I am so sorry to hear about your mother Craft, Sending thoughts and prayers for your mothers recovery. What a rotten cold, sounds more like the flu. I hope you get well soon.

I don't usually get the flu... but yeah it might just be that. My mother is back to herself now. I appreciate your well-wishes. They didn't find any bleeding, which I'm grateful of. But it could be an early sign of dementia, so she's feeling sad.

I think I fell asleep at that point!! I was struggling to keep my eyes open by the time I posted that. Proof-reading was clearly beyond me by that time!

I meant to say, "Comfort may not be all that important in a restaurant dining chair; few diners sit in it for longer than a couple of hours."


Thanks @Charity for spotting that!

Of course I won't do anything to harm Andrew. He means too much to me to ever hurt him. Failing to fit a fire alarm was a serious error -- I know perfectly well that they are required by Veronaville building regulations. Anyway he's let me off with a stern verbal warning. And he finished the verbal warning with his usual infectious smile! He really has had a big positive effect in my life, in helping me to accept that I'm as gay as he is.

So only 4 days left in the round--am I reading that right? Wow time flies. I play tested a tad bit, so looks like I'll be able to get this round up soon.

4 days and 18 hours or so left.

@Craft90 - Take care, I am sorry to hear that. I hope you get well soon. Happy to hear your mom is better.

@shastakiss - Welcome to Round 3!

Hope you're feeling better now and fingers crossed for your mother that it turns out to be something innocuous!

I'm certainly stretching my skills for this contest - I've made at least one recolour for every round, usually a type of thing I'd never recoloured before. Now it seems I have to stretch even further and learn to replace the textures on a Maxis object - because the thing I want to recolour is repositoried and not designable, so it only picks up the base colour of the object, not the nice recolour I made. I'm sure this is all basic stuff for many people, but it's new to me!

@AndrewGloria - your contest entries are giving me a lot of enjoyment, so please don't worry too much about your scores! I love seeing how Andrew plans out his projects in consultation with his clients, and how the resulting businesses fit into a lively, lived-in hood. In the same way my projects are helping with the expansion of Holtwood, which has been running since February 2019 - not as long as your Veronaville, but long enough to have the population to support some new ventures. I do admire how your builds fit the Veronaville architecture style - and it gives me a giggle that your young waiters suit the Veronaville dress code too! I think your clients are satisfied, your buildings are going to be popular with residents on a day out, and your town is looking lovely. Keep it up! (Maybe just a few more decorative objects and pot plants around in your next entry... but I do tend to go overboard with pot plants myself.) I hope the dogs and everything else won't keep you from helping Andrew finish his next project.

Sounds exciting to learn new skills during the contest, @Pebblerocker - I have never learned to recolour or retexture anything, so there's that!
And 100% about @AndrewGloria - the scores are not that important, I certainly just love to see all the entries and hope everyone will upload theirs! I think they will all be popular

I reckon that the dogs will either stimulate him to install Pets or make him decide never to install it, depending on how well behaved they are. XD



Well people are going to worry about their scores at least somewhat in a contest.

I agree, for my own lots the points scored are certainly not due to my immense building skill (I don't have any) but just due to my immense downloading skills!
The points scored were all earned by the creators whose custom content I have used, and also due to the tutorials they have all written too! (Some of those content creators may be my competitors in this contest, so I really am cheating! )
Look at my boxes, they are AWESOMZ!

(I'm going vanilla for the last round, so you'll see how crappy my builds are )

We have to have a winner, or it would not be a contest. But having fun is still more important, and one has to explain why points are deducted and where the builder went wrong or can improve. I certainly have learned almost everything from contests as well as Karen Lorraine, who was an extremely patient and helpful moderator (sent back some of my lots 4 to 6 times; was eventually happy enough with me to tell me I should start using cheats) . Yet one simply does learn more if there is certain requirements and a specific theme for a lot, and I hope our contestants will rather see it as a fun way to learn more about building, not only from the judges, but also from seeing what the other contestants do!

And I think our contestants have had some fun. I have truly enjoyed the back stories, the sims in the pictures, @AndrewGloria making the sims at home and some of the funnier pictures as well.  

@simsample

Rolls eyes about your lack of building skills first.

Then I laughed about all the stuff outside, especially the bunch of statues! Can't wait to see that lot

Diana used to reminisce about her old glory days as a professional bowler. Sadly the local alley closed decades ago, but now that Diana's kids are out of the house she's got plenty of free time and money to rekindle her former love. After locating and fixing up the old venue, she's back in business as a professional bowling alley owner.

I went with a Googie architecture inspired build since most of the bowling items in the game are themed around the same era. I had a lot of fun with this one!

Note: the "plants" in the outdoor planter box by the entrance are fake deco objects. They do not require gardening/upkeep.

Required images:



Extra images:

I've been busy with university and I haven't played, let alone build, Sims at all recently, I only booted up the game again last night. So I missed this contest, something I was looking forward to since the summer!

Mind if I tag along for what's left? No judging, just building for the love of it.

Despite a very delayed start, I've managed to build something. It's a theatre for music performances, with instruments set up on stage. I suppose it could be used for drama too. Unfortunately the main body of the theatre auditorium runs parallel to the front street resulting in a rather uninteresting grey stone façade. Once you leave the street and go into the theatre grounds it becomes much more interesting, but Diana, Andrew and I are all concerned about the lack of interest in the façade. As a theatre intended mainly for pop/rock concerts, the building has (almost) no windows. Does anyone know where I might get some large, cheap music and/or theatre posters that might brighten up the façade? I say "cheap" because we've spent most of the budget!

P.S. I posted some pictures of Andrew meeting with Diana to discuss this building in the Random Pictures thread.

So my entry for this round is a boxing gym!


I didn't really consider it a performance venue because, well, sims can't actually have boxing matches or watch others box, but as I was taking pictures, I realized my lot is set up with a spectator area to mimic watching a boxing match... So it might kinda break the rules? Idk. Let me know. Not sure what I'll do about it this late, but ya know, I can try to fix it. Anyway, it's back to the Tudor theme for me, hence the brick and paneling. I tried to keep this one from being one big box and I think it turned out alright, but the judges will let me know for sure. That's a stage on top of the first floor, btw. No money for a dummy floor this round!





And that's it; good luck everyone!

@AndrewGloria I would use the Snap Objects to Grid cheat to arrange the game's posters on the wall--you can't shift up and down without AL, but you can layer them and put them closer together to make a collage. Some of the game's cheap posters are at different heights--I think they were meant for teens' bedroom walls or something.

And then, if you have recolors of the BV travel poster, grilled cheese poster or pineapple poster, there are add on sets that make the poster bigger for relatively cheap:
BV Travelposter Addons by hokadk47
Pineapple Poster Addons and Grilled Cheese Addons by Sushigal007

Though I do like Moocha-Muses' Music Poster set and MistyFluff's Showtime Poster. But I'm sure you can find some recolors right here on MTS (like this one), too.

And remember there are different kinds of windows--there are some privacy windows that you can use that won't stand out too much and be really high and skinny so that you can place them without taking away from the architecture. In fact, I used privacy windows in my Round 1 and I think the judges thought I didn't place any on the second floor! But in fact, all rooms open to sims had windows; only the dummy room didn't have any. It's just that the roof line was so big, you couldn't see it. Anyway, my point is that you could probably find a matching privacy window to fit your build, depending on what windows you're already using. Or you could make things interesting by color blocking or mixing textures/paneling, or adding some plants and deco. You'll think of something. I know it.

That will be fantastic to see your lots, you are more than welcome.

Welcome to Round 3, @Phantomknight!

People watch boxing on a stage, no problem As I said, the lot must make sense.

@AndrewGloria

Not sure if you use BV.

Here is a BG verson of the Bon Voyage poster, made by HugeLunatic. It will pick up any recolour, I hope it helps
https://sims2artists.com/index.php?topic=1705.0

He doesn't have any EPs past OFB.

I was not sure. Thought he could perhaps use the BG version since it was one of the paintings recommended to him by Phantomknight.

Justpetro, good catch! I totally spaced about the travel poster even though the EP was right there in the name. I'm so used to using it and the Grilled Cheese painting whenever I think poster. Totally missed that it wouldn't be available for Andrew. So thanks, you saved my recommend there.

I love that BV travel poster too - somehow I remembered seeing that BG version by HL mentioned somewhere, probably while during downloading recolors for it

Andrew took Diana and her husband to look at the lot we've built for her, and everything appeared to work OK. The only that I think will have to change is that some of the instruments on the stage will have to be turned round to make it easier for the audience to see the musicians. I think I've got all the required pictures taken so, with a bit of luck, I'll try to post tomorrow. Diana will also pay for and take possession her purchase. I'll add more pictures up to the closing date and time, but I don't think there's time to make any significant changes to the design.