's Blog

It's poll time!

Hi everyone!

Yes, it's time for me to retire my old poll and bring out a shiny new one. This poll is all about stories.

I love creating stories and TSR provides us all with a place to share our stories with the rest of the community. If you are an avid reader of stories her on TSR, or even if you've never visited the storytelling section, please feel free pop by and leave your thoughts. I'd love to hear from you.

~Illandrya

PS - Thank you to everyone who voted on my old poll, it has been very helpful to me when I have been creating lots to share with the TSR community.

Grounds of Grunge

I've already uploaded a set of grunge-stained wallpapers for those of you who own World Adventures and have no patience for creating your own (and to those of you who don't, I'm really sorry - but there is nothing in the base game that will support this type of paper yet).  The set will be a freebie and I made it because I know people who have zero patience with the Create A Style tool (and I happen to live with one of them!) and these will just add themselves to your game, premade, as a complete set of stained brick papers.  Hope you have fun with them!

But what is the point of nasty walls when they're surrounded by an English country garden?!  Quite.  So I have been busy compiling two sets of grungetastic terrain paints!  The first set will be the Cement Garden set - full of industrial-strength grit and grunge, and the second set will be the Derelict Garden for dead grass, overgrown cobble and cracked dry earth.  A few old favourites (of mine - you might have hated them) have stepped over from my Sims 2 collections (stained cement, littered rubble, black asphalt and some grass with mud patches) but the majority of the paints are brand new...

And in making them, I belatedly discovered the entire point of the square brush!  See my paving slabs with the weed in between?  Incredibly simple to do: plonk down a yard full of base-game weed, then take the smallest square brush, move the slider right to the end of 'hard edge' and dab cement slabs down.  The square brush on 'hard edge' setting still doesn't reach quite to the very edge of the tile, and this makes it easily possible to leave unpainted (ie weed gaps) between the slabs.  How cool is that?! 

But you probably already knew all this.  In fact, your first-ever Sims 3 house probably used this very technique.  Indeed, you probably did it all the way through Sims 2 as well, and so did your 3-year-old nephew, pet cat etc etc.  All I can say to that is that I was probably busy making cranes or something...

Problem Solved...I think! LOL

So I think I've managed to find the problem with my latest house. So hopefully it will be submitted today and published in a few days! Let's hope this works now! lol

Sad.

I'm so sad because the moderators rejected my first part of story"Fire & Lipstick".I think if they won't accept my story,I'll never post other again,because I worked hard.I haven't a crew.I done this job alone.And now I'm mad.

2nd part of 'His Father's Son' submitted

Hi everybody. Just telling you that today I submitted the second part of my story 'His Father's Son". I hope it will be published soon.

My first day.

Hello,

This will be my first day as a starting creator. I am going to add items to my mini-site but first I need windows because these stupid programs does not work on a mac. Yes only with bootcamp. I once tried to make a object and I found out that is was very hard to do. I really love hair and items and I do not like make-up. You will see what I produce and you can download it if you like. It is not much but I can live with that. BTW I am Dutch so my English is very bad :P.

Anouk

Creations update - Goosebumps family plus patterns :)

Hi all,

Just to let you know, I have released 2 patterns which are availlable to download now. Skull and crossbones for your Pirate loving Sims and Ghosts for your spooky Sims :) 

I am finally releasing the Goosebump Sims family which I originally created for Halloween. They remind me of characters that Tim Burton would probably come up with, so I am pleased with the results of these Sims. I tested them in the game and they look really creepy. If you like that kind of thing, they are currently pending in submissions and are due for release tommorow - Jan 21st.

Mortimer is the father, Gertrude is the mother and Winifred is the daughter. They are all quite spooky looking. The father took a bit of tweaking, as I wasn't happy with his look, hence the delay. I am quite pleased with the final look now, so check back tommorow to download them all.

More creations are to come this week, so remember to book mark me :)

The Talbot Family

I started with the Silver family, branched off to the Verde family (since Gertrude's new husband comes from there), and then did the Gold family (because oldest son Warren married into it).  Since Lionel and Jason--the second and third sons--still live with Gertrude, I'll talk about fourth son Harrison, who moved out recently.

Harrison Silver had been in a relationship with his older brother Lionel.  However, when he found out that Lionel was not only cheating on him with a woman but actually intended to marry her and move her into the Silver household (Grant had already moved in with his mistress/new wife), the betrayal was too much.  He took a walk around town to cool off.

During his solitary trek he met a newcomer to town, Stanford Talbot.  He had just moved because his younger brother had told him how friendly and accepting the town was.  Harrison and Stanford talked for a bit, really hitting it off.  Harrison, though he was still angry with his brother, went home to think things through.

When Lionel's new wife, Michelle, moved in, Harrison accepted her...after all, it wasn't her fault his brother was a fickle fool, right?  Besides, now that he had made a new friend--and a friend, besides, who seemed interested in developing it further--he could handle the situation.  Eventually, Stanford invited Harrison to move in with him, and Harrison left the Silver household, taking the name of Talbot for his own.

Harrison remained a Theorist, and his limited income was vital in supporting the two of them because Stanford was working to establish himself in the Paranormal field.  Even after he rose to become an Exorcist, the two had to practice careful budgeting--1870 Simoleons a day don't go very far.  Around this time, Harrison learned that Stanford's younger brother was Ned Smith, and that he was actually the boyfriend of Harrison's own youngest brother Casper, who had been asked to leave the military.

Crystal Talbot, one of Stanford's sisters, moved into town with her son Calvin.  Recently widowed, she was struggling to make ends meet.  Determined to make it on her own, though, she fought hard and became a Fashion Columnist, all on her own merits.  Realizing that Calvin needed a father figure, however, she accepted Stanford's invitation to move in with him and Harrison.  Although reluctant, Crystal decided it was for the best:  Stanford and Harrison could take care of Calvin while she worked evenings, and Harrison was a much better cook than she was anyway.

On the way to work one day, she met Nicholas, a traveler who had stopped over for a little while.  They hit it off, and Nicholas decided to settle in town.  Originally from circus stock, he reconnected with his heritage and found work at the nearby permanent circus grounds.  When their schedules permitted, he and Crystal dated.  Eventually they married and Nicholas moved into the Talbot home.  Shortly after rising to become a Lion Tamer, he and Crystal had a son, Cody.

Although Calvin liked having three fathers, it felt a little weird to have only one mother.  However, shortly before Cody's appearance, Stanford's other younger sister Misty came looking for a place to stay.  Recently divorced from her husband (whom she learned preferred men to women) she had custody of one of their sons, Mickey.  They moved in, and now Calvin had two mothers, three fathers, and counting Mickey and Cody, two brothers as well.

Misty, freed from the burden of raising a child by herself, was able to go back to school and earn a business administration degree.  Now as the CEO of her own company, she contributes to the family income, boosting it considerably.  Now, instead of just Stanford and Harrison's paltry 1870 Simoleons a day, their income was 4645 Simoleons a day.  Now they could afford to really expand their home and enjoy the "wants" instead of just meeting the "needs."

Incidentally, Crystal's husband's death and Misty's ex-husband will be returned to in other families...just to let you know.

What to do...

I have to remember to "Enable comments" each time I post a blog.  I keep forgetting.

Okay, so I did get one comment, and I appreciate it.  It's a good one, suggesting that instead of posting stories about my families here in the blog I should do it elsewhere.  I'd need to take screenshots and all, but...

The problem with that, though, is that it looks like all the stories already posted are for Sims 2 and Sims 3.  Would anyone want the admittedly inferior screenshots from Sims 1 attached to a story there?  Not that I'm even sure I can post a Sims 1 story there anyway.  I mean, I'd be willing to try, I guess, but in the meantime, I think I'll stick to the blogs for now.

I guess...

Unity

These days I am creating content for the game based on what I find lacking whilst playing the game myself. I noticed recently that there really aren't any outfits included with the game suitable for yoga practice, which should ideally be performed with bare feet. So to remedy this, I have created six comfy, bare-footed outfits specifically for this purpose; three with leotards and footless tights and three with capri pants.

All outfits are available for adult and young adult females and are categorised as athletic wear (although some outfits could also be used as everyday wear if re-categorised). All the outfits use a standard Maxis mesh and are base game compatible.