagging me...

Well, I finally sat down today and finished making the .package for a custom chess table to match the Country furnishings from Seasons. It's the first in what is intended to be a whole series of them, I already have two more meshes made (Mission style from OFB, and something modern-looking to match the Glamour Life furnishings) and have at least two more planned; an Atomic Age (Pets) one, and one to match the Moroccan furnishings from the base game. Knowing me it'll be a while until they're all completed, so I've decided to release them one-by-one instead of as a set.

I also finished off another bunch of Shanni-Match appliance recolours, of the juicer, microwave, and coffee maker, which will be out later this week. More to follow eventually, as they do seem to be a popular download for people, and are fairly easy to create once I've gotten a .psd assembled for the appliance texture :)

Rugs! That Match Beds!

Ever since I made my first few "bedding-match" items, I've gotten a steady trickle of requests/suggestions that I make some rugs that use the bedding files. Well, I finally sat down, dug out the meshes I had from some earlier attempts at these, and managed to get them into a state that I considered at least "acceptable". I've created the rugs in both 2x2 square and round shapes and have supplied two differently-mapped versions of each. Some bedding files will map well to all of them, some to only one or two of them, some just look - well, odd! - no matter which shape and mapping is tried. The set should be out on Friday of next week.

More Country-fied Tables

Okay, so I wasn't in the mood to make the 3-tile tables when I made the 1- and 2-tile ones earlier for the Country set. I had some spare time tonight and was in the mood for it, and wonder of wonders everything seems to have worked correctly on the first go, so they're already completed, and submitted, and are the in the queue for release early next week. Enjoy!

Krampft Industry Value Counter

The 'Value Counter' is the latest victim of my mania for counter-matching tables and chairs. Mutske recently did a beautiful set of counter-matching upper cabinets for the Value counter. Considering it's the second such set I have now downloaded (BiztyBus also did a set of uppers for the Value counter), that inspired me to finally get off my duff and make a table set. Features 1-tile, 2-tile, and 3-tile tables plus a dining chair. They should be available for download on Thursday, May 31.

Baby Play-Mat FIXED

The Baby Play-Mat I made and uploaded back in August of 2005 has always annoyed me in-game because of a shading issue that I didn't at the time know how to fix. This is what it looked like originally, with the shading problem in full force: These days I fix the mesh problem that was causing that particular error as I make new objects, and I decided it was time to pull up the old mesh file for this object and fix it too! Now the playmat looks nice and smoothly shaded, like this: The fixed version has been posted and is now available for download.

Country-fied Table Set

Every time I use the Country Kitchen objects from Seasons, I find myself muttering about how the single 1-tile round table supplied doesn't always work well with what I want to do. The solution was, of course, obvious - make more Maxis-matching items! So I made two versions each of a kitchen and dining table. There's a plain version that only uses the textures of the "Rancher's Round Table", and a fancier version that pulls the counter-top textures from the "Blue Ribbon Counter" for a look that co-ordinates better in eat-in kitchens.