Chaotica's Hardly-Ever-Updated Thread of Art and Stuff!

[CaptainChaotica]

Oh, I know it's not a race.  I'm basically trying to push myself so I don't do my usual "forget I even started anything and HERP A DERP several months later...no picture" thing. I mean I can lose momentum _easy_.  Actually it's more accurate to say it's hard for me to GET momentum in the first place, anymore...

(And actually, I can and have done more elaborate outfits than this--with the thicker cartoony lines, no less.  What's the HARD part is drawing something that way so _small_!  (And still have it look like what it's supposed to be.)

Wigfrid's outfit was giving me fits.  I wanted the collar to have fancy Vikingy patterns the same as the tunic's hem does, but I couldn't make it look right...and also I need some way to make the cloak look thick/like it's made out of fur.  Hmmm...

...Notorious

[CaptainChaotica]

(whistles innocently)

...Notorious

[minespatch]

You should mail that to your family members during Christmas.

[CaptainChaotica]

What, "Wish you were here"?  : P  (To freeze and fight monsters with me...well, Wigfrid would be down for that last part, anyway.)

I think I'm finally happy with the composition of the picture--now that I've finally got a sense of distance in there, it works much better than my original idea.  I kept being torn between keeping the colours dark and bright vs. making it look like you were kinda seeing the picture through frost--you can see I went with the latter.  Although, Infranview being how it is, I can tweak it back the other way at any time. 

And yeah--a touch of Winter Feast colours in there.  Hee!

And NOW...

Because you KNEW I was gonna do that.

...Notorious

[DragonMage156]

Might I suggest a bit of constructed criticism and tips? The pictures you made are really good and I love the colourful element but I think you have the same difficulty with one thing just like every artist and that's hands.

The way I cope with it is I pose my hands (or maybe my entire arm) and look at it from different angles. A mirror may help with this, I just try and turn my hand around like a possessive demon XD

For instance

The hand on the torch is fine but I tried posing as if I was holding a spear and my hand indicates the fingers facing towards the viewer and the thumb bent over them (kinda like a clenched fist).

Another thing you could do is look for character sheets. There are a ton of them on Tumblr. Tutorial videos are also an option.

Despite all this, my hands are still imperfect but I got it to a point I like.

Hope this helps and doesn't seem harsh >_<

[minespatch]

Here's my shortcut on hands and feet.

[CaptainChaotica]

Oh, that's okay, I kinda thought I got that one wrong anyway.  : P  Actually, what I originally wanted was for her to be holding the spear _forwards_ at a bit of an angle, like, directly in the face of the thing making the shadow--but THAT pose I couldn't figure out how to do at all...

...Notorious

[minespatch]

When in doubt, do practice doodles.

[DragonMage156]

It would be helpful to get a pose doll. Infact I've been considering getting one recently but Idk where to buy one ^^;

[Kittydub]

You can really tell you've been drawing a lot lately, I can see it in the drawings! Good job and keep up the good work ^^

[CaptainChaotica]

Awww, thanks. 

And now for something that isn't a drawing but is totally something I put work into...

Meet Sim-Wilson--as he fails to invent something! The original picture was much nicer, but I don't seem to be able to find it on my hard drive so I had to make do with the pixelly jpg that I uploaded to the Sims 3 website.  His house was decorated from the ground up as well...and I made sure to make everything old-fashionedy, gave him a tiny little old-timey radio...and of course a GRAMAPHONE.    Here's a slightly-clearer picture of his face:

This is, in fact (or a cropped-down/shrunk version, anyway) also the picture my Steam profile pic comes from.  Yep. 

Last but not least, the profile!  This expression cracks me up, I swear.

So you can see that he actually does have the proper nose and everything. 

I don't have nice closeup pictures of my other Don't Starve Sims yet...they tend to be full-screen ones showing both their romping around _and_ the gorgeous scenery they're romping in ('cos seriously--DAMN!) but I intend to work on it.   Mwahaha.

...Notorious

[DragonMage156]

Nice images ^_^ thought the first one(s) makes him look like a girl XD

[CaptainChaotica]

Heh.  He doesn't in actual gameplay, I swear.  Though there IS a long-running problem with Sims hairdos where almost every time you find a longer/fluffier one for males, it's converted from a female hairdo and _doesn't look right_.  If you're going for a transgender character or an anime bishounen it's fine; if you want a guy who has slightly longer hair than super-standard but still looks like a GUY, however... 

THIS one, however, is more messy/mad-scientisty.  It's not even remotely like Wilson's spikes, buuuuttt...it's the closest I can find.  Also Sims 3 characters all have the problem of "pudding-face"--the skin texture is weird and _everybody_ looks a hair too baby or doll-like. And it's _creepy_ once you get up close.  Kind of a shame, 'cos otherwise, this is THE game for customising a character to look exactly how you want, what with Create-a-Style and everything...

It's even worse with Maxwell.  Hoo, boy.  I gave him That Nose and some wrinkles and everything and he _still_ looks too young and handsome!  I haven't taken any pictures of him yet, and there's a reason why.  : P

...Notorious

[DragonMage156]

9 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

THIS one, however, is more messy/mad-scientisty.  It's not even remotely like Wilson's spikes, buuuuttt...it's the closest I can find.  Also Sims 3 characters all have the problem of "pudding-face"--the skin texture is weird and _everybody_ looks a hair too baby or doll-like. And it's _creepy_ once you get up close.  Kind of a shame, 'cos otherwise, this is THE game for customising a character to look exactly how you want, what with Create-a-Style and everything...

It's even worse with Maxwell.  Hoo, boy.  I gave him That Nose and some wrinkles and everything and he _still_ looks too young and handsome!  I haven't taken any pictures of him yet, and there's a reason why.  : P

I think it's a combination of hair and face actually Spore has a bit more freedom when it comes to "our own custom style" but unfortunately, that game isn't meant for human creations XD (least not Sim quality).

I wouldn't mind seeing what Maxwell looks like atm (alternatively, you could just turn him into William )

[CaptainChaotica]

Heh.  Well, trust me, in-game he looks like a scrawny geeky guy with a beaky face and weird hair.  : P Actually except for the weird skin texture (which I have NEVER gotten; who the hell on the design team thought that looked _good_?) Sims 3 is the PERFECT one to do this in, 'cos not only can you customise the facial features and such (and I've got mods that allow me to pull the sliders farther, bwahaha) but you can put _any colour, design or texture_ on almost ANYthing. As for the hair...I KNEW I wasn't gonna find anything as extreme as his real hair, so I eventually went with the wild messy mad-scientist hair I already had earlier.  (Willow's pigtails don't defy gravity either, sadly.) 

There's a ton already in the game, and if you know what you're doing (I don't) you can import your own textures too!  So, basically, all you have to look for is a _mesh_, a shape, of something that you like, and then the colours can be whatever.  You can also recolour the individual _parts_ of patterns--such as plaid, stripes, etc.--and if you think a pattern is too complicated/busy, hey!  You can turn some parts of the same colour as each other and voila!  Less stripes, bigger polka dots!  Hee.  I think that's actually how I got Wilson's pinstripes to be exactly that width and such.

...aaaand, it weirdly works the best so far out of all the Sims games for _playing_ a Don't Starve character, too.  I mean, not perfect of course--they're very different games!--but Sim-Wilow, on her "wilderness lot", can not only garden and fish like in Sims 2, but keep BEES!  And sleep in a tent (with a flame pattern on it). And there's a firepit (actually called the bonfire) that looks almost god.  damned.  EXACTLY like the Don't Starve firepit.  Just rocks and logs.  There's also an umbrella and a parasol--Willow got both of hers for "free" at the summer carnival by spending points--one for rain, one for sun, specifically, and if you have one your Sim will automatically pull it out whenever the appropriate weather starts happening and go on doing whatever they're doing with their other hand (if possible).  At the same carnival I also won a teddy bear at the claw machine. On the first try.  And they're NAMEABLE! 

It's a cyborg teddy-bear, but hey, nobody's perfect...  Oh, and by the way--when nobody's around/everyone on the lot is asleep?  He CHANGES POSITION. Goes from sitting down to standing up.  Yep.

Sim-Maxwell...heh. He's a complicated one.  I swear I was NOT going for this, but to me he looks like...you know when you run across a fanart of a character and you instantly KNOW the artist has a crush on them? Like, they're still recognisable--even _well_-drawn!--but they're just _that_...bit...too pretty/flowing-haired/trim and muscular?  Yeah.  Like that.   So...it's not so much too young, as too _handsome_--even with Sims 3 "pudding-face" and That Nose, which takes some doing.  And I had no idea how to fix it, so I eventually went "GOOD ENOUGH!" and plunked him into the neighborhood.  : P

...Notorious

Edited March 25, 2017 by CaptainChaotica

[minespatch]

Probably needs thicker eyebrows but I can see what you're doing.

[DragonMage156]

9 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

...aaaand, it weirdly works the best so far out of all the Sims games for _playing_ a Don't Starve character, too.  I mean, not perfect of course--they're very different games!--but Sim-Wilow, on her "wilderness lot", can not only garden and fish like in Sims 2, but keep BEES!  And sleep in a tent (with a flame pattern on it). And there's a firepit (actually called the bonfire) that looks almost god.  damned.  EXACTLY like the Don't Starve firepit.  Just rocks and logs.  There's also an umbrella and a parasol--Willow got both of hers for "free" at the summer carnival by spending points--one for rain, one for sun, specifically, and if you have one your Sim will automatically pull it out whenever the appropriate weather starts happening and go on doing whatever they're doing with their other hand (if possible).  At the same carnival I also won a teddy bear at the claw machine. On the first try.  And they're NAMEABLE! 

I wanna see pictures of that XD also you should totally name the bear Bernie

9 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

Sim-Maxwell...heh. He's a complicated one.  I swear I was NOT going for this, but to me he looks like...you know when you run across a fanart of a character and you instantly KNOW the artist has a crush on them? Like, they're still recognisable--even _well_-drawn!--but they're just _that_...bit...too pretty/flowing-haired/trim and muscular?  Yeah.  Like that.   So...it's not so much too young, as too _handsome_--even with Sims 3 "pudding-face" and That Nose, which takes some doing.  And I had no idea how to fix it, so I eventually went "GOOD ENOUGH!" and plunked him into the neighborhood.  : P

I'll be waiting for screenshots

[CaptainChaotica]

Mwahaha.  I ALREADY named him Bernie!  Obviously, as soon as I found out they were nameable at all.  And the fact that of all things, she got _that_ from the claw machine, and on her first try...I was on the floor giggling.  It's just so perfect!

I actually do already have pictures of Sim-Willow...although I'm not sure how good they are as pictures _of_ the Sim herself.  A lot of the time I got distracted by HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THAT SCENERY! and took a farther-away picture showing the whole lot, rather than a close-up of her. Like, there's one where you can see that her outerwear is--a puffy vest!  ;)--but you have to _look_ for her under the TOWERING GLORY OF AUTUMN.  : P

(Seriously, even though it may not have the world's best graphics these days, the weather/seasonal/lighting effects in Sims 3 are _gorgeous_.  I found myself taking pictures of the rain beating against the window as seen from inside, the fancy City Hall under a blanket of snow, the sun rising over the ocean and making a line of glowing light across the ripples or a road winding away into the distance in the morning mist.  No characters, nothing funny, unusual or glitchy happening, nothing story-related, JUST the scenery itself!  Why? Because why wouldn't I?  And when I pause and pan and zoom the camera around _just_ so, trying to get exactly the right shot, I get to almost feel like an actual photographer!)

Unfortunately I took some of my best shots including the morning-mist-over-the-mountain-city one using the in-game screenshotter and uploaded them to the Sims 3 website, so they're not the best quality...but the one of Willow being completely upstaged by her own trees

isn't among those.  Bwahaha. (Although it did look better when it was full-screen size.)  Notes:  This is an experimental firepit I got before I found the cool one, you can see Bernie in the background there, and while not much of her Don't Starve-specific stuff is visible from this angle, you _can_ see her garden--or, as Pelliway called it, her "improved farm".  It has to have a fence because random HORSES keep trying to eat it!  XD

(Better pictures coming soon--this is just to give you an idea of what I keep getting distracted by.  Heh.)

...Notorious

Edited March 25, 2017 by CaptainChaotica

[DragonMage156]

Nice! Although Willow looks like she could be someone from The Walking Dead game but I like it regardless ^_^

[CaptainChaotica]

Heheh. I've never played that--but actually, her outfit is a Puffy Vest with long sleeves under it--with red and black stripes, because Willow's colour scheme/Tim-Burtony.  : P

...Notorious

[DragonMage156]

Maybe it's more the hair that makes her look different than anything

[CaptainChaotica]

Oy...you would not BELIEVE what I went through trying to find pigtails that go _up_ to the sides like that.  All kinds of searching, through dead blogs and old lists and whatnot and the closest I found was pictures of somebody's old Sims 3 family where a little girl--who was a ghost, no less--had _braids_ shaped like that.  But NO references or links anywhere.  That's as close as I got.  :\  It was almost as annoying finding Wigfrid's armour and helmet--but at least there I DID eventually find something I liked!  : P

Here's her formal, grumpy "TAKE THE DAMN PICTURE ALREADY!" CAS portrait:

I couldn't make anybody actually have blank eyes, but they ARE really pale (even more so in full sunlight).  The thing that's frustrating about this in general is--when you're trying to make a character really look like someone specific?  So much of the resemblance can be obscured or changed by the lighting, the clothes, the expression on their face at the time...and the person seeing just the one picture doesn't see the _whole_ game session, so they might get entirely the wrong idea.

(Don't ask about the stupid buttons on the skirt; they came with it and I couldn't recolour them for some reason.  Also this is the only hairdo I could find with two pigtails that showed in front, down lower instead of the way-up-high cutesy lolita thing, _and_ with decent bangs.)

But pictures where the Sims are actually _doing_ stuff are way more fun, so, next time, I think...either a birthday party in the rain or well-lit, indoor ghost stories*.  : P  I haven't decided yet.

...Notorious

*Although that isn't anywhere near as funny as the time Elsa told ghost stories in an _outdoor_ cafe at _2 pm_ on a sunny summer day, to a human dude and two robots, and they were all entranced anyway.  Yep.  You heard me.  Robots.

Edited March 26, 2017 by CaptainChaotica

[DragonMage156]

Ooh, she looks good! ^_^ Dw about the buttons, I think Willow's shirt has those anyway

So Wigfrid huh? Let's talk about that one

*Is a Wigfrid main and fan*

[CaptainChaotica]

Oh no, the buttons on the _shirt_ are fine and I picked this one partly because of it.  It's the ones on the SKIRT I was kinda annoyed with. But, it's not too bad.  I picked that because it was the best skirt in terms of length and shape, and in Sims 3 the original colour doesn't matter because it can be ANYTHING YOU WANT, BABY.  Aaanyway...

One of THE most annoying Sims to shop for, as you might imagine!  : P  Helmet I eventually tracked down through links on different blogs and whatnot.  Helmet _resizing_ mod so that her stupid hair top wouldn't clip through it (I previously had no idea HOW flat hair has to be on top to not clip through seperately-added hats, apparently), from Mod the Sims.  Thick braids that are in front, down low, and don't have fluffy bangs as well, found...somewhere. Leather armour actually a replica of something from Dragon Age, made by somebody who's a major fan of both that and Sims.  (Again, TRY finding "leather armour" for a _female_ character that isn't a freaking bikini...) And last but not least, I know she actually has shorter sleeves but the custom shirt-as-accessory thing* I found has long ones only--but then I got to make them look like chainmail.  Yay!

All that said, her expression is _adorable_, she's even got a fancy Vikingy metal bracelet, her eyes, while not vacant again, are a really, really pale colour (in this case pale blue--Willow's are almost-not-there grey) and as makes sense for VIKING WARRIOR CHICK, she's actually a bit taller than the average Sim, as there's a mod for tweaking that too.  Heheh.

...although WHY I cropped her Create-A-Sim picture down so narrow, I still don't know.  : P

...Notorious

*Which is AWESOME, 'cos it basically allows you to add another layer to any outfit.  Found a vest you like but it doesn't have the sleeves underneath you wanted?  Nooo problem!  Then just also add the accessory solid tights and make them look textured, and anything is automatically a bit more appropriate for winter.

Edited March 27, 2017 by CaptainChaotica

[DragonMage156]

Oh buttons on the skirt. Heh, I always mistake those two words. Doesn't matter, hardly noticeable. Especially if your me? *Didn't notice it until is was pointed out*

Omg, Wigfrid looks awesome!!