Almighty Hat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hat_plays_sims) wrote2012-07-05 04:29 pm
hat_plays_sims) wrote2012-07-05 04:29 pm
Entry tags:
Du Lac Cotehardies and Tunics
So, while I was on hiatus, I got bored and got to playing with meshes and textures and source material and... Well, I made a slew of Medieval clothes. No, really, I mean a whole slew of them.
Alas
A lass
Is what I lack
I lack
A lass
Alas, Alack
Right, so, okay.
We have here women's cotehardies and men's tunics. What the heck is a cotehardie? It basically means 'close-fitting garment,' and yep, that's what my ladies are wearing, laced nice and snug. (Men can wear cotehardies, too, but they're much shorter, and I wanted to finally play with the Robin Hood mesh, so they just get tunics today.) My inspiration comes from a couple of sources: Revival Clothing's Du Lac Cotehardie (hence the name), the Gaston Phoebus Tunic from the same site, and Matilda La Zouche's gown with full sleeves. The overall period I was aiming for was the High Middle Ages, somewhere in the mid-to-late 1300s.
True, my cotehardies lace up the back while Revival Clothing's versions are front-lacing; back-lacing gowns basically just mean your Sims need a maid, a sister, a daughter, a mother, or a patient husband to get into these gowns. I promise to do some front-lacing ladies's clothes at some point, too.
So I've talked history, now let me talk about what you're getting.
Using textures cribbed from Aligeth (the men's tunic), Sherahbim (her Camelot and Lady gowns), and Iamliz (a couple of belts), I ran Aelia's Autumn, CuriousB's Any Color You Like, and Pooklet's Project Mayhem Naturals on these bad boys, which means you get eighty-two recolors EACH for Cynnix's Laced-Sleeve Gown for TF and AF and Oph3lia's edit of Aligeth's Robin Hood tunic (with pregmorph by Cynnix) for AM and Cynnix's conversion of Oph3lia's edit of Aligeth's Robin Hood Tunic for TM. Because I am a lunatic. To preserve detail and because it was faster than doing everything through Body Shop twice when I got to the teens, all textures have been replaced in SimPE, and then all the files were compressorized to reduce insane bloat. Everything is categorized for Casual, Formal, Outerwear, and Maternity, nothing is townie-enabled, adult meshes also work for young adults and elders (a proper EF mesh exists for Cynnix's Laced-Sleeve Gown, but the gown looks better on the adult mesh, as it's more snug through the bust, and basically my brain just went 'no, you are not doing any more. Stop'), all meshes have fat and pregmorphs, and male and female outfits were rigged to coordinate with each other.
Not every color combination is historically accurate. I'm just an insane completist. There is no way, using vegetable dyes, to create the following colors:
Aelia's Autumn Actions
Magenta
Purple Haze
Denim *
Royal Blue *
Teal
Mauve **
CuriousB's Any Color You Like
Bluebell **
Cove
Kingfisher
Jet
Pooklet's Project Mayhem Naturals
Dynamite
Flash Powder
* However, these were possible colors in paint and very popular in artwork; if a dye could have been made, these colors would've been popular.
** These, actually, I'm not sure were impossible, but I don't THINK they could've been done.
Colors like Plum, Tomato, Rust, Aubergine, Red Wine (which would all be variants of tyrian dye, worth its weight in gold), French Navy, and Ocean would've been expensive to create and thus, generally reserved for the wealthy folks. Mango is an entirely plausible dye color, but I'll be honest, I don't feel like anything I did to those outfits did more than make a weird color vaguely passable. True black was also really hard to achieve; you did it by overdyeing wool from black (really, dark brown) sheep with dye made from walnuts and iron if you were desperate for a true black... and the necessary iron tended to cause the dyed fibers to deteriorate much, much faster than other, more plant-based dyes.
But as you can see, not all the colors are nobility-only. (The hats are all available in my Hat Dump, and are designed to coordinate well with the cotehardies and tunics.) Plenty of the neutral and lighter colors (and some of the lighter reds and really, all the greens) would work fine for commmoners; I generally tried to keep the pricey colors on peasant-appropriate shades to the gantlets (or undersleeves; the men's tunics could go either way on that) and hoods, because if you could afford a brown gown or grey tunic, you might still be able to afford a little color on something that wasn't going to see as much wear-and-tear.
I also included a sort of cheat sheet on the gowns as far as class distinction goes.
The belts!
Okay, so the first image there isn't about the belt, it's about the detail on the laces, but we'll talk about belts anyway. There are five belt variations; Sherahbim chain belts in gold and silver, Iamliz's skinny belt (straight across the hips), Iamliz's merchant belt (with more of a dip in the front), and no belt at all. I put the chain belts on cotehardies that really only work for wealthy ladies (I won't say nobility; could be some wealthy merchants' or merceneries' ladies in there, too), while the leather belts are more for colors that are on the common side (or for wealthy ladies who prefer to be practical). Some colors just plain seemed to transcend class; these have no belt on them whatsoever.
I will say, all of the cotehardies are maybe a little nice for the serfs and thralls of the Simming world; the cheapest colors are Incendiary, Safety Fuse, and Fission, and the lowest I'd go for them would be 'respectable older freedman's wife or widow's Sunday best.' That's mostly because they're back-lacing and don't have any wear showing.
I throw that in here because, in general, Medieval gowns are meant to be worn with head coverings. In the two quartet pictures, you can see the gowns worn with FantasyRogue's crispinettes and G-Knee's Bycocket; directly above I figured I ought to come clean about Cynnix's Nun Wimple just barely being too small for the alpha on this one. Stick with the Noble Veil or Clubkitty's Hijab for this one.
(And yes, plenty of the gray, black, brown, and white gowns could work just fine for nun's habits!)
Man, okay, enough about the gowns, let's talk about the tunics a little.
... Well, I've talked about the colors a lot for the ladies, and that pretty much holds true for the men, as well. One thing I can say is that the two meshes sort of just barely skirt being in the same period; this style of tunic was on its way out for fashionable men as the cotehardie was on its way in. The looser style of tunic seen here was a staple of the early Middle Ages, when everybody wore clothes cut along basically the same lines, and you knew who was rich and who was poor by the quality of fabric, color of the dye, and how much extra fabric they could afford to use. Long or full robes, gowns, and tunics were a sign of high status... but a man could go around in a short tunic and still look fashionable, because the Middle Ages recognized something that most modern people have forgotten:
Men have sexy legs.
And it's true! Men carry less fat in their legs than women, and gain muscle more easily. Even heavyset men tend to have nice legs; lugging around a spare tire makes the legs work harder than on a slim man. Snug hose and tunic-length hemlines were expected to show off long, well-turned legs.
... Basically I just feel like I've talked up the gowns a lot and now I'm reaching for things to say about the tunics. There are as many as five different colors involved in some of these bad boys, but I considered the tunic to be the 'base' color that everything is sorted by.
So, before I hit you with swatches and downloads, allow me to credit and thank a lot of people, and hit you up with some policies. From the inside out, praise be unto Cynnix for her Laced-Sleeve Gown meshes (included), to Aligeth for her Robin Hood mesh, to Oph3lia for cutting the bracer off of Aligeth's Robin Hood mesh, and to Cynnix again for an AM pregmorph and teen male conversion of Aligeth's Robin Hood mesh, which are also included. (And much praise to Aligeth for being willing to let people edit her meshes so much!) Praise be unto Sherahbim and her open policy, for I did bad bad things to her Lady gown in order to make my cotehardie textures, and even burgled a touch of the Lady gown for the tunics' sleeves. Textures on the tunics are credit largely to Aligeth and a bit to Aquilegia, for her linen textures (I used my own hose textures from Le Chausseur for the hose on these tunics, which incorporate Aquilegia's linen). Without SimPE, my tooltips would be incomprehensibly short instead of crediting absolutely everyone, and all my colors would be crunchy... so Quaxi, thank you, thank you, wherever you are. As ever I have to thank Lyn for making sure I had a working copy of Photoshop, because otherwise there would be none of this at all.
On this one? No paysites. I'm sure somewhere in Aligeth, Aquilegia, Cynnix, Sherahbim, or Oph3lia's policies, it says no paysites. So no paysites. If, however, you want to do further recolors of these, desire my PSDs, want to do repository versions for the teens, or other such fun stuff like that? Be my guest! Give credit where credit is due and if you do a repository set, please link me to it (and remember the bump maps are different for the different belts!)
Okay! Let's download.
COTEHARDIE SWATCH: POOKLET'S NATURALS
DOWNLOAD TF COTEHARDIE: POOKLET'S NATURALS
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD YAEF COTEHARDIE: POOKLET'S NATURALS
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
TUNIC SWATCH: POOKLET'S NATURALS
DOWNLOAD TM TUNIC: POOKLET'S NATURALS
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD YAEM TUNIC: POOKLET'S NATURALS
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
COTEHARDIE SWATCH: AELIA AUTUMN
DOWNLOAD TF COTEHARDIE: AELIA AUTUMN
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD YAEF COTEHARDIE: AELIA AUTUMN
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
TUNIC SWATCH: AELIA AUTUMN
DOWNLOAD TM TUNIC: AELIA AUTUMN
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD AM TUNIC: AELIA AUTUMN
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
COTEHARDIE SWATCH: CURIOUSB ANY COLOR YOU LIKE
DOWNLOAD TF COTEHARDIE: ACYL
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD AF COTEHARDIE: ACYL
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
TUNIC SWATCH: CURIOUSB ANY COLOR YOU LIKE
DOWNLOAD TM TUNIC: ACYL
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD AM TUNIC: ACYL
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
And one more picture, because I liked how this one turned out.
Wanna help me feed my cats?
In case you feel like dropping me a buck or two, should you have a buck or two to spare. Donors get two things at the moment: a) a link to the Super Secret Cat Gallery, full of pictures of the cats you'll be feeding, updated sporadically when the cats do something photogenic and I'm fast enough on the trigger to catch it, and b) a link to the list of content I have done-but-not-screencapped, nearly done, partly done, or in the planning stages, and the option to suggest what ought to be in the next batch of things I focus on.
Alas
A lass
Is what I lack
I lack
A lass
Alas, Alack
Right, so, okay.
We have here women's cotehardies and men's tunics. What the heck is a cotehardie? It basically means 'close-fitting garment,' and yep, that's what my ladies are wearing, laced nice and snug. (Men can wear cotehardies, too, but they're much shorter, and I wanted to finally play with the Robin Hood mesh, so they just get tunics today.) My inspiration comes from a couple of sources: Revival Clothing's Du Lac Cotehardie (hence the name), the Gaston Phoebus Tunic from the same site, and Matilda La Zouche's gown with full sleeves. The overall period I was aiming for was the High Middle Ages, somewhere in the mid-to-late 1300s.
True, my cotehardies lace up the back while Revival Clothing's versions are front-lacing; back-lacing gowns basically just mean your Sims need a maid, a sister, a daughter, a mother, or a patient husband to get into these gowns. I promise to do some front-lacing ladies's clothes at some point, too.
So I've talked history, now let me talk about what you're getting.
Using textures cribbed from Aligeth (the men's tunic), Sherahbim (her Camelot and Lady gowns), and Iamliz (a couple of belts), I ran Aelia's Autumn, CuriousB's Any Color You Like, and Pooklet's Project Mayhem Naturals on these bad boys, which means you get eighty-two recolors EACH for Cynnix's Laced-Sleeve Gown for TF and AF and Oph3lia's edit of Aligeth's Robin Hood tunic (with pregmorph by Cynnix) for AM and Cynnix's conversion of Oph3lia's edit of Aligeth's Robin Hood Tunic for TM. Because I am a lunatic. To preserve detail and because it was faster than doing everything through Body Shop twice when I got to the teens, all textures have been replaced in SimPE, and then all the files were compressorized to reduce insane bloat. Everything is categorized for Casual, Formal, Outerwear, and Maternity, nothing is townie-enabled, adult meshes also work for young adults and elders (a proper EF mesh exists for Cynnix's Laced-Sleeve Gown, but the gown looks better on the adult mesh, as it's more snug through the bust, and basically my brain just went 'no, you are not doing any more. Stop'), all meshes have fat and pregmorphs, and male and female outfits were rigged to coordinate with each other.
Not every color combination is historically accurate. I'm just an insane completist. There is no way, using vegetable dyes, to create the following colors:
Aelia's Autumn Actions
Magenta
Purple Haze
Denim *
Royal Blue *
Teal
Mauve **
CuriousB's Any Color You Like
Bluebell **
Cove
Kingfisher
Jet
Pooklet's Project Mayhem Naturals
Dynamite
Flash Powder
* However, these were possible colors in paint and very popular in artwork; if a dye could have been made, these colors would've been popular.
** These, actually, I'm not sure were impossible, but I don't THINK they could've been done.
Colors like Plum, Tomato, Rust, Aubergine, Red Wine (which would all be variants of tyrian dye, worth its weight in gold), French Navy, and Ocean would've been expensive to create and thus, generally reserved for the wealthy folks. Mango is an entirely plausible dye color, but I'll be honest, I don't feel like anything I did to those outfits did more than make a weird color vaguely passable. True black was also really hard to achieve; you did it by overdyeing wool from black (really, dark brown) sheep with dye made from walnuts and iron if you were desperate for a true black... and the necessary iron tended to cause the dyed fibers to deteriorate much, much faster than other, more plant-based dyes.
But as you can see, not all the colors are nobility-only. (The hats are all available in my Hat Dump, and are designed to coordinate well with the cotehardies and tunics.) Plenty of the neutral and lighter colors (and some of the lighter reds and really, all the greens) would work fine for commmoners; I generally tried to keep the pricey colors on peasant-appropriate shades to the gantlets (or undersleeves; the men's tunics could go either way on that) and hoods, because if you could afford a brown gown or grey tunic, you might still be able to afford a little color on something that wasn't going to see as much wear-and-tear.
I also included a sort of cheat sheet on the gowns as far as class distinction goes.
The belts!
Okay, so the first image there isn't about the belt, it's about the detail on the laces, but we'll talk about belts anyway. There are five belt variations; Sherahbim chain belts in gold and silver, Iamliz's skinny belt (straight across the hips), Iamliz's merchant belt (with more of a dip in the front), and no belt at all. I put the chain belts on cotehardies that really only work for wealthy ladies (I won't say nobility; could be some wealthy merchants' or merceneries' ladies in there, too), while the leather belts are more for colors that are on the common side (or for wealthy ladies who prefer to be practical). Some colors just plain seemed to transcend class; these have no belt on them whatsoever.
I will say, all of the cotehardies are maybe a little nice for the serfs and thralls of the Simming world; the cheapest colors are Incendiary, Safety Fuse, and Fission, and the lowest I'd go for them would be 'respectable older freedman's wife or widow's Sunday best.' That's mostly because they're back-lacing and don't have any wear showing.
I throw that in here because, in general, Medieval gowns are meant to be worn with head coverings. In the two quartet pictures, you can see the gowns worn with FantasyRogue's crispinettes and G-Knee's Bycocket; directly above I figured I ought to come clean about Cynnix's Nun Wimple just barely being too small for the alpha on this one. Stick with the Noble Veil or Clubkitty's Hijab for this one.
(And yes, plenty of the gray, black, brown, and white gowns could work just fine for nun's habits!)
Man, okay, enough about the gowns, let's talk about the tunics a little.
... Well, I've talked about the colors a lot for the ladies, and that pretty much holds true for the men, as well. One thing I can say is that the two meshes sort of just barely skirt being in the same period; this style of tunic was on its way out for fashionable men as the cotehardie was on its way in. The looser style of tunic seen here was a staple of the early Middle Ages, when everybody wore clothes cut along basically the same lines, and you knew who was rich and who was poor by the quality of fabric, color of the dye, and how much extra fabric they could afford to use. Long or full robes, gowns, and tunics were a sign of high status... but a man could go around in a short tunic and still look fashionable, because the Middle Ages recognized something that most modern people have forgotten:
Men have sexy legs.
And it's true! Men carry less fat in their legs than women, and gain muscle more easily. Even heavyset men tend to have nice legs; lugging around a spare tire makes the legs work harder than on a slim man. Snug hose and tunic-length hemlines were expected to show off long, well-turned legs.
... Basically I just feel like I've talked up the gowns a lot and now I'm reaching for things to say about the tunics. There are as many as five different colors involved in some of these bad boys, but I considered the tunic to be the 'base' color that everything is sorted by.
So, before I hit you with swatches and downloads, allow me to credit and thank a lot of people, and hit you up with some policies. From the inside out, praise be unto Cynnix for her Laced-Sleeve Gown meshes (included), to Aligeth for her Robin Hood mesh, to Oph3lia for cutting the bracer off of Aligeth's Robin Hood mesh, and to Cynnix again for an AM pregmorph and teen male conversion of Aligeth's Robin Hood mesh, which are also included. (And much praise to Aligeth for being willing to let people edit her meshes so much!) Praise be unto Sherahbim and her open policy, for I did bad bad things to her Lady gown in order to make my cotehardie textures, and even burgled a touch of the Lady gown for the tunics' sleeves. Textures on the tunics are credit largely to Aligeth and a bit to Aquilegia, for her linen textures (I used my own hose textures from Le Chausseur for the hose on these tunics, which incorporate Aquilegia's linen). Without SimPE, my tooltips would be incomprehensibly short instead of crediting absolutely everyone, and all my colors would be crunchy... so Quaxi, thank you, thank you, wherever you are. As ever I have to thank Lyn for making sure I had a working copy of Photoshop, because otherwise there would be none of this at all.
On this one? No paysites. I'm sure somewhere in Aligeth, Aquilegia, Cynnix, Sherahbim, or Oph3lia's policies, it says no paysites. So no paysites. If, however, you want to do further recolors of these, desire my PSDs, want to do repository versions for the teens, or other such fun stuff like that? Be my guest! Give credit where credit is due and if you do a repository set, please link me to it (and remember the bump maps are different for the different belts!)
Okay! Let's download.
DOWNLOAD TF COTEHARDIE: POOKLET'S NATURALS
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD YAEF COTEHARDIE: POOKLET'S NATURALS
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
TUNIC SWATCH: POOKLET'S NATURALS
DOWNLOAD TM TUNIC: POOKLET'S NATURALS
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD YAEM TUNIC: POOKLET'S NATURALS
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
COTEHARDIE SWATCH: AELIA AUTUMN
DOWNLOAD TF COTEHARDIE: AELIA AUTUMN
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD YAEF COTEHARDIE: AELIA AUTUMN
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
TUNIC SWATCH: AELIA AUTUMN
DOWNLOAD TM TUNIC: AELIA AUTUMN
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD AM TUNIC: AELIA AUTUMN
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
COTEHARDIE SWATCH: CURIOUSB ANY COLOR YOU LIKE
DOWNLOAD TF COTEHARDIE: ACYL
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD AF COTEHARDIE: ACYL
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
TUNIC SWATCH: CURIOUSB ANY COLOR YOU LIKE
DOWNLOAD TM TUNIC: ACYL
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
DOWNLOAD AM TUNIC: ACYL
on Mediafire | on Sims File Share
And one more picture, because I liked how this one turned out.
Wanna help me feed my cats?
In case you feel like dropping me a buck or two, should you have a buck or two to spare. Donors get two things at the moment: a) a link to the Super Secret Cat Gallery, full of pictures of the cats you'll be feeding, updated sporadically when the cats do something photogenic and I'm fast enough on the trigger to catch it, and b) a link to the list of content I have done-but-not-screencapped, nearly done, partly done, or in the planning stages, and the option to suggest what ought to be in the next batch of things I focus on.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-07-15 08:32 am (UTC)(link)You are too much! My hood will have a new fashion!
Thank you so, so, ever so much!
~Ann
no subject
no subject
And did I mention that I LOVE these?? I shall have to be restrained from putting them on everybody. THANK YOU!!!
no subject
I just finally felt like it was time for me to make some clothes like the ones I keep seeing in paintings and reproductions.
But I'm glad you like them and I always get a little excited when you get excited over my goodies-- it really does give me a thrill to see my content in Albion. ... And the surrounding environs, as the political situation gets international.
TY
(Anonymous) 2012-08-14 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)Re: TY
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-09-02 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-09-07 02:26 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
Unfortunately I don't make meshes. If you find a child conversion of the bracer-free Robin Hood mesh anywhere, PLEASE let me know.