build your wings on the way down

iris | she/her | audhd

[dead-lights]

kodak // the zhu-vatores

left to right: Philip Vatore, Lila Vatore, Leila Zhu, Charles Zhu

Hey look it's Caleb/Lily/Lilth's parents!

I tried to capture the look of old Kodachrome/Kodacolor cameras from the 1930s-1940s. I really wasn't all that successful, but eh, good enough to throw into a picture frame to hang up in Wolfsbane Manor when I'm feeling a little less lazy!

I spent a really long time fleshing out the Zhu-Vatores before EA updated the canon, and I'm just... not willing to change shit. My entire justification for why sisters ended up with similarly-aged daughters named Lilith and Lily was that they named their babies after each other, but their names were really similar. As a compromise I changed their middle names, so we've got Lila Gioia and Leila Fiorenza.

sidenote - for whatever reason, Philip's mouth often looks kind of weird when he smiles. I couldn't figure out what was going on in Blender, so I've decided that he was just one of those guys who can't smile like a normal human being in photographs.

philip

ruby hair (blogspot) by @qrqr19

1930s suit by @happylifesims

lila

wartime waves hair by @gilded-ghosts

rita skirt suit by @ice-creamforbreakfast

leila

marjorie hair by @clumsyalienn

1930s Day Dress 05 by @happylifesims

charles

double-breasted suit by @happylifesims

[dead-lights]

kodak // the zhu-vatores

left to right: Philip Vatore, Lila Vatore, Leila Zhu, Charles Zhu

Hey look it's Caleb/Lily/Lilth's parents!

I tried to capture the look of old Kodachrome/Kodacolor cameras from the 1930s-1940s. I really wasn't all that successful, but eh, good enough to throw into a picture frame to hang up in Wolfsbane Manor when I'm feeling a little less lazy!

I spent a really long time fleshing out the Zhu-Vatores before EA updated the canon, and I'm just... not willing to change shit. My entire justification for why sisters ended up with similarly-aged daughters named Lilith and Lily was that they named their babies after each other, but their names were really similar. As a compromise I changed their middle names, so we've got Lila Gioia and Leila Fiorenza.

sidenote - for whatever reason, Philip's mouth often looks kind of weird when he smiles. I couldn't figure out what was going on in Blender, so I've decided that he was just one of those guys who can't smile like a normal human being in photographs.

philip

ruby hair (blogspot) by @qrqr19

1930s suit by @happylifesims

lila

wartime waves hair by @gilded-ghosts

rita skirt suit by @ice-creamforbreakfast

leila

marjorie hair by @clumsyalienn

1930s Day Dress 05 by @happylifesims

charles

double-breasted suit by @happylifesims

[dead-lights]

The update that dropped seems to be preventing my game from loading merged cc packages. I really hope this gets fixed quickly, but in the meantime my Dijon hair recolors aren't loading. They can be unmerged using S4S or Mod Manager, and if this is just the way things are going to be now, I'll put up unmerged versions later. Dear lord there are a lot of files in those packages.

Unmerging packages has seemed to allow some packages to load in-game, thankfully.

[dead-lights]

a woman of no importance // inna cents

You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing. You lost life's secret. — Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

I found a lot of awesome old-timey cc recently! When I stumbled across @lamuguetterie's phenomenal 1890s dresses, I knew I had to break out my favorite wasp-waisted amnesiac for a little photo shoot. Not that I have any other wasp-waisted amnesiacs, but Inna's still my favorite.

dress & hat + hair by @lamuguetterie

earrings by @yakfarm

pose by @funkyllama

[dead-lights]

season of spears

a word of advice to all y'all tabletoppers out there - make sure you read the description of items you give your characters before forming a mental image in your head, because this is not what I expected from a so-called dancer's spear. wtf is my poor changeling supposed to do with that thing when she has to fight inside??????

In fairness, she's really really good with that spear. She killed 2 giant centipedes in a single turn because she is a badass.

I'm mostly not around at the moment (no energy for social) but I've been rendering my tabletop characters a lot - I'll be intermittently posting some of those until I'm feeling a bit better. In the meantime, more spear below the cut!

I figured out how to attach the spear to her hand to see if I could make it work with the animations from Journey to Batuu. I've never done stigmata stuff before, but it worked!

Yes, she's swinging that massive spear around like a goddamn lightsaber and clipping right through her body, but I'm still pretty stoked. I've been able make a few spear-appropriate poses with a little editing, and I'm having fun rendering Flora being a badass.

[dead-lights]

happylifesims bridgerton vampire recolors

I've been slowly recoloring my favorite old-timey cc to fit with the color palette from Vampires for my historical-ish renders, but have yet to put together a full set. I use a lot of content by @happylifesims in my renders, so these Bridgerton outfits seemed like a good place to start! I was hoping to get this done in time for Simblreen, but hey there's a few hours left in my time zone so I'm calling it close enough.

This color palette was taken mostly from the bustle dress and pushed shirt CAS items, with some swatches influenced by other outfits. It's not particularly vampy? But hey, eternity is too short to wear drab colors, and Inna needs her yellow gown.

These are recolors. You will need the original meshes. Please let me know if you have any problems with these!

Elle: Penelope's Seafoam Green Dress [MESH] [RECOLOR]

Inna: Kate's Purple Dress with Gown & Net Gloves [MESH] [DRESS RECOLOR] [GLOVES RECOLOR]

Lilith: Daphne's Blue Lace Dress [MESH] [RECOLOR]

Huge thank you to @happylifesims for these incredible dresses!

[dead-lights]

doodles

I've been pretty swamped with life lately, so here's a big render dump!

The overwhelming majority of my renders never make it online. Some are just test renders, others are parts of unfinished scenes or portraits that were never finalized, and some were discarded in favor of other versions of the same shot. These are some of my favorites from the last few months. It's mostly the retired sages, with some friends to keep them company. Here's some Keisha to start!

for a frame with the dialogue "Do your worst." I generally give Keisha ashy hair for the Century Conflict and silver hair after becoming sage. I have Keisha set as a born spellcaster, so I think I like the idea of her having light hair and pink eyes (despite being an Emiko Mori clone) from the beginning. I gave L (born mundane) normal human skin & eyeebrows, brown eyes, and black hair as a child. My younger Tess models also have normal skin and eyebrows.

fucked up the scaling more than a little bit here lmao - keisha and tess were invisible while I was posing him, and I thought he was going to be leaning on her shoulder 😂 He's only supposed to be 2" taller than Tess, but he's an actual giant here.

i did a render a while back with Flora (purple, Elle DeVampiro's mother-in-law/Keisha's childhood bestie who was tragically turned into a vampire) and Sabina (red, Vlad Straud's master, one of the original vampires). I don't have a huge number of OCs, but I really love these ones ❤️ I can't believe I've reached the point of fleshing out Vlad's master's love life...

I used a vampire version of Dillin Derito to generate Flora. She randomly started out with a facial scar from werewolves despite being set as a vampire. I liked the idea of her being easily recognizable in her dark form to her old friends, so I left it. not sure how she got the scar, but i'm sure it's a fun story.

best friends 😭 why did i decide to kill off flora i love her so much

ok but Morgyn looks PHENOMENAL in that coat. Never really decided what to do with these, so I've got Keisha and Ethren at two separate ages. I think I like Morgyn's outfit the best, but I do really like Ethren in that tailcoat, and I love those gloves on Tess.

pretty Tess is pretty 🖤

from an unfinished scene in which L first meets Keisha. this was quite possibly the first and only time in Keisha's life when she was able to use her height to intimidate someone. she's a tiny smol next to Tess and Ethren!

from an unfinished plot in which Tess has to dress up as a 1930s housewife - Keisha's overall response to her new look is "You are NEVER allowed to get married!!!" but hey at least her drawn-on eyebrows are era appropriate!

from an unfinished scene in which Lilith tries to teach Caleb piano, with mama and papa Vatore in the background absolutely overwhelmed by how heckin cute their babies are (my hc is that mama vatore was a piano teacher so like 😭)

just retired pals being retired pals

i've done a few renders of Tess in this dress, but this one never made it online. pretty tess is pretty!

[dead-lights]

Hey! Sorry to bother, but about the grand occult baking championship, are you still working on that project or did you abandon it entirely? It’s fine either way, just curious!

I am actively working on it! I'm about halfway done with the writing, and maybe a quarter of the way through the renders.

For most of this year, I haven't been able to write anything funny. I'm finding my sense of humor again, and I've been able to make progress! Unfortunately I'm an extremely slow writer 😅 If I do end up abandoning the project, I'll post a summary of the desserts/winners/losers, since I have those planned out.

Thanks for asking!

[dead-lights]

little red // morgyn ember

I started this a while back and kinda forgot to pick it up again, but here's Morgyn wearing a bunch of non-cc red coats! I'm being pretty generous here with the terms "red" and "coat" here, but fuck it I really like them in that jacket from lovestruck.

my blonde hair override: info // download

[dead-lights]

dijon blonde override - more packs!

I finally got around to adding recolors for For Rent, Lovestruck, Life and Death, Enchanted by Nature, Home Chef Hustle, and Crystal Creations

Lemme just put it out there: Morgyn Ember deserves better hair. It took a while, but I went and made a bunch. tl;dr: you can download the recolors here on SFS and see previews/info here.

This was supposed to be a simple recolor to pretty up my Rite of Ascension screenshots, but EA’s default blonde looks like it belongs on a sad, soggy sandwich and I decided not to stop with Morgyn's default cut. I settled on something closer to Dijon mustard than yellow - a better color for a fancier sandwich. Also, better hair. For example:

Please keep in mind - this is an override pack. It replaces the default blonde in the game with my recolor - any blonde sims already in the game will have their hair updated. Please let me know if you have any problems!

Info & Previews [my page]

Download all [SFS]

Base game only [SFS]

Eyebrows only [SFS]

Eyebrows aren't included with the base game package. Make sure you grab both.

Everything is divided up by pack, and needs to be downloaded separately. Only download the ones for the packs you own.

To go back to yellow hair, just remove my packages from your mods folder.

Feel free to tag me! I'd love to see what you do with this.

Don't put my stuff behind a paywall.

If you want to make your own recolors, you can download a photoshop or affinity template here. Do whatever you'd like as long as you respect cc hair makers' TOUs when it comes to recolors.

**Please note: I do not own every pack. You can check here to see which packs I've finished and which ones I don't own. I will update as I buy more packs, and I can give instructions on how to make your own recolors for anyone interested.

[dead-lights]

the way bloodsuckers do // morgyn

from that time morgyn stole one of vlad's favorite coats, magicked it red, and then flounced around making fun of him. perhaps not the best way to improve relations between occult groups, but in morgyn's defense, vlad ruined their wedding. also it does kind of seem like 90% of vampries fucking hate vlad, so maybe it would help them make some fanged friends. i needed an excuse to put them in that coat ok, let them make make L and Keisha proud

[dead-lights]

more magic practice

More spell effect adventures! The first 4 are Blenderkit materials - the second is what happened when I put fire inside a soap bubble (which i have done in real life before, highly recommend). The green burst uses the glow from the street lights in RoM for the sparkles - I think this is my favorite of these, and it’s the most maxis match of the bunch. Keisha and Ethren use flat panels with particle effects & transparent textures. I’m not as happy with these, but i do like how they're lit. The last three of Tess use NA's magic ball, a commonly used spell effect accessory.

[dead-lights]

you should see me in a crown // dyer & ember & faba & huges

i just really wanted to dress them all up all fancy.

cc below the cut

lmao set the wrong thing on fire while attempting to figure out my flame effect. In my defense, they deserve it.

morgyn

dress by @buzzardly28

crown by @bradfordsims

hair by @simkatu (dijon blonde recolor)

necklace by @pitted0live

ring by @dancemachinetrait

tome by @natalia-auditore

pose by @freezerbnuuy

L

dress by sifix (TSR)

crown by @batsfromwesteros

hair by @buzzardly28

necklace and earrings by @ice-creamforbreakfast

rings by @clumsyalienn

pose by mamalovesnuts (deactivated)

tess

dress by sifix (TSR)

crown by @sugarowl (TSR)

earrings & necklace by @simverses

rings by @madlensims

wand by @immortalysasims

pose by @immortalysasims

keisha

dress by sifix (TSR)

crown by @batsfromwesteros

hair by @raindropsoncowplants

necklace and bracelets by @batsfromwesteros

nails by @chere-indolente

rings by @oydis

pose by @helgatisha

spell effects from omega particle fx & blenderkit

[dead-lights]

little break

I'm in the early stages of autistic burnout (brief primer here) and am struggling with social interactions. Selective mutism affects written communication too and I just can't get words to cooperate. I've spent almost four hours trying to write this post and just, yeah. fuck. words don't work. I'm not trying to ignore anyone right now but words don't work. I'm going to focus on getting my head back on straight.

for anyone interested, here's an in-depth academic paper defining autistic burnout. fellow autistics - table 3 (also available here) has some useful coping strategies.

[dead-lights]

practice // tess dyer

i've been slowly learning to make spell effects in blender, with mixed success. this one is my favorite so far!

dress by @surely-sims

hair by @ice-creamforbreakfast

pose by @helgatisha

[dead-lights]

baguettes magiques // sages

seriously that's what you call magic wands in french

as i was testing out some spellcaster pose packs for a thing, i realized i never got around to picking out wands for the sages. now i have!

cc and wand assignments below the cut

ethren: magician's wand, because he's named after efren reyes, a poker player known as "the magician."

keisha: bone wand. it originally belonged to her best friend flora, who was turned into a vampire during the war.

L: wand of the elementals. i've seen her use it in-game before, and it feels appropriate with my hc that she found her way to the realm by stealing a glimmerstone.

morgyn: wand of the sylvan forest. i've seen them use it in-game and it matches their eyes

simeon: wood wand. i just like it for him!

tess: wand of the forgotten. she seems like the kind of person who'd have an extra fancy wand. it was supposedly forged from the spirits of the underworld, so that seems appropriate for an untamed caster.

cc

tess: hair by @simkatu

morgyn: hair recolor by me

wands by @immortalysasims

poses from: - simply wanderful by @freezerbnuuy - magica by @honeyssims4 - magical emotions by @yangsims

[dead-lights]

I *need* to find an excuse to put this in a real render.