Nearly a Year Ago Now

Oh wow, it's been nearly a year since my last post. I've been keeping pretty busy with my small business, Smallhouse Models.

I was devastated when I realized I couldn't finish my Pleasantview Renovate for my Creator Anniversary last July, but the project isn't scrubbed, it's just on the back burner. I moved out of state two weeks later and needed the time to pack. After the move it didn't seem as urgent because I missed the deadline.

I wasn't about to let another important yearly tradition slip past me. This year the calendar contest's theme is simply to embody that month with a sim in the scene. I've previously entered a January, July, and October months in years previous, so as an added challenge to myself, I can't repeat months I've done in years past. This year I got the idea to depict Groundhog's Day, so that's what I did. Move over Valentine's Day, you are so overdone.

Calendar Contest

As some of you may have noticed, I have recently retired from staff at MTS. This is particularly bittersweet timing because usually I am involved in the creation of the yearly calendar content in game calendar. As I am no longer staff, I don't know what they are planning, but before I left I said I'd be happy to continue putting together the calendar after they've chosen the winners. It's been a very busy month and I wanted to enter two months as I usually do, but I only had the time to create this one image an hour before they were due. I was two minutes late by my post timestamp, so I hope that won't disqualify me. I also wanted to create something for the month of March. October is my favorite month because of Halloween, and March, being my birthday month, is a close second. I didn't even have a plan for what to do with it though, so no real loss. I love doing images with dramatic lighting. Here is my Mistress October. :)

Happy Halloween!!

Here's another project done and off my list for good. I finally wrapped up the costumes for Echo and my Costume Trunk from two years ago. A lot of fantasy costumes were included, and I finally created what I think are the cutest little baby dragons ever. So much of EA clothing is aged up from what it should be. A bunch of kid clothing would look better on toddlers, and teen clothing should be for kids, and even adult clothing that is teen stuff. It's dumb, but that's what conversion content is for! :)

Done with Moving

After learning of Mootilda's passing, finishing our joint project became a priority for me. I guess I felt guilty or ashamed that I took it for granted that we'd have more time? As it turned out, she had mostly finished off her part, so I made a few tweaks and added in the interactions she had requested and uploaded it. Because I am fairly certain I won't be doing anything more with the moving boxes, I tossed them up too, and now I can officially mark this project as done.

We had wanted to make it so that the user could pick between keeping the fixtures and keeping everything, but I had trouble with getting that to work, so it's all still there, but hidden in debug mode if someone wants to help me finish it off the way she wanted it.

Tribute to Mootilda

I'm sure you've heard by now that our community has suffered a great loss. Mootilda passed away on the 2nd. She will be dearly missed by everyone. She and I had been working on a project over a year and a half ago, and with the way real life always jumps in, we never got around to finishing it. I pm'ed her husband, Quatchi, and he was able to send me her files. Looking at it, we were very close to being done. It is my intent to finish our project and upload it in tribute to her.