My judgement is impaired so you get spam.

[hat_plays_sims]

You know you're tired when you're flipping back and forth between your Fit previews and your Fat previews going "Skinny... fat. Skinny... fat. Hee, lookit 'em switch."

Oh my god I need to take non-body-shop photos. Of something. Or, you know, everything.

All 996 front-laced kirtle recolors are done, and my brain has gone off the rails trying to focus enough to make swatches and shit. So here are some things I have learned while working on a project to make nearly a thousand files take up the space of about eighty-five:

1. Good Thinking: 'When I finish this batch, I can have a piece of chocolate.' Stupid Thinking: 'I have to finish this batch before I can go pee.'

2. I am never using bust shading again everything looks so much more Medieval without it.

3. Choice of music while going through nine-hundred-plus files and slaving them is very important. The best thing I've got to stay awake past bedtime and not make glaring stupid mistakes is the Katamari Damacy soundtrack. Downside: I really want to roll things up and make stars now. (Legend of Zelda music makes me nod off. Things I can easily sing along with make me second-guess myself-- "Wait, was I so distracted by singing I screwed up? *goes to check, got everything right, wasted time*")

Oh my god it's six-thirty in the morning and I need to buy cat food and toilet paper today. Why am I awake.

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[hat_plays_sims]

Dollhouses got me into Victoriana. See, you can find ANYTHING AT ALL for a Victorian dollhouse, where modern minitures tend to lag about twenty years behind the actual modern world (like how people don't just whip out their smartphones to google the answers to stuff in movies; writers and miniaturists aren't re-creating the world around them but the world as they remember it). When I was eleven or so, my parents got me a dollhouse kit. I painted it, put it together, wallpapered it, and set about diligintly furnishing it-- and the stuff I could find was either a black plastic "cast iron" stove that looked PERFECT with all the little detail... or a modern-ish stove made out of blond wood that had a vague effort at gas burners on a white-painted top. Opting for toys that looked GOOD instead of stupid, my house went Victorian.

And since you could buy porcelain dollhouse doll kits for cheap, but dressed dollhouse dolls cost and arm and a leg and are generally glued into their clothes, when I learned to sew it was by figuring out how to scale down American Girl patterns to fit my little three- and four-inch-high dollhouse dolls. Which led eventually to things like this (I know, not Victorian, but one of my favorite patterns) and this and this and this. (Forgive the grainy photos. Old sold dolls and a four-megapixel camera.)

So Victorian, I know, because Victorian sells... but I admit every time I make a Regency lady, she sells at the very first show.

I'll admit the Simming world could use more good Tudor meshes. Besides, the ruffs weren't universally popular-- an accessory ruff would work much better than one stuck to a clothing mesh, and then let you use that clothing mesh for court clothes with ruff or hunting clothes without ruff as needed.

I actually have to argue myself OUT of Italian Renaissance clothing-- in France and England, Early Italian Renaissance is the Late Middle Ages, so it's fair game... but it's also at least a hundred years later than the style I particularly want.

I can't help you on Highlanders or tartans, and I'm not sure of the look of your wood-dewlling Iron Age folk, but! I do have proper Viking apron dresses AND accessory treasure necklaces for Child-Elder, Maxis and Athletic Girl, on my to-do list. I need to find where I put my research, though, so I can say 'these are accurate as to extant known dye colors, and THESE I just thought were really pretty.'

Unfortunately, my sub-hoods are nowhere near that creative! My Far East and Island hoods are... pretty much as Maxis intended, except less technological and with home-made townies. I'm proud of the IDEA for Three Lakes Vikings, but I need to build some lots for them like mad. Downtown is the place where I let myself throw historical accuracy out the window completely; most of my townies are in Sherahbim's gypsy clothes, and I keep telling myself if a nobleman gets bitten by a vampire, he can try to overthrow the vampire prince, rule Downtown with an iron fang, and end up named the Viceroy of whatever translation of Over-Forest I use that doesn't sound too Discworld.

There's a second Assassin's Creed hood by Daislia, done for Ezio instead of Altair, that I would give my eye teeth to have as an all-ages accessory; it's open at the bottom so it MIGHT be wearable with some hairs, but it doesn't come all the way down to the shoulders and on teenagers it REALLY floats. Really there are a lot of things I'd give my eye teeth for, so it's a good thing I can barter hair recolors or something instead.

Toddlers never have enough clothes. The incoming toddler kirtles are fairly simple in terms of coloring, though; I intend to do something fancier later, plus something I can label Du Lac with a straight face. (I just can't put toddlers in a cotehardie with all the snug gathers at the side. It doesn't look comfy enough.)

Do it. C'mon. If they've got morphs and one recolor, I can dig through my collection of Sherahbim textures and stretch and skew and tear those apart to do full-on textures. I WANT more High Middle Ages menswear; all the good meshes out there are late Early Period (Robin Hood), generalized-acceptable (Tig's alpha tunic), Late Period (Mio's Romeo), FantasyRogue's tunics and chausses (not so good for formal or winterwear), or full armor. If you make good meshes, I will recolor them. A lot. A LOT.

[heget]

*rubbs hands evilly* ...*no, really. I physically rubbed my hands together like a B-Movie villian*...*again*

I love that second hood more that the first. And actually not that fond of the shoulder action. On the acessory front, I'd love to cobble together some of the various scarf meshes- ones with joint assignments- and make a weird mantle thingie from it. I figure that would work in the game mechanics better than a real cloak. And when one of the characters has the name "Greycloak" because that's what the king is famous for.... eek.


You can see the toddler outfits in the newest rocking critter previews. I figure now that I have a SF-version of that mesh I either need to learn if possible to texture ref. the 90 or just pick which ones are barefoot sleeping clothes. Probably the 20 white, yellowed, & old-and-busted.


I try to make good meshes. And pester the good mesh makers for morphs and age conversions. :P What I'd really love are more half-armor meshes.
And accessory mesh ruffs...good idea. Now I want to pull the Medici collar off the court-dress mesh and go to town.

Someday soon I'll have working models of my Numenorean fashion. In its own weird way the mixture ends up quite Victorian.


I like when you post your doll pictures. ^^ I also noticed that about doll house minis.


(One of my 'trade you anything for's is a pet opossum for the Sims. I explain-sort of- in a hair dump why. Still, I really can't justify it for my elven 'hood.)

[hat_plays_sims]

I've got three cloak meshes here handily uploaded for anyone who might want to take a look at bone assignments. I'm not keen on the shape of the TNW cloak, but none of them are BAD. But a scarf that could be turned into the cowl of a hood would also rock my socks. (Sure, it wouldnt fit all the bodyshapes I love, but those aren't even all DONE yet so no worries.)

There are GREAT meshes out there-- just not very many for men in the High Middle Ages. Partly because the earliest tunic meshes were all based on the kilt, so they have a weird belt, weirder legs, and waffle-stomper shoes.

Doesn't Lord of the Rings owe more in terms of style to Art Noueveau than the Middle Ages? That might explain why things look a bit Victorian.

[heget]

Actually I was referring to the weird Numenor- the layered flouncy skirt I took from the Minoeans turned very 1800s. And don't let me start on some of the costume choices of the LotR movies...

That kilt mesh = Kill It With Fire. Forget the weird belt or awful shoes, the skirt.