Two Competition Pictures

So far, Faerie Folk is going along really well. There's a ton of talent in this competition, and I think the next (3rd) assignment will be even MORE of a challenge. It's really helped me to begin shaking off the photo/Photoshop cobwebs. 

Assignment #1: Showing how or character became evil (or good if she's on the less dark side)

It is an age when Chaos rules the world of mortals; this brother of Order, not wholly evil yet a brazen assassin of balance. By his maxim he is not only important, but critical to the resplendent flow of Qo Nàhe, the boundless immeasurable stream of existence. The Guardian Architect spoke of this to me once, and once again in twilight's somber song.

"...Discord navigates the waves of Qo Nàhe...with impulse and hollow regard he sows the seeds of disarray, of anarchy...the radiant blade will lie in wait. His dominion bears down on all, the drowning weight liken to a thousand storms...and from bedlam skies will toy with mortal fate..."

In the era of my innocence the words mean nothing. Even as the heavy burden was laid on my shoulders, my fate to suffer for the misery of Man, these lines of prose pass through unconcerned ears and an infantile heart. I neither comprehend nor give fretted thought to the beautiful aria dissipating through my memory, fading like effervescent si'lescàya petals on a waiting tongue...

...and so he chooses me.

The breath of Chaos Architect enveloped me as I emerged from a bathing spring, and its brisk unsteady wind was unfamiliar, curious. I closed my eyes and suffocated in its caress, all about me slicing, permeating, penetrating, almost salacious in pained pleasure.

With numb weary I weep bitter tears, and the jade poison seeps past my lips snaking the same trail -- I understand now, and my defiled heart surges rapidly within.

He has tainted my essence, made corrupt my sacred burden, and his unyielding grip asphyxiates. My duty abound, I am called to relieve another mortal soul besieged in darkness...and to my everlasting despair I come to realize my role as an instrument of the Architect; as my song of lament draws the pain of melancholy from one tortured being, so too does it draw the Architect himself to me and to my task, and he comes swiftly. With gleaming blade in hand he mirrors my benevolence with his bitterness, piercing a mortal spirit with jade venom and untold, undeserved misery. I linger helpless.

By his edict I can do no right without bringing ruin. I am consolation, and also catastrophe, forever a pawn in the game of Chaos, and an agent of ill will.

...Mankind forgive me...

Assignment #2: We were each assigned a word that symbolizes faeries in some way, and had to represent that word in a pic. I was given "Rebirth"

Ennui, the mournfully beautiful Fae of Sorrows, has endured two births: the first as she passed into the world as a delicate infant, and the second as the weary song of the Guardian Architect pierced her innocent soul.

The wax and wane of the Nie hala Lûn, or Indigo Moon, foretold her rebirth as the sorrow-filled fae, and since that time Ennui has faithfully carried out her tasks. If not for the baneful Chaos Architect, she would live a blessed, albeit melancholy life. Her heart aches for the mortal souls who carry heavy burdens because of her taint, her body soiled with the viscous misery of those she inadvertently hurts.

Though anguish stains her now, Ennui dreams of the age when she can cleanse herself under the Ériol soah Lûn, or purifying Azure Moon, emerging from a glowing cerulean pool and washing away the tarnished shades of her spirit. On this ethereal night, Ennui will cast off her ruin and bask in the sparkling essence of her final birth, reclaiming her true, pure task as the Fae of Sorrows.

I'm loving this sim so much...I wish I knew how to make CC so we could have more fantasy-style items!

Faerie Folk Cycle 3 Entry and Recent Sim Pics

The last competition I joined was Evie's awesome Unique: Kawaii comp back in August, and before that it was Akasha's Gothique Beauty Cycle 1 (which finished in June). I'm so rusty! But I'm took a leap and signed up for Faerie Folk. Some of the best sim artists in the community have gone through that competition, and it sounds like a blast...I'm just really nervous! But hopefully it'll be a lot of fun.

The sim I submitted is a fae that I named Ennui Sorrowsong. Ennui (pronounced "ahn-WEE") is actually a term used to describe feelings of weariness, boredom, or discontent, but can also refer to general melancholy. I dunno, for some reason I've always liked the word, so my poor faerie got stuck with the name.

This Cycle of Faerie Folk centers around Good and Evil faeries: our sim could either be Good or Evil (Ennui is evil, though I had initially planned for her to be Good. We were over the limit on Goods), and for Assignment #1 we'll have to show how she/he became that way. I have no earthly idea how I'll portray mine just yet, but the brainstorming is a trip!

Ennui's Bio:

On the seventh night of the Nie hala Lûn (the hallowed Indigo Moon), the Guardian Architect whispered a mournful song into Ennui's heart, one that beat delicately within her, untainted by the horrors of suffering. The beautiful pale little fae opened her sorrowful crystalline eyes and stepped out into the stillness of the frigid night, hair burned dark by the glimmering low-hung Indigo Moon above. Its wax and wane foretold her rebirth, and also hope for the world of men; for it would be her charge to seek out those with weary hearts pained in weighted hopelessness and anguish.

From that eve and onward, Ennui has existed as the Fae of Sorrows. With a Dusk of Dying rose between her trembling lips, its thorns ever drawing fresh cold blood, she would sing a beautifully somber lamenting aria of misery and of mercy. The eternal burden placed upon Ennui is a great one: to absorb the grim despair of woe that afflicts the mortal soul, to swallow his grief, relieve him of worry and draw it deep within her own essence. For her sacrifice, she bears the scar of empathy for every crestfallen tear that becomes her own.

Though Ennui bears her burden with genuine grace, there are those that seek to use her for their divine will. The Architect of Chaos blew turbulent, silent winds of discourse and tainted Ennui's spirit; for every grief-stricken tear she draws into herself, she inadvertently causes a tear to fall. For every ravaged heart and besieged soul she frees of torment, she causes a parallel, unforeseen heartache someplace in the mortal world. She is viewed as an evil soul, but Ennui's most tortured desire is to restore Order and reclaim her unsullied birthtask.

Until then, she continues her dreary song, made more melancholy and desperately beautiful with tiny thorn-drawn blood droplets...

When I installed LN last week, one of the first things I did was to go around and check out some of the Bridgeport character. It was late, so I played around with making over Morrigan and Wogan Hemlock. Nothing dramatic - just adjusting a few features and adding some CC. I think they still look similar to their original vampy selves. You can check them out HERE at Sim Exhibition if ya want.


Finally, I have to say that dressing up a sim for my blog banner was cool as hell. I guess she's the current 'Bijou Sweeney', or something like that. I was testing out some backgrounds and other shtuff a couple of weeks ago and ended up editing one of those shots in Photoshop. It's only a test shot, so the poses suck -- BUT the editing came out okay (just a few filters). If the background looks at all familiar, it is: it's the set from one of my Gothique Beauty pictures (Arabesque as a black swan). The sexxy vamp dude is a dark version of my Cristobel Mourningstar sim, and now that I have LN, he's next on my list to be legitimately vampified:

Click to enlarge!

Halloween Wishes and Old Sim Art

"Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen, voices whisper in the trees, 'Tonight is Halloween!'" --Dexter Kozen

 *****

Happy Halloween to everyone! If you're going out tonight and celebrating, please be safe, smart, and at least a *little* responsible! ^_^ No new Halloween sim-art to share, so I'll just post an old competition pic from 'America's Next Top Non Mortal' (much better enlarged):

                   *My cat-doll sim Motley and her beau Cristobel Mourningstar*

 *****

Take care guys, and have a wild & wacky Halloween!

Anyone Ever Completely Overhaul Their CC?

I cannot WAIT to get my mitts on Late Night.  I've really been wanting to reorganize my CC and mods and junk before getting it and installing it, but my god, every time I look up there are ten thousand new pieces of custom content that I "must" have.

New Blog Design and a Few New Games

I'd wanted to update this place for Halloween, but RL shiz got in the way and I'm only just now getting around to it.

LOL I'm so sleepy right now that I barely know what I'm typing....howevah, I think I have *just* enough wake-upedness to finish this post!

The blog design has been updated (sorry that the full background doesn't show on smaller resolutions), and I've added a few new widgets (after culling a few others) -- a couple of games, a cute new animal friend, some other stuff...my brain is so fried....we've got pumpkin carving (no pun'kin chunkin' tho...)!
And there's a cool/weird World Clock at the bottom, plus a nifty lil' gadget that lets you paint like Mr. Jackson Pollock himself (it's the big ol' blank white box - just hover your mouse on the background to start painting, and click to change colors).

I'll try to have some new sim pics up vedy vedy soon, and a couple of new blog posts as well.  And some type of short story, maybe 5 panels long?  ....Have you ever been so sleepy that you practically forgot your name?  Lolz...yeah.....

...well, at least I think this guys is just sleeping....yyyeeaahh, let's....let's just...leeeave him alone, eh?  Give a dude some privacy.

Anyway....hope you guys all have a wonderful day and a beautiful week and a kick-ass Halloween!  And if you have Late Night coming in the mail....it's almost heeeere!!!  And if you don't have it coming, it's still almost here!!!  Hot tubs & hot vamps FTMFW!!!

*And congratulations to the Texas Rangers for climbing their way to the top and making it to their very first World Series appearance in franchise history!  Bout time!*

See you guys in the funny pages!

^_^

"Many things--such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly--are done worst when we try hardest to do them." --C.S. Lewis

Small 'Sim Exhibition' Update

Just a tiny update -- I've been working on recreating my (custom) family from TS2, the Lowekeys.  I'm finally finished and satisfied, and I'll hopefully be posting in-game shots in the near future.  I'm really looking forward to playing them again -- I actually teared up a bit when the oldest left for college (psh, and when she was born, for that matter - my very first TS2 born-in-game sim...).  These guys are really near and dear to my old simming heart, and initially I hadn't planned on recreating them for TS3, but what the hey.  Why not.

Pics are posted on Sim Exhibition (you know, that site that you probably didn't even know existed that I reeeeally need to update more in addition to this place...)

Some Photoshop Practicing & A New Pic Series

Since I got my computer running again, I've been trying to get back into Photoshopping.  I've done several practice pics so far, and I'm looking forward to (hopefully) starting a new short series of pictures (my ultimate goal is to create several different series).

After working on some regular in-game shots, I decided to try something more 'abstract', so I went with every simmer's favorite little green icon.  What I really want to work on is a small series of themed plumbob pictures, all with the little guy (or gal) as the central focus.  I have a bunch of ideas for themes to try, but actually creating them is another story...this picture was a couple of days in the making and I'm still nitpicking a ton.  I used a normal green plumbob icon and added several layers of brushes, coloring, grain, fog, filters, etc.  This is the first image of the series, but it's all still a lot of practice, tutorials, hair-pulling, teeth-mashing, etc.....

Thanks for looking! Hope to be able to work on more of these soon (when I finally figure out what the hell I'm doing FOR REAL).

Dusting off the cobwebs a bit....

We've been working on getting the PC running all evening, and it looks like things are good to go so far!  I'm going to spend much of tomorrow reinstalling all of our programs and games and such, and hopefully I'll have a halfway decent post to make soon.

I know this place has been an absolute ghost town lately -- thank you guys SO much for putting up with listening to all my boring-ass computer talk and lack of updates.  I'll find some way to make it up to everyone as soon as I can. *blushes*

Happy 8/9/10!

I didn't get a chance to post this at 11:12am, lol (8/9/10 11:12....).

Hope everyone is doing well!  I've been out of commission for a while with computer issues.  I have to get a new graphics card much sooner than I had planned -- the damn thing died on me last week when I tried to install Ambitions (rip 8800gts...you were beloved...).  I had to drop out of Evie's Kawaii competition and put all of my other (crappy) projects on hold, and trying to do anything on this laptop is aggravating at best.  Hopefully things will be up & running this week...*crosses fingers til they break off*

So what's going on with everyone?  Any interesting projects or creations or other RL shiz?  I have to live vicariously through you guys for a little while, lol.

I promise to update more often after all this shit blows over, and I want to start on some new sim projects.  The people who visit this hole deserve at least SOMETHING to entertain them, so I WILL deliver on that as soon as I can!

Take care guys!  Enjoy 8/9/10!

Thanks for the input everyone!

I wanted to say thanks to all of you that gave comments in my last post about Windows 7.   We're going to go ahead and install it and then begin the very scary process of installing these upgrades. o_O

If everything goes according to plans A thru Q, we'll be dicking around with computer stuff most of this week, so I'll probably be a no-show around here and at the chats & forums.  Thank you guys for your input, advice, and help.  I really appreciate it!

Soooooo...wish me luck & a wee bit of juju that all of this works out.  If not....I guess I've got one sweet-ass paperweight on my hands......

Take care dudes  ^_^

*hugs & noogies*

Any Issues with Windows 7 and Sims?

I know this question has already been asked on the TS3 Forum, but I wanted to ask you guys if you've had any bad/weird/wonky issues with Windows 7 and TS3 (I'm still on XP).

This computer upgrade is hobbling along slowly but surely, LOL.  I'm hoping to start installing a couple of components next week, and then deal with the graphics card issue by the end of the summer (hopefully o_O).

Thanks in advance for any input, no matter how big or small!

Message from the Great Beyond

...Seeing as how I'm 'dead' now, and all.

Simmer Spotlight: Recognizing Rexy!

It goes without saying that we have a community of supremely talented people, folks who churn out creations that should be published, or at the very LEAST incite slobbering jaw-droppery.

Case in point - Simmersaurus Rex, aka "Rexy". 

The girl's got more raw talent in her pinky nail than some people can find in a whole neighborhood.  Most of us have seen (and been WOWED by) her work, but one of Rexy's best contributions to the simming community has been her highly successful "Rexy's Guide to Editing".

Using easy-to-follow steps, large colorful example pics, and insanely helpful tips & hints, Rexy has assembled one of the very best editing tutorials ever seen in the community.  It's compiled more like an actual booklet, complete with large headers and indexes, than a simple 1, 2, 3 set of instructions.

The lessons are neatly ordered and sequential, allowing students to build upon the skills they have acquired thus far.  There is such a warm, inviting, positive vibe within -- everyone encourages everyone else, and constructive criticism is welcomed and eagerly accepted.  Some students are already fairly seasoned editors, and others have never attempted an editing job at all.  The hints and tutorials are presented in an incredibly clear, straightforward manner, and lessons are helpful and relevant for everyone from complete novices to editing "gurus".

And Rexy is ever-present in the thread, always on-hand to offer helpful suggestions and positive, detailed feedback.  She maintains a vibrant, supportive atmosphere in the thread, and students cheerfully follow suit.

"Rexy's Guide to Editing" is a huge asset to the community, something that she has taken the lengthy time and effort to offer for her fellow simmers.  Even if you're not the editing sort, take a minute to look it over if you haven't already.  There's truly something for everyone, and, being a constant work in progress, there's much more to come!

Also, Rexy's wickedly awesome Sim Lair is full of funny, upbeat posts and more spectacular pictures, and her companion Photo Gallery blog embodies some of the very best of her many works of sim art.  Like so many others in this kooky community of ours, she's a great friend and a huge inspiration!

Teeny Tiny Update - NEW BLOG GAME

Blame Kelle for this addictive little gem - I've added Crush the Castle to my small game collection here.  Due to the larger screen size, it is located at the very bottom of the blog.

It's basic but challenging and a lot of fun (reminiscent of some of the games on AdultSwim.com).  Using a trebuchet, you must bombard your enemy's flimsy little castle, complete with Royal inhabitants whom you must kill (pretty sure they did SOMETHING to deserve it...).  As you progress through the levels (24 in all), you will acquire new projectiles for the trebuchet to help.....well...crush the castles (and the poor saps stationed in and outside).   Some levels are harder than others, but none are so brutal that you'll lose much hair (some clumps & chunks, maybe; but not the whole payload).

This flash game is addictive and surprisingly therapeutic in a simplistic, semi-violent way.   It's castle-and-people-crushing mAdNe$S, so check it out.  Particularly awesome if you're bored as hell...which, considering the fact that you're HERE, you very well might be...

Lack of Updates and Sim Pic Nostalgia

I've been so consumed with computer stuff for the past couple of weeks that I haven't tried to update a damn thing (please wish me luck & good ju-ju on getting this thang put together soon).  I'm sorry to be such a bore! 

I was sorting through some of my oldest competition shots with some guys on Cece's chatbox the other day, and I came across some of my favorites from Bitten's old competition, "I'm No Dummy".  If you don't remember it or weren't a participant, you really missed out -- she and the other judges put together one helluva fun contest!