Monday 31 December 2012

Wizarding World: Diagon Alley Section One

Inspired by someone on Neighbourhood 99, I decided to have another crack at a Harry Potter themed neighbourhood. I have tried building one several times in the past, but never really got very far with it. Feeling more inspired for this now though, so we'll see how it goes. =)

This probably won't be 100% canon. Partly because there are parts of the epilogue and JKR's interview revelations that I really really dislike and also because I roleplay/write fanfic, and so a few of my own characters will make it in here too.

The shopping district for the neighbourhood is London, split into Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, on one side, and then some other assorted locations - Mungos, the Ministry, Grimmauld Place etc. I'm using the viper canon neighbourhood becuse it's long windy street is ideal for diagon.

And so, on with the lots!!

First up is section one of Diagon Alley. This is the left side of the street immediately after the Leaky Cauldron and contains Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment, Potage's Cauldron Shop, some public toilets built for my sims' convenience and the Apothecary.

Wiseacre's is the first shop with the blue windows. Potage's is directly next door. The toilets are in the middle, underneath the green building. The last two buildings are both the Apothecary. Along the street there are some stalls containing various groceries.

There is a lot of custom content and to be honest, I'm not 100% happy with how this turned out. Making things look crooked and cluttered in the sims is hard! I'll maybe revisit this at a later date.

Wiseacre's sells various wizarding equipment - sets of scales, vials, alchemy glassware, crystal balls and even pensieves.


Next door is Potage's cauldron shop which sells cauldrons. I wish I could find some stacked cauldrons for this, the shelves look very bare.

The toilets are in the centre... just so the simmies don't wet themselves. haha.

Finally in this section, we have the apothecary, the place where the witches and wizards buy their potion ingredients.



 floorplan which has the stupid blue bar in it because my camera mode wasn't working in birds-eye-view. =(
Anyway, you can see the layout which is pretty basic and boxy - something I'll have to work on in later sections!

At the moment this is just a basic community lot, but I plan to make a couple of households of NPCs so I can assign shopkeepers to each of the cash registers here and set all the things on the shelves to buyable.




Tuesday 11 December 2012

VV: Bottom's 'White House'

I'm getting really uncreative with lot names.

Bottom Summerdream is living in what I call Eastside Veronaville - the Monty side (not sure if it's actually eastside, because I can't find a consensus online as to which is which!)

I was inspired by this picture.

I could do with finding a more fitting railing.

View from the back - there isn't a garden, just a pool and a small patio.

The roof terrace catches the sun and Bottom likes to paint there.

The ground floor has a living area, kitchen and the bathroom.

Upstairs there is the bedroom and the roof terrace. It's a small place, but it's just Bottom and her chihuahua, so it's big enough =)

Veronaville - Summerdream Treehouse

I just couldn't get the Summerdream Mansion to work how I wanted it, even after extensive remodelling. Also the family went up to 6 and then back down to 4, so I thought it was time for them to downsize into something more appropriate for a family of fairies.

I decided to build them a treehouse, and unfortunately the amount of branches and foliage mean that it's difficult to see the layout in some of these pictures, but you'll get the general idea =)

The treehouse hovers over a couple of ponds and is spread out into three interconnected sections linked by walkways and ladders.

Up the spiral staircase is the main floor. This houses the main living area and kitchen.

Up a floor is the girls' (tiny!) room. On the left side there is the bathroom and on the right, a platform with a hot tub.

The top floor has Oberon and Titania's room. The whole place is rather basic, but this is mainly because the family spend much of their time outside rather than indoors.

A better view of the hot tub.

This is the view from the back.

Veronaville - Summerdream Family

I am back playing Veronaville, and slowly going around the old families, making them over and sorting out the neighbourhood.

I've been making over the Summerdreams to look more fairy-esque:

Here's Titania and Oberon - looking youthful thanks to lots of elixir (hey - fairy magic!). They married and had two children, who are pictured here - Moth (on the left) and Peaseblossom (on the right).

Moth is a popularity sim, and Peaseblossom is a family sim.

They live in a treehouse that I built (I tried remodelling the Summerdream Mansion over and over and eventually gave up and bulldozed it).

 Puck dated Beatrice Monty as a teen and they married young (neither went to College).  They had two girls - Maria (in the black) who is a Romance sim, and Rosaline (in the purple).

They live in one of cyclonesue's industrial buildings in the industrial section I created in the Monty side of town.

And here's Bottom. She's a pleasure sim working towards being a games designer. She lives with her chihuahua Pixie in the Monty side of town.