Strangetown Extras: Jill paintings (and a great cc find)

[strangetomato]

Since my last drabble post, which mentioned Buck's nude paintings of Jill (an idea I've been working with for a while, behind the scenes), beyondheroism__  has been busy drawing me some really great pictures to use with the custom painting feature on the easel. One of them was in a landscape orientation instead of portrait, and I really loved it, so I went hunting for a way to make it work. There's the drafting table, but that adds a filter effect (I'm not a fan of this feature, since it really LOOKS like a filter, and they could have just included drawings that look like blueprints instead - it seems really lazy to me). Another option was recolouring a painting from the buy mode catalogue, but most of those have frames, and frameless is much better for a student art show. So, my hunt continued...

What I found was really great: the Maxis More Functional - Painting Easels Superset by AnnoeskaB at TSR. This set gives you options for different easel sizes, including a table-top easel and a kid-sized easel, and also three new formats - a landscape rectangle, a square, and an oval. All of these work with the custom painting feature that has been included since Pets, and frames can be added if you have FT or AL. It also includes a "continious painting and selling" feature if you want to start up an art-type sweatshop, and there are new paintings included for the default paint mode (even a few grilled cheese). I can't vouch for the quality of these new paintings, because I haven't tested them, and I'm leaning towards skeptical until I see them, because I'm super picky about art. 

AnnoeskaB is a featured artist, so you know what that means, and where you should go to get these. I'd most likely donate to her if she hade her own site and freely offered these, because they're awesome, but I'd never subscribe to TSR.







See, Johnny? They aren't all nudes. Some of them are lovingly crafted portraits.

(Now I just imagine Johnny walking through the gallery and seeing the "safe" paintings first, and he begins to feel relieved. Then he turns the corner and BAM! Smut as far as the eye can see. The look on his face would be priceless.)




Here's the oval canvas. This sketch fits the frame well enough, but the stretcher shape is just too unlikely for me. As someone who builds her own stretchers (like many artists), the oval canvas would have to be stretched over some sort of piece of masonite or other flat board that was cut to shape with a jigsaw, and the stretching would be a nightmare. I'm sure people do it, but I prefer the more traditional square or rectangle.

Heehee. I can see Jill's bum.

I mean... *cough* that's a very nice figure study, Buck.

(You're supposed to take art very seriously, don't you know. *wink*)




I'm very excited about the horizontal frames, and the large square frames (which are this wide, but just as high, so they make nice big paintings). I need to get an image in the right format to test those out, so I don't have an example to show you right now.

This drawing is so cute with those heartfarts. I love how bold and graphic this one is (arty graphic, not sexy graphic... it's quite tastefully sexy, I think), and it has a great composition. The sim realism of the heartfarts just makes it even better.

Jill does spray those hearts constantly when Buck is around, so he was really just drawing what he saw.


 

Comments

[drx4000.livejournal.com]

Buck<3Jill


Sweet!




DrX

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're cute, no doubt. :) She did some great drawings.

[hidden-kitten.livejournal.com]

so cute, that last one :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Isn't it, though? :) I keep hearing her say those silly little things they say when they shoot out hearts.

[akatonbo.livejournal.com]

Neat! My entire evening last night was taken up with finally getting around to reading your story, btw, and it pretty much swallowed me whole until I ran out of parts to read. I'm especially liking the fact that you used a lot of detail from Sim bios and stuff, which is also something I want to do myself (but I'm also deviating from them deliberately here and there and going different ways and generally planning to have way too much fun, if only I can finish my massive custom content cull anytime soon -- I have way too much of that crud). Anyway, I very much enjoyed it, so I went ahead and added you; my Sim stuff will still be on asimmetrical when I get back to posting things, but now it's a community so I can take advantage of the photo storage on this account. :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Oh, how cool. :) Thanks for reading! I like using all the silly little details from the sim bios, which are often vague enough to twist to suit your fancy, but specific enough that it's amusing.

Are you still doing a Strangetown story? That's cool. I remember your post about that from way back when. Be sure to post it to [Unknown site tag] when you get it off the ground. :) And good luck on the cc cull (I love how you called it crud - reminds me of a guy I used to know), and the story creation.

[themorganlegacy.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thanks for the link! That is extremely cool.

And I love the paintings! Oh, Buck. I love him, and I hope Johnny doesn't see him until after he's calmed down. *laughs*

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Aren't they cool? I was so excited. I'm all about anything that extends the use of my favourite parts of the game: the art and music features. If the easel paintings could be move up and down the wall like buy-mode paintings, everything would be perfect. I hope someone makes a mod for that.

Well, I'd also like some new animations for a band, like something that would allow a sim to sing and play an instrument at the same time, or even just using the new microphone to sing WITH the band. Maybe one day...

There are several others too, and they're all pretty great. :) I'm so glad she agreed to do this. It's a nice touch for the story.

There's also Ripp... do you think he'd let Johnny hunt down his sweet little brother?

[cindyanne1.livejournal.com]

Wow, that easel superset is really cool. *downloads*

I love those paintings of Jill. :D

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I know. It was one of those things where I couldn't believe that I hadn't heard of it already. You'd think everyone would use it. I guess it's fairly new, so maybe it will catch on.

She did some really great ones, and couple that look like working sketches too (many drawings on one canvas). I can't wait to show them all off.

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

They look great! I'm glad you found those other canvases, because it really suits the Heartfart picture. The oval one looks sort of silly, but that's probably because I can just imagine it'd be a bitch to do IRL.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I agree. That one needed to be in that exact format. I'm very happy I found that mod.

Yeah, I'm going to stick with the normal frames for the upright ones. It would be cool to try a couple of square ones too. I could use that JRO scarf painting as a test.

[naughtydolphin.livejournal.com]

ooo those are great. and I love the different painting options!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I know. :) I'm very excited to have more options for this. We've had that easel since the base game, and I was really hoping for a little more for it in FT, but they didn't deliver. This makes painting way more fun, and it gives more options for stories and photoshoots too.

[showercapfrog.livejournal.com]

I really love that last one. It's how I'd imagine Buck would paint, although I'm not sure why. And it's a nude, not a naked :P because there's such a huge difference...

I also love the oval one, although the frame is pretty weird.

*downloads superset*

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's sweet and Buck-like, I agree.

That made me LOL... There was a guy in one of my art classes who argued quite seriously that there was a HUGE difference between "naked" and "nude," and the average Joe was ignorant because he didn't know the difference. I told him, quite frankly, that I thought he was full of shit. :P They're all just words to me. Context is what matters.

I'll use the image on the oval one, but use a normal canvas. That canvas would look okay if it was framed, so it will surely be useful for something, just not this.

[ikichi.livejournal.com]

I've had my eye on those frames for a while, how sweet of you to be my womrat!

I LOVE the nude of Jill and the sheet. I can't wait to see rest.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

You saw them and hesitated? How could you wait? I was was all over that. :D

There are some really nice ones. That pose from the back has a full-colour version too, and there's another with a the fabric draped over her from the front too. They're very nice.

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

These are really cool. I'm downloading them immediately.

I LOVE the last picture, with the heartfarts: so cute! Jill is really adorable.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Hooray for cool downloads! :D I'm seriously pumped about those.

I agree. Jill is the cutest. She has such a simple, cute little face, and she looks good in all sorts of hairstyles. I'm definitely using that rockabilly ponytail that Phobia recently retextured on her in the future. She's sassy enough to rock it.

[fileg.livejournal.com]

The Jill paintings are wonderful!

I crave the horizontal painting for my sims, but alas, the download is marked Freetime required, so no love for Mac users....

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

She's doing a wonderful job with those. :) I like them very much, and I'm lucky to have them for the story.

Oh, well that's too bad. They only things that should rely on FT are the grilled cheese paintings and the frames. It would have been nice if she had offered a pre-FT version too, but maybe it wasn't possible, and it's probably a lot of extra work (I'm sure this sort of thing takes time).

[aledstrange.livejournal.com]

<3 Love that easel superset! :D

I've it for a while and i've use a lot with Buck in Remix. I looked for good easel for kids everywhere! was so happy when i found that set! :D Its sooo perfect for the lit' painter and he doesn't need the lit' plastic bench any more rofl!! SO cute!!



I really like the one for the table too. Its awesome. Haven't explored the different canvas yet tho, but already imagine more variety of paintings on the walls, what a dream come true! :D

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's cute for children, and most of my sim kids paint, so I'm sure I'll use it quite often. It's perfect for Buck. He was always a painter in my game too. I think it really suits him, like Ripp with music, and Tank with fitness and military things.

I haven't tried out the table-top easel yet. The paintings are quicker to paint, according to the info with the download, and I guess they bring in less money (which is not good if you have one of those fears of selling anything less than a masterpiece).

The smaller size could be useful for variety too. Now I'm thinking of a grid of smaller paintings. (The Art School Solution TM: Everything is better when you make a TONNE of them and arrange it all in a neat grids. LOL)

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

Those are amazing pictures! I really like beyondheroism's style ^^ (my favorite is the last one).

I've had that set for a while, but I haven't had the chance to use it in my game yet. Be careful though, one of Anoeska's files at the Booty is corrupted and will crash your game (the "more slots" for the free time desk, which you really shouldn't get, considering there's Lord Darcy at MATY with an amazing set of "extra slots" for ALL the desks, tables, end tables and even TVs and fridges!).

It's a pity that Anoeska, MsBarrows, Mustke and SimAddict are all FAs. Their "Maxis-match" sets are amazing (and my favorite) and they are all great creators. I actually have a short once in a lifetime subscription at TSR at the moment ( This is actually embarrassing to admit, I almost made a simsecret of this :P), because I wanted to get those files for my game without the bugs found at the Booty files (like many SimAddict's sets). So, in case you need anything from there that's not at the booty yet, feel free to ask! (I don't care if they ban me, for I already got what I wanted and hey, the more use I get out of the sub, the better).

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she has a great style. I like it a lot.

Thank you for the warning about that file. I was looking at those FT updates, but I'll get Lord Darcy's version instead. I was really hoping for something for the FT TV and record player, and I didn't know he had updated his extra slot packages for that. I love having extra slots.

I know. I feel less excited about singing their praises because of it, but the work is really great, so I had to mention it. I haven't checked out all of those creators yet. Maxis-match is always good, even if I'm not really one to match up decorative things all that much (themed bedrooms and stuff like that are not my thing).

How do you know which booty files have bugs in them? Is there a post about it somewhere? I may take you up on that offer, if I get around to looking through all those downloads, so thank you for that.

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

Yay! These are all really nice! I love the composition of the heart fart painting a lot. It actually reminds me *just a little* of the Sandman art exhibit I saw last week.

[meetme2theriver.livejournal.com]

Oh, those are some awesome paintings. :D

Also, I had that tiny easel, but not the two others. Thanks for the find! And thank you, booty. <3

[fafy94.livejournal.com]

Awww that's so sweet! I love Buck and Jill! And the easels are great, too bad they're only for FreeTime and i don't have got this EP ;_;

[(Anonymous)]

I love beyondheroism__'s drawings/paintings, my favorite is the last one, so very clean and stylish. Do you really think that Johnny would freak out because of this? nah! I think he knows better...

[missgan.livejournal.com]

Buck & Jill!! :D:D

The last painting is definitely my favourite, especially the floating hearts. I don't think Johnny would freak out very badly over these, though he'd probably be quite uncomfortable at first, right? I expected them to be more, um, explicit (ZOMG, NAKED JILL!! was the first thing that ran through my mind when I read your last drabble because I still kinda think of her as a young teen), so these are really very gorgeous and classy to me.
Anw, I think it's incredibly sweet that Buck loves Jill so much that she plays such an important role in his art! :)

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

Haha, some of them are a little more sexy than these. So Johnny might have a fit with a few. XP

[80sfiend.livejournal.com]

Wow really cool! :D I love the paintings :D