As is tradition, here’s my WIP and thoughts about my latest commission, for my friend Jada Spa
As is tradition, here’s my WIP and thoughts about my latest commission, for my friend Jada Sparxxx.A few months ago, wards initially opened again and he upgraded to a Large, and he had asked if I wanted to design but I didn’t have the time for it. I didn’t realize it then, but apparently Jada had an empty Free Company house for months and months since he wanted to wait for me, and he finally did hire someone off of Reddit. The person he hired did it all in 2 days, a very sloppy job, and deleted all his personal messages from the guestbook and tried to take furniture before they left the server. He was so embarrassed that he locked his FC, and then a mutual friend of ours brought it up to me and I just HAD to make it right after he had such a bad experience. I had designed for Jada in the past, with the Hibachi Grill which was interesting in the aspect that Jada is a man who enjoys space. Since it was a Medium, it forced me to have to consider how to make everything flow together, and that’s when I discovered how to make the smooth walled staircase while retaining the original stairs.So that being said, he wanted at least two floors open, large open atrium, and as much space as possible. If you’re familiar with housing, you’ll know that if you’re a highly detailed person, you’re going to want to close up and use as little space as possible. So being met with this request made me wheeze a little, but I knew he was that type of person after having made his Medium as open as possible. So let’s begin with the process.His FC is based off of X-men so I wanted to model it off of the Xavier Academy as much as possible. I always knew I wanted a large fireplace, one tall enough to dominate and go to the 2nd floor balcony. I took this screenshot of the previous layout to try and get a definition of how tall I wanted this baby.It was way too big lol! I then decided to make a lowered ceiling, with staggered layers that led up to two adjoining rooms upstairs. At this point in time, the balcony was not being used, and I was just going to make hallways with tiny rooms. I’m typically good with item economy and that’s when I noticed that if I made a fake ceiling, to fill the massive atrium of a large, that’s going to be like 40=50 slots. The more I looked at it, I was less and less happy. It wasn’t the big centerpiece that I imagined. It’s just a fireplace with windows. It was going to force me to have to make other large centerpieces and visual interest, and also it was at this point I was thinking I wanted to flip the doorway around. I’m a big fan of just moving doors, and having people load in through walls and windows. I had this fireplace and across from it was a huge hallway, and I decided to combine the two and make a foyer behind the fireplace, with a dual hallway. So, for me, I DID like the windows but I wanted to add a twist. You still see the windows, but they’re further back, and a twin bay windows at the foyer seemed visually impressive to me, so I went with that. I also messed this bit up, but I always wanted to chop the staircase a little bit. What I MEANT TO DO was leave the FC chambers entirely, cut the other side of it, but I’m a dumb dumb and did this, which then forced me to have to add more slots to make a hallway. I initially had, maybe, 3 or 4 cheese collections floating up to fit that tiny gap. This was pre-patch, so once the slanted walls came out, it definitely saved me some slots and headaches. Here’s the final product:Speaking of the slanted skylight – I initially had the staircase very plain, just smooth walls, but it looked so boring and out of place. Bless their height, even if we can’t float it at the moment. I was trying to figure out how to fill that massive back wall at the time. Again, nothing really interesting to look at it, but the final result has more depth and texture to it.The biggest change was the color scheme. I was messing around with it for ages, everything was Ink Black and Bark Brown with the cheese collections. I tend to color as I go, and it really influences how I change a room, and it felt so dark and devoid of personality. Like it was lacking something. Here’s some shots as I was finishing up the build.For my own sanity, I just took the color out of everything and went white and stared at everything. It was a big WHAT DO BUT MAYBE UNLESS? as I dyed things one at a time, and tried to color block. That’s when I noticed that I liked the idea of a trim, it seemed sophisticated and more on brand. Maybe a light grey to go with the blues. Just brighten things up a bit. It really lifted my mood and helped me finish the last few bits. I have nothing against dark builds, and I am always an advocate for Light 0, but I don’t build that window heavy anymore and the height of the Mansion is so consuming. I need to rely on the depth of color and patterns of wood to make it look busier than it is, because item restrictions won’t allow me to add a lot of furniture.I’ve been designing for a long time, but it has mostly been at my pace and I won’t lie that it was difficult to provide so much space. This build took a lot longer than I am used to, and I was very mentally blocked and unhappy with a lot of things. I wanted to make him something he would be happy with, and now that it’s done, I can look at it with fresh eyes and realize, y’know, I didn’t do too bad. It’s a full size space, which isn’t done too often, and I did the best I could with the item restrictions. It might not be popular, or ground breaking, but what people think shouldn’t devalue how the owner feels, and I know he’s thrilled with the results. That’s all that matters in the end because this is a house for thee, not for me~ -- source link