Montag, 24. September 2012

Era and Faust Stockhausen & BPS Contest "Fall with a Twist"

Today I want to introduce the newest addition to my crazy neighbourhood, the Stockhausens.


Download for Era Stockhausen and for Faust Stockhausen.



Era and Faust Stockhausen are two young siblings whose parents died in a terrible accident, in which the two were also involved (obviously). They spent a few years in an institution of dubious reputation, the Waverly Creek Sanatorium, from which they fled on a stormy autumn night to escape the ongoing torturous treatment by Dr. Lichtenheim, who, instead of trying to heal them, performed sadistic experiments on them.

They found refuge in an abandoned Manor House in the less reputable neighbourhood of town.

Era, the younger of the two, is notorious for her outlandish taste. In an attempt to make their miserable shelter more homey, she spends her days off in thrift stores and on garage sales. Faust, loving his sister dearly and suffering from survivor´s guilt, is very lenient with her and tolerates the constant assault on his aesthetic senses gracefully.

In search for a cure for their despairing condition, he visits the local library habitually to steal books.

Who? Me?


Faust has also taken an interest in painting by numbers. On an unrelated note, he showers regularly.




On cold winter evenings, Era loves to set the kitchen on fire, snuggle up with a good, stolen book and drink a cup of hot chocolate.




Who? Me?
When nobody is looking, Faust dresses up in a rented Vampire costume and pretends his sister just didn´t redecorate the bathroom again.



They live a very secluded life and mostly stay to themselves.

***

I have to admit, the last statement is not true. When Eldred and Luna graduated and moved into their new home, Faust passed by their house and was invited to the house-warming party. There, he danced all night long. It would be false to say he was the hit of the party, but despite people making fun of his goofy dance-moves, he stoically continued his physical exercises.




The lovely Zombie skin is from NathanielRoyale, and I just had to have it in my game.

The Stockhausens creep me out a bit, especially Faust, but at the same time he is strangely attractive. His first name is a tribute to Candra´s Faust VIII from the Manga/Anime "Shaman King".

His second is a reference to the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

***




Blackpearlsims Contest

The Stockhausens were lucky (ok, maybe not) I stumbled over a decoration contest at Blackpearlsims, Fall Inspiration with a Twist. I absolutely love the site and all the wonderful custom content that is offered there.

The contest is about decorating a living room in a special fall color palette of dark lilac, grey, green and orange. Urgh, lilac! It definitely is my least favorite color, so it was a real challenge to incorporate it into the living room. Thus, the idea of Era Stockhausen going to thrift stores was born.

There are some totally off-items in the room which have been bought by Era. Faust usually tries to hide them tactfully in not so accessible corners of the room, but obviously failed.

I had a blast decorating that room and picturing Era coming home with yet another of her fabulous finds, while Faust cringes internally and sports a false smile, not wanting to hurt his already troubled sister.

Here are two images I edited in Photoshop:


The beautiful chairs can be found here, they are from ZeroDark.


More unedited shots of the Manor´s living room can be found on BPS or at my Photobucket Album.

While I was at it, I redecorated the bathroom. Yes, I know, I am late to the party, this is Sims in Paris totally beautiful bathroom 4, which was another thing I had to have in the game. It can be found at the Sims2Graveyard, under Sims in Paris and then bathrooms.




Era´s room also received a makeover, and since she obviously loves lilac, she got that crazy inferno with lilac and green.


And while I was at it, the kitchen was redecorated in the same color palette, just a little toned down.



Outtakes:

Era burning the waffles:



Era burning down a tree:



"Oh, Era, darling, why don´t we put this beautiful, umm, object, right here in the corner?"



"Oh, yes, that green vase is absolutely stunning!"



"Era, can you please close that door to your room? I am trying to take pictures!"



Era gets that strange look on her face after she made fire in the fireplace, and I quickly tell her to leave the room. Well, all these years in the sanatorium have left her a bit deranged.


"Oh, please, I am not even dressed!"



"Yes, you absolutely surpassed yourself with that lamp. And the chair is just ... wonderful."

A little update can be found here.

Mittwoch, 19. September 2012

Photoshoot for the Fairytale Contest

As I mentioned earlier, I participate in a contest over at DeviantArt organized by TheSimsWorld, "Fairytales and Folklore", and picked "Alice in Wonderland" as my theme. Alice had already received a heavy make-over, because she was just too troubled. So, I sent the poor woman into rehab, got her some beautiful clothes from Zauma, and invited her to Wonderland, a community lot owned by Matt Hatter.


I took about 300 shots, but then decided to build another set for my final image:


But still I liked a lot of the shots, and want to show them here. The Wonderland Community Lot is an ongoing project, I keep adding and building as I find stuff.

Here is Alice with the Cheshire Cat.


Nice couple :-)




Love this picture! Alice looks like: Ok, now what?


The Tea Party, covered in snow.




Matt, Alice and the Cheshire cat had to stay a whole day and a night, sometimes freezing heavily.

Here are two more pictures, one just right after the make-over (with a different dress from Zauma) and one in Alice´s bedroom:




Some Photoshop edits, just playing around with various filters and overlays.






Last day of Uni for Luna and Eldred

Although Uni drags on and on, I am kind of sad that Luna and Eldred will leave the University after 4 years. The Greek House is still my favorite house in Uni, and the trio consisting of Eldred, Luna and Elaine was always fun to watch.

Read the first part about Eldred and Aeon here.


And I then realized that Elaine will be the last one in the Greek House. She will surely miss her buddies. I think I will roll the dice to find out who will be the lucky ones who will join her.

Eldred invites Aeon over (wo brings the Unsavory Charlatan along as a friend, which makes me afraid my game is borked, but he just hangs out and plays pool).


The beautiful image on the right is by Durwaigh, check out their site, they have such amazing images over there! It was meshed by Lidiqnata.

Now some more picspam of Aeon and Eldred :-)

They start flirting in the bathroom (where else?):


Eldred has the wish that someone would flirt with him (it is obviously spring), but instead of taking the opportunity to spend some more time with Aeon, Eldred does what Eldred likes most, and this is not sex, but cleaning:


Oh, yes, you dirty little sink, give it to me!!


Thankfully, Aeon does not belong to the obsessive-compulsive faction, and stoically waits until Eldred is done.



Doesn´t he just look gorgeous? *sigh*

His sister Elaine is a real beauty, too. Tony and Akira just have pretty kids.



Ziggy Stardust, Elaine´s fiancé, drops by and leaves a gift for a date they had, a chess table.


He was made by strange_tomato who wrote the wonderful story "Strangetown, here we come", which was sadly never finished, but I so enjoyed reading it. He is a "breed" of Johnny Smith and Ripp Grunt and originally called Markus, and I just had to have him in my game.

And then the trio has exams, and soon Eldred and Luna will leave. I finished here, but they of course will throw one of their famous Greek House Parties before they will go.

Just one more shot of Aeon, edited in Photoshop (click image to see a larger version):



The story of Eldred and Aeon continues here.