Rocking Critters, Part Deux a.k.a. Deer

[heget]

More toddler toys! Because I like lots and lots of super-fancy toys for my fancy toy...

 
No nursery of any era is truly complete until it has a useable rocking animal?

And who said that animal had to be a horse? I had so much fun with the rocking horse remake that I knew I needed a menagerie of toddler toys. Game of Toddlers told me that the next animal on the list had to be a deer. For reasons. Hey! The new Hobbit movie gives me license to make rideable deer, and it's not like the Baratheons are the only ones out there with royal stags


Now, for recolors I did two sets.

First I made some wood grain and shading to give a carved wooden look and filtered it over the iCad woods for a solid-tone stained wood look. The reins are various shades of neutral browns.

The mesh itself has two subsets- one is the main body and the other is the curved rockers at the bottom. I also linked the reins to the rocker subset for reasons as you'll see.
For the iCad recolors, however, it looks better not to mix the woods.

To refresh your mind, these are the 20 wood shades:


And then of course the second set are hand-painted- various shades of brown or tan and a few that aren't. And I'm not as fanatical in my knowledge of deer as I am on horses. Again I tried to make the textures look like they were hand-made by a Sim using no color too breaking-the-suspension-of-disbelief. Still nothing too wild. But perhaps a bit mythological...





Most are brownish red, but a few dark shades including a proper black, a white hart, the golden hind, and as close to a reindeer as I could make. And the spotted coat works for fawns, Fallow deer, Sitka deer... Remember that the bottom runners/rungs and the cloth reins are a seperate sub-set, so you can mix and match.



Everything has been Compressorized, found in the children's section. Two tiles. Needs an adult or teen to place the toddler.

Requires at least Freetime.

Polycount is 2136.




Download the Mesh

iCad Wood Recolors

Painted Recolors




And then since the orginial plan of making a few recolors with the antlers edited out for does was not coming out perfectly, I did what I should have from the beginning (hence this long delay), and made a new mesh for the doe. Without the antlers, the polycount is 1728. The doe is slaved to the deer for all the recolors, so you need it for this. However, that means you get all the nice female or non-rutting season versions for your nurseries too. Or if you were worried about the antler pieces of the rocking animal hitting your toddler in the face every time he or she leaned forward. (I actually went and adjusted the mesh so while it looks close I think there's only one point at the wildest rocking apex where the mesh cuts into the toddler's head for a split second.)


Download the Doe Mesh

See, Thranduil isn't the only one riding a big ol' elk anymore.

 

Comments

[hat_plays_sims]

These are seriously adorable. (And I go 'eeee' because one of the critters in my expanded heraldry set is a stag couchant, one of the few animals that can be couchant (lying down) without looking like an indiscernible lump.)

Quick question, can you sell these in OFB stores? I dream of a Medieval toy shop with nothing but functional toys, and if shadows didn't thwart me so I'd've shared my first forays into such a thing.

[heget]

I'm not sure- they are cloned off rebekah's rocking horse, which I think was based off the bouncy playground toy (that llama thing) from Freetime. So I don't see any reason why a home business can't sell them. (Oh god, if I could replace at least one of the craftable toys- isn't one of the toys a bouncy ride thing?- with one of the rocking critters...oh besties. But way too much skill for me.)

See I knew Nessa and the Baratheons wouldn't be the only ones needing a deer. ^^

[hat_plays_sims]

I'll check it out next time I load my game-- I've got toddler kirtles I need to get pictures of. (Craftable toys are pet brick, Jack-in-the-Box, kite, fire truck, Spin and Wobble, and Water Wiggler. The pet brick and fire truck would be EASY to replace, as they're just a solid one-piece mesh. I have never built the Spin and Wobble or Water Wiggler, but S&W is a ridey bug thing and WW is an octopus sprinkler and I don't usually bother with buy mode defaults but I would for those.)

What I figured out, though, is how to make toybox toys buyable... and how to kill the 'dispose' or 'put away' interactions... and then I made stand-alone buyable versions of every default replacement toybox toy I could find. ANY toy mesh that'll fit in a Sim kid's hand can be made into a stand-alone buyable OFB-salable playable toy, if you've got the mesh skills to turn it the right way and get it in the right place. And I'd've released the ones I made except the indoor shadows are a disaster and I can't figure out how to make them recolorable (there are lots of colors available for the Castaway Stories toybox toys). I have this weird goal of No Deco Toys.

They totally aren't. I totally need the deer. (And the wolf!) I'll crack up if you do any more of my heraldic animals unexpectedly.

[heget]

My growing list of rocking critters:

cat (and a version w/ a mane for lion)
Okay, yes, a unicorn
elephant (oliphant)
dragon
bear
seal
fish or sea serpent
bird (lol, eagle)
anything else off the top of my head


I pictured in my head how to do a Kraken rocking toy first, actually, but the construction would be totally different and much harder for me to mesh prettily.



What I really need to do is finish the project of the dolls. Not sure if you saw my massive WIP for it. I hit a snag in the creation, but I'm going to revive it. That was a pain because it's cloned off the Teddy Bear- which I like the size and more playablity animations (though stop being so rough with it, toddlers!)- and I had to fix all the joints. And that was a nightmare and a half. For many reasons. The deco versions would probably be too big to make toybox toy clones off of. Hmmm.

[hat_plays_sims]

My heraldic animals are lion, unicorn, boar, stag, and dragon, so... really, aside from boar... (I wanted to do a serpent and a bear, too, but I realized all my heraldry was critters so I used a harp and a tower on my last two colors.) You've got me covered!

I have no idea what you'd even do for a Kraken toy, honestly-- like the rocking chairs or like one of the craftable toys?

I don't think I saw the WIP for the dolls, but... there's always the dollhouse dolls. Those could REALLY use a good period default replacement, even if it were just lengthening the ladies' dresses into gowns and shifting the mens' proportions so they're wearing tunics and hosen instead of shirts and bell-bottoms. (I like how primitive they are... and the Feenwald defaults are gorgeous, but they're a) still fantasy, not Medieval and b) WAY too pretty to let toddlers chew on.)

[heget]

Oh boy- here I'l link you my massive post about the dolls from the Keep. The meshes themselves aren't primitive in the least- but some of my planned recolors are, umm, not as extremely crafted.
My problem is over half my hood will be immortal elves- elves with a high knowledge base and very large cities- so I want very finely made items for them because they have the time and resources and wealth. And then most of my humans are early Iron Age refugees. And everything between.

Bask in the insanity: http://www.medievalsims.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=3755


Oh- Kraken rocking animal. Squid head as the body the kid would sit on (squid facing back, so the head fins behind, mouth in front), two of the longer tentacles as the curved runners, two curving up like handlebars to grip, the other tentacles as sturts, supports, and decorative. I can see it in my head and it's very 'Art Nouveau My Little Cthulhu'.

[hat_plays_sims]

Well, I'll give you that the Pullip dolls are adorable, even if they've never been my style. ... But you've, um, stumbled on a history nut who happens to be a doll collector-- I taught myself to sew so I could make Victorian-dressed dollhouse dolls, and I'm self-employed making and selling dolls and miniatures. It's really frustrating to want to make something I could make out in the physical world in an hour or so and have to beg for meshes for it for the Sims.

(I will tell you I'm jealous that your dolls have hats that haven't happened for Sims yet-- the toque, hood-and-cape, and steeple hennin particularly.)

Anyway, no, dolls generally wouldn't work for the toybox toys, because the toys all share the same animations (the kids go 'neigh' and 'vroom' in equal measure no matter what they're playing with, and thump the toy along on its feet/belly/wheels, then make it fly through the air. Ideal toybox toys are more horizontal than vertical), and right now I've got the Basegame pony, car, boat, and rocketship, the Castaway canoe, jaguar, speedboat, and sea turtle, the TSM dragon, horse, unicorn, and ship, Bienchen's pony, the ATS Toy Shop top, and Psychosim's mini deco Nessie... but those last two don't sit so well in the kids' hands.

And that rockingsquid sounds like it'd almost have to have a high poly count... but it also sounds adorable.

[heget]

Oh yeah- I can get very in-depth and exacting of certain things. (Some clothing eras. ART.) Dolls are not one of them (despite teh stuffed animals and Barbies).

Those actually started with the fact that the only doll deco for Sims of any sort that I could find that didn't make my eyes bleed were the Blythe dools- which despite recolor attempts never fit in. And were too small and proportioned wrong. So I started editing- and in the process thought, 'what if I get this to work like the teddy bear?'

Which- never again. Not only are there tons of joints to assign- like making a Sim's clothing mesh from scratch with all the inherent animation smoothness and parts sticking out- but while in Milkshape/the GMDC model is standing- in game the doll/teddy bear at rest is sitting- and notice the one leg off-kilter? Plus it's much stiffer and thinner than a stuffed teddy bear. I had to change the waist to offset the proportions.

Oh- I purposely told myself make hats for the 'Sim dolls' that I don't have for my Sim dolls.

[hat_plays_sims]

Admittedly I'm not as solid on doll history as on fashion history, but part of that is because I've never really liked the antique French fashion doll look so I just researched the clothes and made them fit my own dolls. I've tried to research Medieval toys, but the general consensus is that most of them were probably loved to death-- as rare as Medieval textiles are, a Medieval rag doll would be even rarer.

I do hear doing anything involving a new teddy bear clone is a nightmare. I keep promising myself I'll recolor some of Natrobo's dolls, but I haven't gotten around to it. Sure, I'd have to explain why my High Middle Ages kids are playing with Late Middle Ages Pantalone, but that clown is pretty much adorable.

*sulks* Not fair. I wanna make hats. *uploading completed files for Sunday's megapost*

[heget]

Megapost! *claps hands*

Oh- I finally got all the work done with the joints for the doll- so I can make near infinite combinations of parts. I will have hundreds of teddy bear clone toys in my game by the end. *deranged laughter*

Yeah- the rag doll is why I made the cloth version of the recolors and the one I'll probably put in my houses the most. But I wanted the fancier wooden carved ones and I love porcelain dolls. Again, it's the "Elves in paradise and their kids are considered adults at 50 and they live forever and have these mental hang-ups about preserving things forever, so they have time to really make TOYS"

[hat_plays_sims]

YOU HAVE NO IDEA I'm still waiting on some meshfixes but I have SO MUCH to go up. But there will be a fuckton of front-laced kirtles, because you can never have enough of those and I've got 'em for CF-EF Maxis and RGv2, AF and TF Athletic Girl, and AU and TU Androgyny. Among other things!

That is a lot of doll. Honestly, I'd probably suspend my disbelief if you told me the doll's design was elvish instead of human, and if they've got the technology to make porcelain? Shoot, man, that stuff DOES last forever. As long as you don't break it, the paint never dulls or fades, dirt washes off, and it handles temperatures like a champ. That's why it's got a history as the material of choice for dolls. Sure, we're always looking for something lighter, softer, more flexible, but porcelain's good qualities still put it miles ahead of even vinyl and resin.

[heget]

Not only elf design- but my highly advanced city elves that made synthetic jewels and heat-less clear burning lights and live side by side with gods, so I can excuse a lot of stuff by their 'magic'. Like bright, probably synthetic dye colors for clothing and house paint. And frankly my gut instinct is people were less primitive back then than we imagine.

[hat_plays_sims]

Depends on your definitions of 'primitive' and 'back then,' and also on your religious system. If your Church declares vanity to be sinful and taking long hot baths for the purpose of looking good and smelling nice and not rotting out the underarms in your clothes to be vain... it's probably not sinful to fill a basin with hot soapy water and wash the day's grime off of you for the sake of being able to stand within three feet of other people, or trying to keep from pitting out your clothes because clothes are expensive and you want them to last a long time. During and after the Renaissance, it got less popular to wash and more popular to perfume, because the upper classes at this point were a little bit insane, believing things like chewing to be an activity fit for cows and having whole meals of nothing but pates, mousses, foams, and soups, and that bathing was for peasants who did hard, sweaty labor instead of people who could afford to splash rosewater on their naturally-fragrant parts. A connection between hygiene and health wasn't made until the Victorian era.

... So I guess I hope your elves are the nice logical, scientifically minded Vulcan kind of elves, because humans can come to some weird-ass conclusions about things.

[heget]

Oh, the one group of elves think they're Vulcan elves...
That's the group that rebels against the gods, murders each other over shiny jewels, starts a crusade against the god of all evil (and surprise, surprise - it not successful)

But yeah, I think hygiene will be very good- considering they did have gods living next door teaching them things.

Whether or not a lot of hair bathing...because it wasn't until last 50 years or so hair products improved so that soap wouldn't destroy your hair if you washed it frequently. And good long hair is a key status and beauty symbol...

Actually, do we have any decent deco brushes for clutter out there?