Arwen Undómiel
as portrayed by Liv Tyler

As I had not expected Legolas to be the next Tolkien Sim I finished, I had even less expected Arwen to follow.  The reasons for this were rather amusing:  My sister, who also plays the Sims, had been smitten with Viggo Mortenson's Aragorn when she first saw Fellowship of the Ring, and she had asked if I could come up with Aragorn and Arwen Sims for the two lovers.  Both faces eluded me (largely because I was unable to find suitable photographs to use as the base for the faces).  As time passed, my sister's fondness for Viggo/Aragorn waned (largely due to disappointment in his performance in the romantic end of the films).  When I completed my Legolas Sim, she asked if I could make an Arwen Sim for him.  I told her that that's not the way the story goes (she hasn't finished reading the book yet), but she said she didn't care, she figured Arwen should end up with someone who "wasn't such a lousy lover," and figured that another Elf would be good.  I hadn't intended to encourage this (she went hunting for other Arwen Sims on the net and hadn't been very happy with the faces she'd found), and I didn't think it would go anywhere since I still couldn't find an appropriate image for the face. Ha.

While sifting through my collection of LotR "bubble-gum cards," I happened upon a picture from the first film that wasn't perfect but appeared much more useable than any of the others I'd encountered.  I took a shot, and voila!  It worked.  I'd already concocted appropriate meshes for the head and body (the body is a variation of the Yavanna I'm still working on), and once the head skin was done, I picked the "dying dress" for the body skin, since it was among the simplest of the various Arwen outfits in the film. I eschewed the excessively long sleeves, however, since there's just no way you can make them drape properly all the time, and they just get in the way when they don't.  Because her hair is so long, the head mesh is assigned to several parts of the body; unfortunately, while it looks just fine on the active Sim and in the thumbnail, whenever you click on something to have her select an action from an action menu, the hair will appear somewhat distorted, lifted up on either side of the head.  Since this does not obscure the face and otherwise doesn't look hideously awful, I decided to leave it.  If I should eventually figure out how to correct this, I will repost the head.  And later, I may also make other body skins, since she had such a huge wardrobe in the films.

Coronation Gown
with crown
dress only

It was the headpiece that intrigued me about this outfit, not the dress itself (frankly, as a costume designer, I got a little bored with Arwen's dresses in the last movie.  Apparently, Rivendell lost all the dress patterns but the waistless one with the wide scoop neck and the long  flowing sleeves.  And I'm not so keen on this particular shade of green as a supposed "wedding dress."  Oh, well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess).  Anyway, I took my best shot at assembling the circlet, which is rather a pain when you're working with things as small as the Sims.  It actually looks much better at a distance than very close up, as you can see in the pictures, which is just fine, given that we only get so close with the current crop of Sims (heaven only knows with Sims 2; I have a feeling that game is going to creep me out).   The crown is connected with the body mesh, not the head mesh, so although the body is identical to the original Arwen above, it has a separate designation for this outfit so that the crown will appear only when she's wearing this dress.  The "dress only" gown is made to work with the original body mesh, so she can wear it with or without the crown.