Dr. Horrible Lives, and So do I

Okay, first, the non-Simmy stuff: they put Dr. Horrible back up as a hulu stream, which I found out about yesterday, so I've now gotten to see the whole thing. I think I'm kinda a little in love with Neil Patrick Harris. Not quite "OMG I want to make babies" with him—though granted I don't want kids anyhow and besides, he's, y'know, gay—but definitely I'd love to see him do more stuff like this. Also, I hunted around for news about whether or not they were doing a soundtrack (they are) because I absolutely need a copy of "Brand New Day" (or whatever they end up calling it) so I can listen to it 138904832 times in a row nao plz. As it is, I rewound the video half a dozen times to listen to it. Also I tried to take some screencaps though they kept ending up blurry, so I guess doing any icons out of it will have to wait til I own an actual copy, which will happen. Cuz, $6 at iTunes? I think I can squeeze $6 into our budget in the near future.

Various Simmy Weekend Things

I just finished up the shot list for E4 of Twilight Dreams, and went over the video shotlist to see if I could think of anything else. I'll probably start filming the video while I'm doing other shots, though I have a lot of video to be done in places the shots are precisely not. Of course. Heh.

Some Progress is Better than None

Yesterday was a deliberate Sims-free day. I had other stuff I needed to do. Doing it caused me some backache, though, so I've been a little slow today because I'm finding sitting up a long time a little uncomfortable. Still, I've made some progress.

For Twilight Dreams, I made a revised shot list, double-checked the script while I was at it, and marked off the shots I already had.

For Saints & Sinners, I've now built 3 of the 8 things on my list for downtown, including a revised Garden in the City (my Hanging Gardens inspired lot). I actually did have the original despite the HD crash because it was still available on the Sims' site, but I decided to take advantage of a few of the additional things available in BV and rebuild... also I built it a bit larger, a bit more accessible (the outbuilding and the second floor are visitable in this version), and with a large space for the inevitable water-balloon fighting and whatnot that Sims insist on doing. Also I threw in a bar for a small hunger boost as well as the original coffee thing. Of course, there's only two bathrooms now, heh. I may go take a look at the layout and see if I can fit in at least one more somewhere, but I doubt it.

Anyhow, here's what I have of downtown so far (clickable):



Aside from the Gardens, there's the Winter Park and an art gallery. The unbuilt lot you can see is going to be a restaurant.

Saints and Sinners vs Twilight Dreams: Round One! FIGHT!

I'm taking a break from working on the S&S update... I've chosen and organized the pictures with some thoughts about captions, but haven't edited or written them yet. So maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, depending on how long that takes. I'm still feeling my way with characters—not that this is heavily character-driven yet but I'd like it to work towards it—so it's gonna be narration-heavy again, which means it's mostly the time of the editing, as the writing should mostly come easily.

But now I have a dilemma. See, I've already played some of the college years, have about 100 pictures taken (not all of which will show up in the update, of course), and am enjoying just playing. Whereas with Twilight Dreams, I don't "play"... I run people around and arrange them in poses or have them do things so I can take pictures. Now, obviously I don't mind doing that, or I wouldn't be doing the project, but because of the rather long gap between when I last played and now, playing-for-reals is sorta more attractive at the moment.

On the other hand, the next release of Twilight Dreams will answer a lot of questions that people should have at this point, while hopefully raising some new ones, and I'd like my readers to stay engaged.

So now I have to decide: play some more S&S and work towards a second release of that covering college, or go pull ACR out and work on my remaining Episode 3 shots and get some of Ep 4 done for preview purposes. I was originally planning on alternating, moving between the two at update time, but I hadn't taken into account how much I missed playing. Meep.

Well, I won't be done with the actual update for a while so maybe by then I'll have figured it out.

This is me, being productive

Well, okay, not THAT productive... but even though I usually don't get much Sims stuff done on the weekends (and in fact am about to go play Guild Wars) I did manage to do a couple things. The object recolours were mostly things I did before but the livingroom stuff was done today, and yesterday I collectionized some of the flooring. Today I put together the first building in the backstory neighborhood and put the relevant people in it:



Tomorrow I'll get back to collectionizing (building even one building makes me want to finish it that much more), and maybe put together some more buildings, depending on how long that takes me.

No, um, really, still planning on playing

Okay, see, I got Zoo Tycoon 2 for Christmas, so I spent a few days playing that, and then we got Guild Wars, which is highly addictive, which is most of what I've been doing since the beginning of the month.

More delays, but some good news, too

Well, the bad news is I no longer can predict a solid date for when I will be putting anything out. There's three reasons for this: the first is my cold came back so I kinda didn't really do anything Simsy last week. (I feel better now.) The second is a really good reason that involves joy and happiness and great celebration, or at least it does from me.

pushing back projects due to illness

One of the consequences of my general ill health is that when I get a cold, I get sick for a long time. Very fortunately for me this cold didn't choose to settle badly into my respiratory system; when that happens, I tend to end up in the hospital. Instead, it chose to grace me with severe head congestion. The nose part is mostly cleared at this point, but I still have severe ear congestion on the right side and mild on the left, leaving me feel unbalanced and distracted. I am having a hard time concentrating on anything because of this.

So, I'm not even trying until it's cleared. Now, it is better; I can actually hear at all out of the right ear, and the left ear is mostly cleared up, both of which represent major improvements over last week. And my voice is mostly back, though still hoarse. So I expect it won't be too long before it clears up, but by that I mean "Maybe next week I'll feel like I can concentrate enough to do things like build and finish up clothes and make my collections." This week, I'm just giving myself off, and if I happen to work on things during it, well, that'll just put me ahead...

So, um. Mid-to-late December for releases of things? A nice holiday present for people who actually like my stuff?

the full update for today

As you can see, I managed to finish the first round of Homecrafter stuff and sort and upload it. I will be finishing up some object recolours and uploading those as well, hopefully within the week. Eventually I'll be adding clothing, too.

I'm going to be redoing the shirts I did for the chicks because I want to go back and fix the detail washout, so I'm going to start over with a new and improved base so hopefully it won't happen again. I also will be working on new stuff, too. Again, hopefully I'll get it done within the week.

Tomorrow I'll hopefully be working on Twilight-Dreams specific things, including building. I guess that means I'm going to have to make a final decision on what neighborhood base to put it in. It's really not that vital, I guess, but I want to build a whole little town for it, so I've been debating about the size and layout.

I say 'hopefully', because I'm still sick. I'm hideously stuffed up, though it's better than it was a few days ago. I can't hear right and I can't talk easily. (I sound really funny when I try to talk. Imagine that exact note of the crack of a voice change from puberty, only for the entire sentence.) So my motivation is there but my energy and ability to concentrate is less so.

I would seriously consider committing murder for some steroids and some combivent or even just albuterol right now.

Anyhow, still shooting for early December for the first Twilight Dreams releases.

Upcoming Projects: Teh Sekrit Projekt

First, since I took them out of my boolprop sig, here's a link to the three teasers I did via artpad about my upcoming Sekrit Projekt: Teaser One - Teaser Two - Teaser Three. For best results, you'll want to speed up the redraw, unless you really want to watch me correct mistakes repeatedly. Also note those were drawn with a mouse, so no commentary on the roughness.

Upcoming Projects: Saints and Sinners

I want to assure people I will be restarting this, though it may not be for a while for various reasons.