Before I discovered the sims forums, my game was very private. I never shared anything online, never did anything with my sims for anyone other than myself. I basically built lots and played with my different families, all who had the same family dynamic...married couple with a few kids. Think Brady Bunch. Yeah, that's basically how all the families in my sim world were. I very rarely strayed from that. When I wasn't playing house, I was building homes. All the same...master bedroom, couple of kids rooms, decked out kitchen...you get my drift. It would get pretty boring. So, I'd stop playing the sims for a while and then would find my way back, and start playing with my Brady Bunch families, and building their Brady Bunch homes. *yawn*
So when I found the forums, I thought it was pretty interesting how people would spend days and even weeks on homes and then share them with the sims community. I would look through the galleries of homes and find myself awed by the amazing homes that were there. Well, I thought, I could do this! I built a home in Monte Vista and shared it. Not many people downloaded it, maybe 100 or so if I remember correctly, possibly less. I then built and shared a community lot, Wedding Bells, a wedding venue and then a pool and sports bar. I then grew bored.
Browsing the other forums, I found a modeling forum. So I went in and looked around. I was astonished at the images! Never being one for fashion or modeling, I didn't think I'd be into it but wow! I started lurking a couple of competitions and thought "I would LOVE to do this!" I knew I would never be good enough though. I didn't know anything about poses or pose player and I had never downloaded a stitch of custom content. I was terrified to download anything like that because I had heard such horror stories! I got over that real fast and now I have folders upon folders of custom content that I swap in and out depending on my needs.
Well, I decided to jump into a competition and I wasn't the worst surprisingly but I wasn't the best either....not by a looong long way. Before I was eliminated in that competition (making it far more along than I expected, more than halfway through the competition) I had joined several others and was juggling many. I learned from my many many mistakes and took the judge's feedback seriously. I learned from my fellow contestants, all whom were so generous to share some of their secrets...and I began to improve. I knew that any further improvement would require something I hadn't done before....editing.
So I downloaded Gimp and found myself immediately intimidated. What does this button do? What is this for? What the heck is a Gaussian blur? Layers? Layers of what? Frustrated, I quickly closed the program. I tried reading tutorials but they were kinda useless to me when I really had no idea of the basics. So, when a competition came up that involved advertisements, I decided to enter in the hope that I would be able to once again learn from my mistakes.
I was terrible. I mean, really terrible. Each assignment, each week I found myself at the bottom. So many mistakes, so many issues. Ugh, just horrible. What I realized though was that I was actually doing it, albeit not well. I was editing! So I practiced some more and I played with lighting, hue, curves, sharpness, paths, layers, etc. Now I find that I'm decent and I'm usually in the top tier when scores are posted and I even ended up winning that advertisement competition by a very narrow margin!
Now it's time for a new endeavor. Gimp brushes. So often I can't find CC for eyelashes, eyeshadow, or hair that matches my vision for a particular assignment. How wonderful if I could just take care of it myself! Or perhaps even create my own CC! Well, that's an endeavor that I may wait for. So that's where I find myself these sim days. Trying to sharpen my modeling and editing skills for these fabulous competitions in the forums. They're a lot of fun and really allow you to kinda push the world away while you're focusing on the tweaks of pictures. Do I still play with my Brady Bunch families? Yes, yes, I do but far more rarely than I once did. What can I say? I like that kind of family dynamic and although there are many aspects of the game that I may be missing "werewolves, vampires and witches, oh my" that part of it just isn't for me, I guess. :) Happy simming!
So when I found the forums, I thought it was pretty interesting how people would spend days and even weeks on homes and then share them with the sims community. I would look through the galleries of homes and find myself awed by the amazing homes that were there. Well, I thought, I could do this! I built a home in Monte Vista and shared it. Not many people downloaded it, maybe 100 or so if I remember correctly, possibly less. I then built and shared a community lot, Wedding Bells, a wedding venue and then a pool and sports bar. I then grew bored.
Browsing the other forums, I found a modeling forum. So I went in and looked around. I was astonished at the images! Never being one for fashion or modeling, I didn't think I'd be into it but wow! I started lurking a couple of competitions and thought "I would LOVE to do this!" I knew I would never be good enough though. I didn't know anything about poses or pose player and I had never downloaded a stitch of custom content. I was terrified to download anything like that because I had heard such horror stories! I got over that real fast and now I have folders upon folders of custom content that I swap in and out depending on my needs.
Well, I decided to jump into a competition and I wasn't the worst surprisingly but I wasn't the best either....not by a looong long way. Before I was eliminated in that competition (making it far more along than I expected, more than halfway through the competition) I had joined several others and was juggling many. I learned from my many many mistakes and took the judge's feedback seriously. I learned from my fellow contestants, all whom were so generous to share some of their secrets...and I began to improve. I knew that any further improvement would require something I hadn't done before....editing.
So I downloaded Gimp and found myself immediately intimidated. What does this button do? What is this for? What the heck is a Gaussian blur? Layers? Layers of what? Frustrated, I quickly closed the program. I tried reading tutorials but they were kinda useless to me when I really had no idea of the basics. So, when a competition came up that involved advertisements, I decided to enter in the hope that I would be able to once again learn from my mistakes.
I was terrible. I mean, really terrible. Each assignment, each week I found myself at the bottom. So many mistakes, so many issues. Ugh, just horrible. What I realized though was that I was actually doing it, albeit not well. I was editing! So I practiced some more and I played with lighting, hue, curves, sharpness, paths, layers, etc. Now I find that I'm decent and I'm usually in the top tier when scores are posted and I even ended up winning that advertisement competition by a very narrow margin!
Now it's time for a new endeavor. Gimp brushes. So often I can't find CC for eyelashes, eyeshadow, or hair that matches my vision for a particular assignment. How wonderful if I could just take care of it myself! Or perhaps even create my own CC! Well, that's an endeavor that I may wait for. So that's where I find myself these sim days. Trying to sharpen my modeling and editing skills for these fabulous competitions in the forums. They're a lot of fun and really allow you to kinda push the world away while you're focusing on the tweaks of pictures. Do I still play with my Brady Bunch families? Yes, yes, I do but far more rarely than I once did. What can I say? I like that kind of family dynamic and although there are many aspects of the game that I may be missing "werewolves, vampires and witches, oh my" that part of it just isn't for me, I guess. :) Happy simming!