Happy New Year and all that jazz

[dicreasy2]

Happy New Year everyone!

I’ve been meaning to make this post for a few days now, but always found myself getting distracted, something which doesn’t bode well for my goal list later on in this post, but oh well. Perhaps I could start from today? On the plus side, I have completely sorted out my cc eyebrows, deleting the ones I didn’t much like, recolouring the ones I do in four matching Pooklet colours, and then binning and familiying them. Rather than having about 15 pages of eyebrows, I now have just the two, decent blond brows (so much yay for this. Really, why can’t creators make decent blond brows? Why? Incendiary is perfect since it shows on all my skintones and looks blond, rather than the grey ick most blonds do).

Aaaanyway, I hope you all had a lovely time over the festive season, filled with laughter and fun. Mine was quiet but pleasant, and I’m very happy with all my presents. I can watch Downton whenever I want, yay for Edwardian country house-ness on demand (seriously, the Dowager Countess played by Maggie Smith, is Sarah Jane in fifty years time, with a countess’s coronet. It’s just brilliant). Also Who, woo!

Last year I made some simming goals, which I thought I’d point and laugh at review.

1.  Enjoy playing. Ok, not quite so much pointing and laughing at this one. There have been times this year when I have really enjoyed playing my game again, most noticeably when I got my new computer and was faced with the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to play the game on it. Once I tried the new drivers and they made the problem only intermittent rather than frequent, I had so much fun playing my rotation. Unfortunately I then had a huge panic attack when playing my main house, but I think I have a plan with regards to that.
2. Get to generation five’s plot and beyond. *points and giggles* Ok, so the beyond was completely off the mark, but I have started with the main plot for this generation now. That’s got to count for something right?
3. Meet generation six. *points and guffaws loudly* Yeah right. The first sims of generation five who will be having children are still only halfway through uni, and Bertie has three years and shed load of plot to go before he has kiddies. I’m, err, getting there?
4. Spare story for Rosa and Lysa. This I actually achieved, and really enjoyed it too.
5. More Meta for here. Um. I did one proper and one mini, that’s ok, isn’t it? I do really, really want to write one on the role of women. The trouble is, it’s such a humongous subject, the more I read, the more muddled my thoughts and outline becomes. I will try to jot things down as I read this year in the hopes that that’ll help me. Plus, once I do a bit more with Vicky, that might help my thoughts.
6. Sort out some lots and cc I've made so they can be put up on the Emporium.   Um, kinda done, in that I revamped the Emporium, redid all my eye sets and uploaded some fixed hair meshes and skintones.  The lots didn't appear and, to be honest, they are such a pain to sort out, I don't intend to package up any lots unless I am specifically asked by people I know won't mind having a shed load of Victorian cc there.
7. Finish the tutorial I started on recolouring pictures.  Something else I actually did, although i need to go back and edit something in it.

Oh, that wasn't as bad as I had feared.  Maybe I feel like I didn't do much last year, because I didn't get very far with the story, but no matter.

Right, onto this year's goals:

1. Enjoy playing my game.  Yes, I'm going with that again, because I think it's the most important thing I can do with regards to this hobby.  I have a plan on how to try to stop myself panicking about whether or not I'm taking enough or the right pictures for my chapters, and I'm going to give it a try for chapter 24.2.
2. Get generation five's main plot done.  I hopefully have more chance of getting this done this year, especially if my new plan works.
3. Meet generation six.  If I make it another year without meeting them, then there is something very wrong with my playing. 
4. Improve my meshing.  I can mesh, but it's very basic stuff, mainly concerned with deleting bits I don't want.  I want to learn how to use Milkshape more, and learn how to add bits to meshes.
5. Improve my texturing.  Again, I can do very basic texturing that mainly involves nicking textures from elsewhere.  I'd like to learn how to make my own textures.
6. Complete Project Refit.  So, I have all these pretty dresses, but some I loathe the mesh they're on, mainly because they don't fit in with my era, or clip too much.  I fixed up my two favourite bustle meshes, and now I want to refit some of these dresses to them.
7. Complete building my blank hood.  I've got everything placed, I just need to force the game to generate the NPCs it hasn't and make them over.
8. Be more involved in the community again.  I love being part of this community, but what with all the crappy stuff that was going on last year, I got very quiet and found keeping up a chore.  That stuff is still going on (and I might make a post about it on my other LJ soon), but I'm feeling more like being here again at the moment.  I hope it lasts and I can get back to commenting on time, both on people's entries here, and at boolprop.  Oh and I want to start being more involved with sim_spiration  and sim_scenes  again too if I can.
9. Write that women's meta.  Like really this time.  Nuff said.  It's a fascinating subject and I want to get it done.

Hmm, I think that's enough to be getting on with.