Greetings and happy timezones, my friends! How is your weekend so far? I’m a bit lonely today as The Mister had to work. But we’re hoping to catch a movie sometime soon.
Image ©2024 | KL Hawke & booomcha.com | All Rights Reserved.
When I first started playing The Sims, I needed a name and a profile picture. I thought I could change the name later, so I typed in, “Rosemary,” and because the name had already been taken, it ended up being, “RosemaryMarie.” The reason I chose Rosemary was because I had just read Rosemary’s Baby. lol
Imagine my surprise when I found out that I’m stuck with that name as long as I have that account. I definitely would have used “booomcha” instead, but I wasn’t thinking, I guess.
When I began writing my blog, it was on Weebly, and I wrote a story about my Sims family, The Baldwins. Since all the Simmers I knew called me RosemaryMarie, I wrote under the pen name, “Rosemary Castevet.” Yes, that was inspired by the book/movie Rosemary’s Baby. I thought I might as well go all in. lol
I had maybe three people that read my story. After a time, I got a new laptop for Christmas and I moved on with The Sims, using new save files, and the Baldwin family was forgotten.
Recently, The Mister was using the older computer and he backed up all my Sims saves on a USB, and voilà! There were my Baldwins!
Here are the main characters, John and Olivia Baldwin. They are a brother and sister who live in the same mansion in Riverview.
I laughed so hard when I saw how they looked. I made them both, but didn’t really know what I was doing, or what proportions their faces should have. Here they are, and please, feel free to laugh along with me!
Here is John Baldwin. In my game, he has worked his way up in his career path to astronaut. He is highly regarded because of this and also because of the old money his family has.
He was super unlucky in love, but it never stopped him from trying.
One of his storylines was how he showered girlfriends in expensive gifts from jewelry to cars! Yet, the relationships never worked out.
Then he met Constance, and he began to understand what really holds a relationship together.
John was highly skilled in logic, athletics, collecting, fishing, painting, handiness, martial arts, science, and mixology. Yes, he could make a real zinger of a drink!
The reason he was so advanced was because I’d been playing this family for a long time.
Look at him! hahaha I thought he looked so good when I created him. But his eyes…. they’re so big! Like saucers. haha His eyebrows are killing me a little bit, too.
Don’t get me started on his hair. LOL
Sorry, I’m losing it a little bit. 🤣😂
I fiddled quite a bit with him in CAS (Create a Sim). I made the scale of his eyes smaller (I think I should make them even smaller yet), lessened the eye width so he didn’t have such a wide-eyed look about him. I also changed the distance of his eyes from one another. I still need to fiddle with his eyes some more. They’re just not where I want them to be.
I left his nose alone but thinned his lower lip and adjusted the width of his mouth. I also gave him a bit more of a masculine jaw but looking at his “after” picture now, I think I need to emphasize that even more. It’s not quite there yet.
In case you are a simmer, and are wondering, the eyes are a default from Tifa, and I changed them to eyes by BurntWaffles (not pictured). If you need the links, go ahead and send me a WCIF (Where Can I Find?) request using my contact form, or ask in the comments below. I’m happy to help you out!
Oh! I changed his hair, but I don’t like this one either, so I’m on the hunt for a good one. (Thank you, Bee, for the hair files by Ifca and Wings!)
So anyway, there he is!
Where to begin with John’s sister, Olivia? Why did I ever think she looked good? LOLOLOL 🤣😂
The eyes! The heavy makeup! The mouth! The eyebrows! LOL
Sorry, I had to work that out of my system.
Olivia Baldwin had worked her way up the political ropes until she became the Leader of the Free World! What a hotshot she was with all her little “yes-people” around her. Her story was a bit strange because in my game she married a ghost named, Jasper Remington! LOL They had a little ghost baby. It was nuts, but fun!
One of my main storylines was Olivia searching for a cure for her little daughter so she would change from a ghost to human form. She had to hone a lot of skills to make the infamous cure.
Olivia topped out the skill levels of: logic, alchemy (did I mention she was secretly a witch?), charisma, cooking, gardening, social networking, riding, and writing. (She had several best selling novels, like her smut novel entitled, She Knew it was Wrong. lol
One of the ways Olivia made money was with the royalties she received each week from her book sales. Business was booming!
So, anyway, this lady needed a makeover.
Of everything.
She isn’t finished, but she’s looking much better, in my opinion.
I did the same thing with her eyes that I did with John’s; made the size smaller and lessened the width. She got new eyebrows, I lowered her mouth, and thinned out the lower lip.
According to Bee, I have more work to do on the eyes. LOL 🤣😂 One thing I’ve learned is Bee is always right.
Always.
I redid all of Olivia’s makeup so it didn’t look so clownish. (I’m still wondering why I thought that looked good? LMAO)
I think she looks more natural now than she did before.
I’m not sure I will keep that hairdo, something in me thinks she needs something a bit more sophisticated, but we’ll see what happens. I’m never sure until the sim tries on every single hair I have, and that can take a while. LOL
Back to what I was getting at before… with only three readers, I was pretty disappointed with Weebly. I liked the drag and drop features of creating pages and posts because it was so easy, but I simply didn’t get any traffic.
Image ©2024 | KL Hawke & booomcha.com | All Rights Reserved.
Next, I moved to Blogger. That didn’t last very long either. I gave it a good try and had more readers there, but I didn’t like how my site looked. I’m a perfectionist, and I couldn’t tweak it enough to suit me.
So, then I moved to WordPress(.com). I put up my first post, and the next day, I had visitors, commenters, and subscribers! I couldn’t believe the difference. All I could figure out was that my good fortune was helped along with the Reader.
That was in 2016, and I’d been blogging since 2014. In 2018, I moved my site to self-hosted, and I use WordPress(.org). I love the freedom I have to use any theme I want, to code it and tweak it until I’m satisfied, and I still have the Reader.
If you’re still with me, thank you. 🙂
There are some options now with my stories… I can continue with Old Stone solely, or I can do Old Stone and throw in a post once in a while about the Baldwins. Kind of like I sometimes throw a post out there of what is happening with It’s the 20s! or the Willoughbys.
Your opinions are welcome!
Thank you so much for putting up with this long post. I’m just so excited to have the old save files back so I can revisit The Baldwins. They are so much fun!
Thank you so much for reading, liking, lurking, and commenting! You are important!
Credits:
↬ The Sims games © EA, created by Maxis. ↫
Featured Image ©2024 | KL Hawke & booomcha.com | All Rights Reserved.
↬ Copyright © 2024 | KL Hawke & booomcha.com | All Rights Reserved. ↫
Hi,
A really great post! I played The Sims 3 a lot, and now I’ve returned to the second part. 🙂
I love ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, but I prefer the film version by Polanski. 🙂
You know, I kinda like the first version of Olivia more, provided you wash her face – I’m a fan of big-eyed Sims with thick lower lips. 😛
Warm regards,
MN
Subscribed
Hi there!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the post.. The Sims 3 is such fun!
I love the film by Polanski, too! I can’t imagine anyone else playing Rosemary but Mia Farrow. And Ruth Gordon is amazing, too!
LOL That is good to know about Olivia and your preferences. 😀 I’m so glad you told me.
Sending hugs,
Kymber
I’ve subscribed, too! xoxo
It’s been years since I read Rosemary’s Baby, and now you’re making me wish I had time for a re-read. I never did anything with Sims, but it seems like my boys played around with it many years ago. Glad you discovered WordPress, Kymber!
Excellent article and thanks for sharing.
How fun to see your earlier creativity, Kymber. I think they look fine, but I do like the changes you made too. When I read “Rosemary’s Baby” I felt a shiver! I can’t watch those movies anymore. 🙂 Glad you found WordPress! 💞🥰
Wonderful work!
I’m impressed, Kymber, even by the characters before you tweaked them! Though I like the updates. I don’t know how you do it, but what fun. And I’m glad you didn’t lose your Baldwins (so glad they were downloaded and saved). Glad you’re on WordPress too. It’s not perfect, but I really like it. Hugs.
I’M so glad you were able to tweak you ssims characters and towns like you want. I love your stories so much!!!!
It is always a good thing to look back at where you started and compare with where you are now. I also started in 2014 and was only using the blog to report to the folks back home how we were doing on our retirement travels. My posts were short and cryptic with hardly any pix and even those were only in thumbnail size. Like your first posts, I had hardly any readers, likers or commentors. I have reworked all those posts and will be doing an 10 year blogaversary series soon. By the way, your reworks of your characters have given them the look of a deeper charachter. Well done. Happy Sunday Kymber. Allan
Hi Kymber, I don’t think your first attempts are that bad although the improvements are great. Do you recommend Rosemary’s Baby?
“One thing I’ve learned is Bee is always right.”
Well it’s about time…I mean I’ve only been telling your that for what? Eight years or so?! LOL And yes more work on the eyes my darling. Psst rotate please, just a hair! I will send you more hairs for men if you like too. But truly they weren’t that terrible looking in the beginning. All our sims looked like that then and since then a ton of great CC has come out for sims and the most needed sliders. Have fun with making them fresh and new.
Time has really passed by hasn’t it. I can’t believe the Baldwin story was so long ago!
That was interesting. I have to admit I’ve never used Sims. Great characters.
I never got into The Sims, but this looks like great fun, and it sounds like you had a fun time revisiting these characters.
I’ve never done any sims stuff, but it sure was fun reading about how you started out, and seeing changes made on the characters. 🙂
This was a fun post to wander through and having never come across Sims, it was a great eye-opener, Kymber!
very much enjoyed, Kymber…your characters look really great…. haven’t played this 🥴 but through your many shares….sounds such fun 💫
I enjoyed seeing your journey through this. Fun and interesting, Kymber.
How fun to see your first families! I often think back on some of my earliest Sims–so many good memories, right?
🌞 Hey Simmer, your characters look great to me… I am so happy you got your old characters back, it’s like finding long lost friends!
Bring in your new characters to your stories, it will be nice to see how they grow.
I know, playing the Sims is very time consuming…but so much fun!
Thank you, btw, for sharing your blogging story. 🙂
That was fun, wandering through your changes with you. Both of them look more powerful now, more in line with the characters you described.
I’m mad at WP at the moment. Your page is one of the ones it would not let me comment on earlier. 😡
I’m having commenting and liking issues, as well, Kevin.
Welcome to the club, I am sorry to have to say, Mary. It’s definitely frustrating.
I am as well but for a completely different reason. I was up late, moving pictures and links around on one long post. Twice I nearly finished and WP sent me a white screen with error box and I had to start over. I learned to make a change, save. Make another, save. Thank you WP for wasting my night and getting me to bed way past my bedtime!
I’ve had similar, but not quite to that extent. Today I was creating a post to schedule, and it would not let me undo things on two separate occasions. 🙄
GRRRRRR! Often when a company tries to upgrade to make things better, they break more than was broken before and easier becomes more difficult!
Sadly, you are quite right. This is true of a lot of things, but tech being one of the absolute worst. Like the fun of having to revert to factory settings after some crappy update on your phone. That’s always fun. 🙄
I also play Sims, but only once or twice a year, depending on when I feel like it. What I enjoy is building the house and designing the interior and exterior. What I don’t like is the workload for less salary and expensive expenses.
Hello, Kymber. I loved reading about the Baldwins. I would want to read more about Olivia and John. It’s quite funny that she married a ghost.
Oh and Rosemary’s Baby is one of my absolute favorite books. I have read it more than a thousand times, and the narrative and originality of the horror writing always blows me away. ❤️
Good morning, Kymber. I enjoyed reading your post. Thank you for sharing and have a wonderful day/night.