Meet the Sugroths

First, a quick story - while picking up groceries we ended up with a very friendly cashier.  He kept asking us in different ways if we had plans, or a nice event, or something great on the horizon.  Eventually, he wore down my resistance and I hazarded a 'We get to have brownies?' And he said, "Hey, that's great! You shouldn't make things out to be so bad." It was really adorable, and he was right.   We have brownies!

And my wrist isn't swollen, and hasn't been for a few days.  I could clean, but instead I'm drawing cats.

So. Sugroths - a minor success in my battle against the Sims 3.  I still have about 2/3rds of my CC removed, and I realized I lost all families from my Library.   Including a whole host of characters I'd made to toss into the Miliner mix.

So I remade the Sugroths, and now teen Sulenus looks a little like Jon Stewart.  All is well.

Father Helmutt, son Solenus, and Helmutt's sister Emily

You know? The blogspot image thingermabob really makes my images blurry. :/

Juan Darer makeover

In a surprising twist I posted the full story at my Tumblr.

Yet more Twinbrook Fixer Upper

I know some of you may be exercising tremendous restraint by not making any jokes about the hope Twinbrook has of being fixed up.

You know...the more I see the Twinbrook townies, the more I appreciate them.   They might benefit from new makeup and hair, and slightly smaller eyes, but they're quirky and fun.   Though, now I've remembered to install that lazy eye slider, so I might edit a few of them.  Some of them do send out a certain lazy eye vibe.  Would benefit from an edit in CAS session.

Well, now that I've taken a few moments to picture crazy eyed Twinbrookians with Lady Gaga hair it's time to move on.

Oh my sims! posted a link to these fixed up Twinbrook lots.  They are just gorgeous!  They have everything I love about Twinbrook - a little moody, a little weathered, some Spanish moss, plus as a bonus they are amazingly attractive.

I plunked the community garden in, only adding more lights so I could get good pictures at night.

Then I replaced the town center with Lilymayrose's version - added in more lights, removed some fountains, added more flowers, replaced the Gnubb with a wedding area, and added a music source and a dance floor.   It didn't really need new flowers, I just wanted to use these.

Her version is so much better I can't imagine ever going back to the original.  I might actually want to bring my sims there, instead of keeping them inside until they get the stir crazy moodlet.

Yup, Pets totally adds a new level of realism to the Sims. Going to the park is just like this.

should have put in a larger dance floor

I also used one of Jynx's rabbithole rugs, turning a room in the museum into the theater.  I downloaded them ages ago, but never used them.   I'm giving it a couple days, and if it works out then I'll delete the old theater and replace it with...something.   Maybe a club or a cat ranch.

I also built a ranch.  Do you know what's worth the price of admission?  Watching a fat horse excitedly jump over the wee little baby jump.

I used the previous Criminal Warehouse lot - so the view is interesting, and I was able to build the Science Lab a new shady warehouse.  I love you Science Lab, and I want you to be happy.

Twinbrook fix-er up-er

So.
The Miliners and I returned to Twinbrook and it was a lagging, glitchy hot mess.

I was really hoping I'd be able to survive Twinbrook for another generation or so before moving them to a new town, but...the lurching lag zombies got me.  So tragic.

In between working on the next update, I've been trying to update a new Twinbrook, so it could be pets ready.  If a split my time between updates and updating Twinbrook both projects are less likely to send me over the proverbial edge.

One of my biggest peeves about the town is that the rabbit holes take up so much space, leaving relatively little room for houses.   So, my plan is to take advantage of the multi-purpose rabbit holes and revamp the heck out of everything.  Plus, I really fancy the style of many of the Appaloosa Plains buildings, once the faux-rustic useless fences and things are stripped away.

I first used the new City Hall.   I added some landscaping and Gnubb (to try and explain that stupid crosswalk off to the side), tested it, and then deleted the military base and police station.  Good times.

I also finished the B&B revamp - lookit the widdle moggy/mongrel house!

keeping busy

I finished a set of 18 fantasy skin tones.

I used Photoshop trickery and the noise gradient tool to make scattered colors, similar to the chaos alien I did before.

Would anyone like to test them/see them first/take pictures of them in use?

Here are their descriptions:
Scatter Genes - skintones to help prevent boring babies

Fruits - generally monochromatic-ish

• 11 - peach skin, pale to bright orange, burnt orange, dark brown
• 10 - palest heather, purples, midnight purple
• 9 - pale peach, blue toned pinks, fuschia, wine
• 8 - pale heather, light blue, mid blue, storm blue, dark navy
• 7 - shades of turquoise, evening blue, near black blue-green
• 6 - pale olive, lime, shades of olive, forest green, near black
• 5 - pink, red, vibrant red, brick
• 20 - pale sunny yellow, yellows, Tang
• 3 - tan, orange, cherry red, brick
• 28 - pale pink, magenta, vibrant red-violet

Opals - many different colors in one slider

• 13 - peach, shades of lime, storm blue, lavender, violet, greens, near-black navy
• 16 - magenta, pinks and purples, greyed pinks and purples, wines, dark lizard green
• 17 - pale violet, sunset colors, terra cotta
• 18 - pale sage, pale pinks, pale blues, pale teal, pinks, blinding hot pink
• 15 - pale blue-pink, peaches, clay, grey-peach, grey, lizard green

Paints - two primary colors and a secondary color in the center

• 25 - bright yellow, oranges, red, brick
• 26 - bubble gum pink, pink, purples, blues
• 27 - bright yellow, lime, bright greens, blue, violet

Any interest in playing with these?  Just drop a comment and I'll try to get the files to you.   Any pictures of them in use I will gleefully collect and post here after I get the files ready to officially release.   :)

SNWHAL: Inquiry Mordaunt

SNWHAL: Small Nose, Wearing Hat, Alien Lady

Ok, her nose isn't that small, and she's not wearing a hat.   But, um...I love her.  I do.  Just pictures are boring, so I'll put a story in.

"Umm....hello? I'm Inquiry, Inquiry Mordaunt."

in progress: Twinbrook B&B (premade remade)

Edit to add: I've just been made aware that today is International Vulture Awareness Day.

I've almost finished tagging all my screenshots.  I realized...I miss actually doing that thing...what's it called?  Oh...playing the game.

So I got inspired by Wibs & the Sims to redecorate a premade lot.   I'm basically terrible at it, but it's still fun.   It's like meditation - my brain ends up totally, peacefully, empty.

Here is the victim lucky lot, It's called Nothin' But Deck, and it can be found in Twinbrook.   I figure after 3 or 4 generations in Twinbrook, some of the houses should evolve.  I thought the large deck looked like a nice dock for entertaining on, so that is how I arrived at Sneld's Bed and Breakfast.

So far I've revamped the outside, added a second floor, and decorated the boat house.  I still need to decorate inside and add some gardens.

Before

Progress so far

Macintosh Sneld, hopeful B&B owner

Click for more pictures :)

Organize, Blather, the Danger of Knowledge

Do you know what I love?  Free trials.

So...the great Organize Screenshots Project has gone like this:

1.  realize I have a problem
2.  use the ancient (I say ancient, but it's really only 4 years old) and clunky software I have to try to fix the problem
3.  for about 3 hours
4.  and then I realize I've managed to tag 123  23 ( D:) screenshots
5.  realize I have a problem
6.  caved and downloaded the 30 day free trial of Adobe Lightroom
7.  ran away to the Bahamas with it because I love it that much
8.  resigned myself to a harsh, moderately spendy, reality 29 days from now :(

Oh sweet covetous pastry, this program is easy to love.   Adobe, you are evil and conniving and I love you.

In other news: supernatural creatures

To be honest, the only supernatural creatures I really don't mind are the mummies and the graveyard ghosts.   I know, I didn't expect that from me either!

I don't mind ghosts in the graveyard or mummies because I hardly ever see them.  So...that makes them more fun - the oh hey! something weird is going on! factor.  The bots are buggy, the vampires are like a mild mannered plague, and  the imaginary friends would be one of my favorite things if they were rare.   I mean, I do find them squee worthy and adorable, but not when they are everywhere.   I know there's mods to fix the vampires and the IF frequency and so on - but I didn't get the mods until after I was good and annoyed.

I would rather the supernatural creatures started off like meteor crashes - rare.   I've only had one space rock come rocketing towards the Miliner house, and in the end it was about puppy sized and it landed politely next to a tree.    I would have loved to have played in Bridgeport for a generation or two before spotting a vampire,  or played for several generations before getting an IF.   The instant gratification takes all the fun out of it, for me. 

Luckily, there's still the fun of pouting.

And, since I was thinking of meteor crashes, I appreciate how honest TS3 is about the pursuit of knowledge directly leading to death and dismay.   Not of that beating around the bush with the yuck factor or whatnot - just good old fashioned discovering of planets leads directly to burning hot rocks crashing on you.


Edit:   Look at how cute this new town looks.   I think even if I started moving the Miliners every generation, I still wouldn't make it to all the cute towns that are now available.    Sure, they run the gamut from merely adorable to jaw dropping - but even the merely adorable ones are worth playing for a generation or two.

Waffles

score.

I gave Ocelot a little conservatory, and while he doesn't seem to give a hoot, I like it.   It's a great place for taking photos (especially of waffles).   You will be seeing a lot of it, hopefully.  If I can trick keep you visiting the Miliners.

 Made with CC from:

bau
exotic elements
around the sims
ritsuka
camille
sunhair
aikea guinea
and Melinda's Shopping Break (by the way..that set came with several different types of waffles! Waffles for every appetite!  Except whatever obscure one you just thought up, to be difficult.   Oh, don't try to deny it.  I'm on to you, like a donkey on waffles  common sense.)

Well, that's taking longer then expected.

So...I decided to kidnap an EA house and convert it to a crazy hodge podge house.  I thought to myself, "Self, you've acquired a ludicrous amount of projects, are you sure this is a good idea?"
"But I neeeeed it, for the comic *whine whine whine whine*"
"D:<"
"Besides, it won't take long! I'm just plopping some hideousness on an EA house, most of the work is done for me."

So the Little Roses Townhouse was selected for abuse, due to it being adorable and on a relatively small lot size (I think 20 x 20?).  

I think I'm 5 hours in and I've finished one room.  Well, two if you count the perfectly ordinary and boring laundry room.   Three if you count tossing a bathroom and an inventors station into the garage as a room.  Hey...this is starting to sound not so fail.

*confetti*

ALSO, if today is a Day of Fireworks then I hope you enjoy the heck out if it.  And if not, then be happy you're not surrounded by drunk Americans? :D  Have a good one, either way.

the start of the transmogrification

ultra-modern-ish TV room, to match the Provencal kitchen, and the Gothic master bed

Octocat, you require more study.

How is it that you can open jars containing food, while you are also innocently sleeping in the other room?

Well well... enjoy your stay in....OCTOJAILHABITAT.

(Also, I now totally love the fog emitters)

the power of worrying about the Miliners

So light and happy!

So... I realized that Maebe will need to move out soon. :(   So I built a house for spares to hang out in while I find them spouses/decide what to do with them.   But I built it in Barnacle Bay because if Generations has borked my most recent Miliner save I don't want to know until...later.  :D

So...here's some picture spam of the Spare House.   It's still a box...but...I'm getting better?

And yet...

woo hoo - gradients

hurray - gradients!

they're, um, gradating

This tattoo was just because I was in hurry to test gradients out - should help spice up things like flowers and pumpkins and cat eyes and the like.

Well, I'm excited.

Also, I learned a valuable lesson about ArtRage and .dds files.   I think it might add an invisible specular layer and it makes saving as a .dds impossible.    So if you have used ArtRage and then got an error message, I feel your pain.   But copying and pasting the wanted layers into a new document worked surprisingly well.   The more you know!

Operation needlessly spruce up Shang Simla

Well, here's a born in prettify-Twinbrook-side-game CAS screenshot of a Shukyee and Nothing offpsring.

I'm starting to build up a pretty good army of sims for my Miliner's Twinbrook, and for Shang Simla, for any vacation comics I end up doing.

Because scouring the internet for sims and CC is better then accepting that I need to re-shoot most of the screenshots for the next planned comic.  And there's plot in it so I shouldn't just skip it.

Anyway.

I love CC.

I think this guy is wearing the layerable facial piercings by  Winry on MTS (fun, but I'm not sure how much of it I'm going to really keep), mandarin skin by m. calero, eyebags by arisuka, kitty default replacement face fuzz, errrrrm...eyebrows and hair from...some...place.

I wish when I hovered over items in CAS there was a popup telling me what I was pointing at.

oh wrist cartilage, how you vex me

UPDATE I'm sorry - I know it's Wednesday, and I've taken all the pictures, but I am just having a difficult time wrist-wise with using the computer.


UPDATE UPDATE It is now Saturday and we've had a small basement flood and a very short power outage.   Both small things, but major time drains.    I think I shall call this the cursed update.

New comic pushed to Wednesday at the latest. <3 <3 <3

So...aside from sexy grandpa Ocelot - is there anyone I should be featuring more of?   I have a mini story arc planned for Maebe.   As for the little kids.  Well.   Little kids are a bit boring, in the sims.

Oh wait. Lynx.  Current heir.  I should probably feature him.

Feedback welcome

Here is my progress so far on my skintone ramps:

The original, Sepia:
Based on sepia photographs, with many different color samples arranged lightest to darkest.
 

Colorized
a more EA type of tone ramp with just different shades of the same color
based on colorized film, where the color turns out a little strange
also looks like spray tan



Dust
this one still vexes me
based on faded, dusty pictures
not exactly a fantasy color, but not exactly life-like, as old pictures don't have vibrant looking people in them
 

These are just skin tone ramps, like the Fawkes skintones, not new skins.

Please let me know what I should fix.

My model is Agnes Crumplebottom.  :D

 New comic on Sunday! \o/
I'm so excited and thankful that people are reading them.   Hello people!

Prologue 1

Children
1- Bobsie Knack
2- Lynx Miliner

Grandchildren
3 - Saul Knack
4 - Maebe Miliner
5- Toni Knack
6 - Fisher Miliner
7- Aurata Miliner
8 - Bombay Miliner (If she had been I boy I would have named her Meezer - bet she's happy she's a girl)

Just testing the waters with my Legacy idea.   The founder and his wife are very near the end, and that is with them scarfing down huge amounts of life fruit.   I wanted to feature something with them, before they go.

I am of course thankful to Archivist and her comics, and Kittycattylion, Berry, FuryRed and all of the other legacy authors out there.   Without you guys showing that it could be done, where would the rest of us be?   <3

Previous
Next

not really a legacy story, but...

I think I would like to turn my legacy into a story...but not before my wrist heals more.   I don't want to make a big project unless I can draw a cat into it.

Though for people who love to read, and to help me find it so I can remember what my family is up to, I have shared snippets of my Legacy family...

one
two
three
four
five   (the closest to a "real" legacy update - I had so much fun with this)

One of my poor, ignored, Carob Cats.  Don't you think a legacy would need a cat like that?   So many things I wish I was doing - just gotta keep hoping and thinking positive thoughts at my wrist.   I'll be able to go back to my projects soon.  <3 <3

Almost done...

Why oh why is this not Earl Grey?

First off...thank you to Mod the Sims and the skininator and easy to follow tutorials!

I know whenever you sit down to play the Sims you think 'Oh man, I wish my sims could look like pensive sepia photographs without having to push the button labeled 'sepia' in Photoshop.'   Fret not, I have been pouring ludicrous amounts of time into making a sepia tone ramp.

I am in love with making tone ramps now!   They require very little dexterity, which is good, because the cartilage in my wrist is still giving me grief.

I have gone through at least a dozen variations of this ramp...pulling out colors that were too green, too bright, too gray, too dark...

I'm pretty happy with this latest one - all I need to do is figure out how to add text to the little slider window that is both legible and helpful.

I wasn't originally going to share it - but hey I'm happy with it and I'm not going to be forcing anyone to use it, just making it available if someone would like to add it to their own skins.  So I guess...why not?

P.S.  Brightened hair is from Shyne