*waves goodbye*

I have desided to leave TSR and go back to sharing my creations on my old sim valley website again (now called The Land Of WOE). Um, yeah, that's it.

Back Alley Art Preview

Working on some graffiti wall art now. This one is three tiles wide but only uses one. I did this so that if you want to put something over it, like a wall light or other pictures, you can.

I knew my collection of MCR gig posters would come in handy one day *lol* And because I can never work on just one thing at a time, I am also working on a Multiple Ring set. These still need a lot of adjustments still, multipliers, etc.

I have also been looking at the WA necklace and have figured out how that works. There's one little bug in the workshop that needs fixing, but once that's done I will work on converting the necklaces I have already released so that they can be worn by every body type *yay*

Romance Preview

Stepping out of my comfort zone and trying something "pretty", lol.

Whenever working on a new project, I always check it in-game at every stage. In the above image I had only roughly placed each part of the pendant where I though it would go. Having seen it in game I could see that I needed to make the thread between the heart and pearl wider and shorter, and that the heart could be just a little bigger and metal hook bit a little shorter.

Here's the mesh for those curious. Now I just need to work on the shading of the Multiplier. I will be making matching earrings and bracelet as well.

Questions & Answers

First of all, I don't mind questions. If you have one, ask. And either I'll be able to answer or I won't. The best way is through PM. In comments I sometimes quickly look through those, see a question, but don't have the time right then and forget to go back later and a couple weeks go by and I suddenly remember but so much time has gone by I feel stupid and figure the person won't even remember asking.

Thus my making this post *lol* The people who asked the questions will most likely not see this but, oh well, I tried.

RE: WOE Pendants - "will you make these for female sims?"

Yes. (see Upcoming Sims 3 Items)

RE: WOE Pendants - "my teens need these! Please make them too!"

I will be making these for teens, as I myself play teens just as much as adults. Don't ask we when though. Could be next week, could be next month.

RE: Facial Piercings - "could you try to make the snake bites seperate please?"

                             - "Could you possibly do separate ones?"

If in the future the TSRW allows for making accessories layerable, yes I will as this is how I would prefer them too.

"Your female sim you use as a model for your piercings is very very pretty! If you know how, could you upload her to TSR or sims3.com?"

No. I don't upload to sims3.com, and the Sims I use in all my previews are made with tons of CC, some of which is not mine. So uploading the Sim without that CC would be pointless as it would look nothing like the preview ;-)

"Can you tell me how to make _______?"

No. That's too big a question. Too big for someone who actually has a life outside the sims. *lol* I am happy to give tips on specific areas of creating, but I do not and never will have the time to teach you how to use all the programs required. The best suggestion I can make to people who want to learn how to create CC is to not just do tutorials made specifically for the Sims, but ALSO do tutorials for each program, as that is where you start to learn how to create quality items. Sims tutorials only teach you how to make one object. Learning how to use the program itself is far more valuable. ;-)

Having said that, I think from now on when I'm working on a project I will try and make a blog with info about how I did a specific part of that project. Hopefully it will be of some use to someone out there *lol*

Another Blog Already... Craaaazy!

But I'm just too happy with how the pendant for the necklace worked out so I have to share! 4 hours straight of shading alone then tweeking, tweeking and more tweeking.

I actually made the key a little smaller after taking this cap, but yeah, very happy with it. And I think the bone assignments are good too. Some extreme motions cause small spots on the side of the neck to cover the string, but this seems to be a compromise thing again. I could have fixed it by making the necklace wider, but for only a few movements, that don't happen all the time, I didn't feel was worth having it obviously sitting away from the neck. So, yeah, not perfect but close *lol*

ETA : yes, the key is a 3 dimensional mesh and not just a flat image ;-)

Getting Going Again

After getting hit with spring allergies unexpectedly and dealing with that I've gotten back to work on my numerous projects. The doors are taking longer because I've discovered the double doors need to be tested thoroughly in the game. A cursory examination had them looking and working great, but after playing the game for awhile they started flickering. I have no idea why, but I'm now cloning from a different set and will see how that goes.

The Souvenir Mugs are finished and I am half way through making some #1 Dad, The Man, Boss Lady, etc ones as well. Trying to think of one more theme so I can make a set. hm...

But what's really got my attention is making jewelry. Now that I understand how CAS items work, seems thats all I really want to make *lol* Am working on a necklace for my boys. The string part is done, just need to make some small adjustments, finish the pendant and then figure out the bone assignments (which will be the hard part, very time consuming).

Back to doors and mugs

The one tile doors are finished, I've done the tweaking I wanted to do to the meshes and redid the multipliers. So the two tile doors should go quickly and I should have this set out soon.

And because I can't do one thing at a time, I've also been working on some Souvenir Mugs that Hadewych had the idea for. This has been fun as I've been having my Sims run around all the vacation spots so I can get the captures for these. I have two done, with I think four more to go.

Gee, can you tell what my favorite color is yet? *lol*

I've also started sketching out ideas for some jewerly for my alternative Sim boys, rings and necklaces so far. Never made these items before, so we'll see how it goes.

Easily Distracted? Me?

Well yeah, nothings changed there *lol* Although technically I started working on these facial piercings before the door set and only stopped because I couldn't get the bone assignments to work correctly so that the piercings moved with the Sims facial expressions. So I switched to doors, only to run into the 'door disappears when opened' problem. Luckly I figured out how to fix that and, as it turned out, it was also the fix for my piercings issue too!

So yes, I'm back to the piercings since I really want them myself. It's proving to be a project that requires a little compromise on my part, as I tend to be a perfectionist *lol*

The earrings are fine, on teens they sit a little bit farther out from the head, but only in that it's noticable if your looking from behind and only then it's very slight. At first I was hoping I'd be able to make them unisex, but female heads are a little too much smaller to make this possible.

The facial piercings are where the compromise seems to need to come in. Depending on the eyebrow style that you use, as you can see from the two images in the preview at the bottom, the eyebrow ring will not sit the same for all. So I have positioned it in the middle to average it out. So with some eyebrows it will be a little low and others a little high. But this was the best I could figure out. The lip ring is fine.

I am using the Right Earring and Left Earrings to clone from, my multiple earring assigned to one and the facial piercings assigned to the other so that there will be more flexibility in putting combinations together.

And this is probably the most boring blog I've written yet *lol*

ETA: I tried making a 'bridge' piercing, but found that about 50% of the time it ended up hidden inside the Sims nose. Assigning to the bridge or the nose didn't seem to make any difference in this. I think it is due to there being two sliders at work in that region of the face, bridge width and nose width, and unless your Sim has an average width for both it doesn't work well. Thus my not including it in my set.

Come On In!

Are currently working on doors for the Panorama collection. I'm taking the opportunity to tweak a few things from the TS2 versions, so will take a little more time to complete.

I will also make solid and glass two-tile versions, and a sliding glass door I think. And maybe a solid sliding pocket door? Hmm...

Clutter Is Good

I don't know about any of you alls houses, but in mine the dishes never make it into the cupboard after being washed. They just sit on the counter until they are used again *lol* So of course I need dishes to leave strewn around the kitchen and dining areas ;-)

I'm designing these to fit into my Colors collection. The plate has two recolorable areas and the mugs have three. I'll make a cereal bowl, and then I think a creamer and sugar bowl. I have a few other ideas, but need to experiment first to see if it's possible yet ;-)