January 16, 2008

I know that this has been a long and rather unexpected absence on my part, but Real Life has been intruding on my creative life in a major way this past year. I won't recount all the gory details, but suffice it to say that I would really like a turn for the better, all around! Anyway, this is to let everyone know that I am NOT shutting down the site, and I am NOT abandoning my creative efforts for the Sims. In fact, I have a number of things waiting to be posted, but thus far, I haven't managed to work up enough energy to both make the things and then do all the preparations for getting them posted. One of these days, there will be favorable alignment of the planets, so to speak, and I WILL get things up for download. Promise. In the meantime, all well wishes, happy thoughts, and other positive feedback that has been sent my way has been and will always continue to be very much appreciated. Bless you all.

Happy Simming to all, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

February 15, 2007

Well, I'm back (to quote the end of a certain well-known book). It's been a rather crummy winter, health-wise, having started with several weeks of bronchitis, and continued with nearly a month of severe tendonitis in my right arm and months of a pinched nerve in my still healing leg that makes sitting at the computer for long spells rather difficult (it's especially annoying in cold weather, and wouldn't you know, we've spent the last week and more in the very deep freeze, quite significantly below normal for this time of year). I have a few projects I've been working on for the Sims, and they're coming along slowly, but they are coming. Over the next few weeks, I hope to be able post them. One is a collection of skins for some of my already extant meshes, in medium and dark skin tones (so folks who want to use them for other characters, both Tolkienesque and non, can do so). I've also been working on expanding a small "vineyard cafe" set I made... oh, my, must be two years ago now, for a contest at the B-List's message board, Swarm. When it's finished, I intend to make the entire set available here, for all to download. I also have some new rugs and a few other things I've been fiddling with, when I have the time and the leg cooperates.

Happy Simming to all, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

September 28, 2006

I know, it's been a while since I've posted any news here, and anything new to the site. Don't worry that I've lost interest and am going to shut down; I'm not. For those who haven't heard elsewhere, I injured my ankle back in July, the day before my birthday, and it's taking its good-natured time getting better. I've been through physical therapy for it, and while walking about and sitting without the foot elevated is much better, it's still not a hundred percent. Things like that have had me a bit on the depressed side (not to mention a lot of visits to the new dentist to fix what the previous dentist did wrong, and other unexpected changes in my life), but now that I'm on the mend and have been on at least one brief vacation, things are getting a bit better. I hope to have some new things to post soon, before I get caught up in the work of doing my third annual album of Christmas music. Thanks to all who have sent good wishes and feedback, and to all who've been patiently hanging in there, waiting for me to get up and running again.

Happy Simming to all, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

April 1, 2006

No, no April Fool's joke here, just the happy news that I'm back. February and March turned out to be two of the most wretched months I've had to endure recently, first with my husband needing surgery to remove an inflamed gallbladder with impacted stones, and then with me going in for a battery of tests to figure out why I'd been having similar symptoms, even though I lost my gallbladder nearly 25 years ago. After a stressful week full of a baaaaaad drug reaction (prescription for an unrelated condition, I'm never touching THAT one again, it took a week for me to recover from the effects of one quarter-dose pill!), a botched test (did you know that even though it's in your records that you're allergic to iodine, they think they can give you steroids for a few days before injecting you with it and HOPE you won't react? Needless to say, I skipped that test), followed by a VERY uncomfortable test (an abdominal MRI, in which I had to hold both arms over my head in a very uncomfortable position for over half an hour -- and because of injuries sustained in an accident about ten years ago, I'm lucky if I can hold 'em over my head for more than a minute without causing serious pain), the tests are over, the results are in, and I can breathe easy again (if my seasonal allergies will let me). Nothing serious, just cysts. Had 'em before, I'll no doubt have 'em again. But when you don't know what's going on, and all you can do is wait for the test results (which took 5 days because there was a weekend in between), it's enough to make one a very crazy basket case.

Anyway, now that life is more or less back to normal (husband's doing quite well, I'm doing better, I just needed a different drug for acid reflux), creative juices are starting to flow again, and I can FINALLY start finishing and posting some of the things I'd planned for The Simarillion's Fourth Anniversary (which was actually March 8th, but better late than never!). I still haven't got the new objects finished because I haven't installed the necessary programs on my new Sims computer, but I do have a few new skins and meshes, some revisions, some new. I swore I would never do Turin Turambar (WAY too depressing a character), but the poor Edain were looking lonely, so I figured it was time to add another to their ranks. With luck and continued good health, there will be more new things coming soon.

Happy Simming to all, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

January 10, 2006

Happy New Year!

Well, after a long and hectic holiday, I'm pleased to annouce that I should soon be back up and running with new updates for the Simarillion. What I'm not so pleased to announce is that it took buying an entirely new computer to do it. The progressive state of decay of my old machine could be directly attributed to a damaged motherboard, but our hopes of replacing the motherboard with an exact duplicate turned out to be pipe dreams, alas. The manufacturer no longer made that model (never mind that it had been cutting-edge technology when I bought it little more than a year before), and the only people who supposedly had any available were what turned out to be unreliable sources on eBay. Two weeks of searching (which were met, at best, with a response of, "gosh, we can't seem to find those boards, would you be willing to wait another two or three weeks for us to dig them up?") ended with me finally deciding to just scrap the whole idea of repairing the old beast and start from scratch. I'm about 80% finished with the reinstall of both hardware and software; once I have all the programs installed and the RAM back up to at least 2 GB, I'll be able to return to work in earnest. Before things got impossibly bad (that being the point at which it took 15 to 20 attempts to get the machine to boot, and then stay up and running long enough to transfer data off of it), I had nearly finished a winter outfit for Vana, was working on an NPC replacement based on Tom Bombadil, and was preparing a little cafe set to have something new for my long-neglected objects area. With luck, I'll have some things ready before the end of January, so stay tuned for the latest news.

Thanks to all who sent both site feedback and good wishes for the holidays. Though I received many of them belatedly, all were very much appreciated.

Here's hoping 2006 will be a MUCH better year than 2005!

Happy Simming to all, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

December 7, 2005

Season's Greetings to all!

Once again, you may have noticed that I haven't been quite as prolific in the Sims world, lately. This can be laid almost wholly at the feet of one thing -- literally: my computer. First, it was the trojan. Then, it was the video card. Then, it was a dying CPU fan. Fixing all these problems fixed some of the crashing issues with my computer, but not all of them. For the most part, they seemed to come erratically, but after a time, I began to notice one thing that they had in common: they all occured at a time when the computer was doing things that were accessing the memory. Since I'd replaced all my RAM chips in August to go from 2 to 4 GB of RAM, my husband and I were suspicious of a bad chip, especially since these problems started occurring soon after that swap.

Oh, little did we know.

The bad chip was the cache memory chip on the motherboard. Which leaves me with three options: 1). temporarily disable the cache, which will cut back on the crashes, but will impair some of my more complex programs (like PSP when I'm in intense multi-layering mode of large images, and Sibelius, especially when I'm trying to play a large orchestral score); 2). replace the motherboard, which would mean having to reinstall ALL the programs I have on it, and restore all the data -- a daunting project when you're running a 250 GB hard drive; or 3). try to find an EXACT replacement for the motherboard, which could allow me to do a simple swap and not require the restore and replacement of all the programs and data on my hard drive. We're currently attempting to do #3, but it's throwing a crimp in a lot of my more complex creative outlets, like skinning and mesh-making. Needing to pause VERY frequently to do a save because you don't know when or if the computer will crash -- and it just loves to do it if you accidentally do something memory intense when the program is attempting an auto-save -- throws a definite crimp into the creative flow. I'm very leery of starting any major projects I may lose if the system goes down and I haven't made a backup, so I've been putting off the start of any new projects that aren't on an absolute deadline. This has meant putting off a lot of my Sims projects (which is a bummer, since I had just started makeovers for Glorfindel and Feanor and Sauron, a few of the folks I felt needed it the most). I do promise, I'm not closing down shop; I'm just having to be patient until this problem is sorted out. (It doesn't help that Real Life things, like getting all our exterior doors replaced in well below subfreezing temperatures must be done. And no, we weren't expecting it to be subfreezing. We ordered the doors in September, and were told they'd be ready to be installed by late October. Nobody remembered that it took an extra four weeks to do the enameled paint job on the front door. Sigh.)

In the meantime, I'd like to share with you one must-be-done-NOW project that was consuming what computer time I was able to get (and which engendered a lot of hair-pulling, since there were MANY crashes at the wrong moments): My second album of Christmas music, "With Joyful Song." It contains 17 pieces (one of which is an original, by me), some very familiar, others quite obscure. The files are available for download on my creative archives site, Shadowstar (in Ogg Vorbis format, playable on WinAmp, Quintessential Player, and any media player capable of handling the ogg format; I use it because it gives much higher fidelity than mp3 at the same compression rate). If I do the link properly, you'll find them here. If not, click on the button for Shadowstar Home on the left, then click on Music and the picture of the album cover at the top of the page. To find out a bit more about why I made these arrangements, orchestrations, and compositions, as well as a bit of my crazy family history, click on the words "Liner Notes" at the bottom of the introductory information.

That's about it for now. Until I get things sorted out with my computer (which will hopefully be soon), Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, and any other appropriate wishes I may have missed.

Happy Simming to all, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

October 23, 2005

You may have noticed that I haven't been quite as prolific in the Sims world, lately. There are good reasons for this:

1). Real Life. It stinks. Aside from annoying little problems like an eye infection, there have been major problems, like dealing with the aftermath of my father's death. Hopefully, given time, both conditions will clear up and there will be more time and energy -- and inspiration! -- for me to produce creatively.

2). A dying video card on my computer. Having lived with dying hard drives and other equipment failures, I hadn't thought that a video card Gone Bad could be such a headache while it was going, but it was. I could count on my machine crashing repeatedly, especially when I was using programs that did anything at all with graphics manipulation, which meant, of course, such programs as Paint Shop Pro, Milkshape 3D, even SimPose. The card was replaced yesterday, along with the headache-prone driver, and hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) it will resolve all the crashing issues.

3). A trojan. Despite the heavy security on my computer, one managed to sneak in by attacking my anti-virus program, and rooting it out was a nightmare. I know that it came in via a piece of email with an attachment, so I will repeat my warning concerning email once again: I WILL delete ALL email that comes with ANY attachments. I have a new anti-virus program and I have set it to reject all email with attachments. If someone has a need to send me email with an attachment, they must contact me first to make arrangements for where it should be sent. So if you have a sig file or an image you like to attach to your emails, I will not receive them. If you are using-based web email that comes as an html attachment, I will not receive them. It's not a question of malice; it's a question of security. I have had very few viral and spyware infections on my computer; all of them were major headaches, and caused serious problems and eventual loss of data (and even equipment) for me. With one exception, all of them came via supposedly innocent attachments from people who didn't even know they were passing around infected material; they didn't come in via spammers illegally using other folks' email addresses (and I know that happens all too often; I have had my own email addresses stolen by spammers and used to send junk mail to me. Imagine the joy of getting garbage sent to you that appears to be coming from -- you!). In our computer/Internet culture, no one can have the luxury of being irresponsible. Yes, being a responsible user of email and the net takes some of the "fun" out of it, but what is one person's fun can cause real trouble for another, and potentially cost them in terms of lost data, corrupted programs, and even damaged computers. That cost is real, both in time and in money, and to my thinking, it's just plain common courtesy to do your best to make sure you aren't accidentally the cause of such troubles, just like it's common sense to use all available means to protect your computer and your data from harm. It was just about a year ago when I spent weeks trying to clean up a very nasty spyware infection on my old computer, and I really don't want this to become an annual event.

That's all for now.

In the meantime, Happy Simming, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

PS: For those who expressed concern, both my husband's and my colonoscopies turned out fine. Yay! and whew!

August 29 , 2005

I'm finally back from vacation, and with what is hopefully the worst part of the year behind me (still crossing my fingers for my husband's supposedly routine colonoscopy on Friday, though), I'm trying to finish up the various projects and goals I set for myself earlier in the year. Today's addition to the Eldar of the First Age, Eol, is one, with more to follow if all continues to go well (and yes, I do plan to eventually tackle the Men of the First Age, and more characters from The Lord of the Rings -- but ala my imagination, not Peter Jackson's).

There have been a number of emails that have prompted me to post a few "blanket" responses here, to clarify certain policies and matters I've stated before, but which could bear repetition:

1). This site is for Sims 1 ONLY. I will never make anything for Sims 2, as I strongly dislike the game, and will not give permission for people to try to adapt my work to be used in that game. Sorry, but the original Sims is my game of preference, and as much as I respect other peoples' rights to choose differently, I expect them to respect my choice as well.

2). I don't do requests. Period.

3). If you want to use my meshes and objects as bases for your own work, that's okay. But if you're planning to post it as a download on a website, the website may NOT be a pay site, nor may a donation be requested for any item based on mine. Also, proper credit must be given (my name and the URL of this site), and there must be some significant change from the original (recoloring the belt of one outfit, for instance, would not constitute a significant change). I don't ask these things to be selfish or rude, but as a courtesy.

4). I have a longstanding passion for the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, which is why it so dominates this site. I know that other people have similar passions for other works, but I may not necessarily share them. This is part of why I don't do requests. Often, it's quite difficult to come up with new ideas for character designs for this world that I love; it would be virtually impossible to do so for genres that do not interest me. This is why I chose not to be a commercial artist. I love the art of illustration, but to try to be creative on command, following someone else's ideas or whims is simply beyond me. If I were ever inclined to branch out into another literary genre, it would probably be either the Dragonriders of Pern or the Chronicles of the Deryni, as I have been a fervant fan of both Anne McCaffrey and Katherine Kurtz since their works were first published.

5). I use the original Sims game (not Deluxe) and all the expansion packs up to and including Unleashed. To the best of my knowledge, everything will work if you have these expansions, and as I have received no complaints from anyone who uses Deluxe, I don't believe it poses a problem for my downloads.

6). While I appreciate the offers for financial support, I'd like to keep this site completely free. It's bad enough that a lot of good Sims 1 sites have closed down because of a seemingly mad rush to Sims 2, and I've always been opposed to the notion of making other players pay to support your hobby. At the moment, I'm in no danger of needing outside support to keep my site up and running, and I'd like to keep it that way.

7). Due to all the family crises that have occurred since this past May, there are a lot of emails that I know went unacknowledged. My pardon to those who had legitimate questions that went unanswered; know that no email goes unread, and by and large, all are appreciated.

That's all I can think of for now. If more comes to mind, I'll be sure to post it next time I update.

In the meantime, Happy Simming, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

July 9 , 2005

For those who might be interested, you can read the eulogy I wrote for my father here.

June 4, 2005

In Loving Memory of My Father, Richard Miller

Today, a short time ago, my dad quietly passed from this life to the next, succumbing to illnesses he apparently did not know he had, and which finally robbed him of his strength until he could go no farther. Dad was a man of uncommon resilience and joy, from whom I learned many things, and who I will miss deeply. He had led a good life, beating the odds of a faltering heart to live nearly 84 full years, and all who were lucky enough to have him as a part of their lives are well aware that we were blessed to have known him.

This has been the capper of a month of troubles and delays that have prevented me from posting any new updates. I know that I will need the creative outlet to help me though the coming period of grief, so there will be new things coming after I recover from the worst of the shock and have my feet back under me. I thank those who have waited patiently, and thank you in advance for your sympathy, which I know without a doubt will be extended.

'Til, then Namárië!

Mary Jean

May 17, 2005

A bit of a progress report: I had just about finished three new windows and two new appliances for Olórin's Kitchen when I ran into a wee bit of a snag: my game somehow got corrupted, and try as I might, I just wasn't able to fix the problem without -- you guessed it -- reinstalling. I was able to save most of the data, and I think I know what happened that caused the problem, but until I get everything reinstalled and can run the game again, I don't want to post any of the new objects, just in case one of them caused the corruption. As anyone who's had to do a full reinstall knows, this takes time, and I would rather be absolutely sure that I'm not sending corrupt objects out into the Sims world than rush another update.

In the meantime, I'm also working on spiffing up some of my older Sims, making clearer facial skins for some of the characters, and integrating some of my older multi-part body meshes into single unit meshes (which I'm sure will make it easier for folks, having fewer meshes and bitmaps cluttering their skins folders). So far, I've only finished Aulë, and I should have him posted soon.

In the meantime, Happy Simming, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

May 2, 2005

I'm back from a much-needed vacation, and will have several new things to post later this week. Trying to finish up the major characters from the First Age, I'll have Aredhel, the sister of Fingon and Turgon; I'm still working on Eol and Maeglin, her husband and son. Also, while I was trying to do some screen shots of Olórin's house in Lórien, I decided I needed to make some furnishings for him, and so will have most of a new kitchen set. I've been trying to work out a wardrobe chest, since I mentioned one in one of my pieces of fanfic, but that's proving to be a bit trickier, since it has a lid rather than doors or drawers. If any of this sounds interesting to you, keep an eye out for new postings soon.

Our vacation was quite nice, if a bit on the chilly side (that's what one gets for going north in the spring in Wisconsin), and once I've recovered from it, I'm hoping to have some renewed vigor for a lot of my stalled projects. Stay tuned for further developments!

That's all for now. Happy Simming, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

April 5, 2005

Well, here it is a month after the anniversary, and of course I don't have everything finished that I'd planned to do. But that doesn't mean I've given up on them, just that I'll have to let them get done when both the Muse and Real Life permit. Although today's posting is only my new version of my original Maia character Ványalos, I am currently nearing completion of Orodreth, several small objects (among them a version of the "Stray Away" pet prevention device that looks like a bush, not a silly red and white "no pets" sign), and a variety of other things I've been working on for what seems like years (nightclothes being the one that seems to have taken the longest). I can't say precisely when I'll get them done and posted; Real Life has been hectic, and soon, it's going to allow my husband and I to do something we haven't been able to do in ten years: take a real vacation. After this last year, we need it, and I'm sure looking forward to it.

From the mailbox: Thanks to all who have expressed their appreciation, as well as their support of my decision to work on original designs rather than reproductions from the films (I'm already working on a version of Gandalf the White that will be based on a costume that I designed and constructed some years ago. It's going to take a while to get it right, as the overtunic was fairly elaborate, with white-on-white braidwork and Tengwar embroidery. I know I'll never be able to reproduce it exactly, but I sure want to take a crack at it). Knowing that I have the support of others will be a great help, and I'm very grateful for it.

I've also received requests for screen shots of the properties I've built for my own game. That's something I may eventually get around to doing, although I have to admit that my building has languished, since I spend more time making things for the game these days than I actually do playing it! A number of the houses are really quite unimaginative (slap something together to test objects and meshes, don't worry about creativity...), but at least a few have been around so long in various versions of my game, they've gotten quite detailed (in particular Rivendell and Olórin's house in Lórien. When I have time to come up with some better screen shots, I'll see about putting together a page to show the images.

And I've come to realize I'm going to need to put together an FAQ for the site. One question in particular has come up several times in recent weeks, and though I do mention this, it apparently isn't sufficiently obvious to be noted. To wit: I do not take commissions, requests, or do custom work, not for free, not for pay. This site is done out of my love of both the original Sims and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien; it is in its own way a tribute to both. To turn it into a business would tarnish that intent, as well as the joy I take in the things I make for it.

That's all for now. Happy Simming, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

March 8, 2005

It's hard to believe, but in one incarnation or another, I've been posting items for the Sims for over three years, now. It actually began before March 8, 2002, with a dinky freesite my husband set up for me in his account on Tripod, but three years ago, I launched the first of my own professionally hosted websites, which included an area for Sims items. The Simarillion itself is now about a year old (not in its own domain, of course!), and I figured the occasion was worth celebrating both here and on my Shadowstar website. Because everything I have here is made by me, I've been finding myself with not enough hours in the day to get everything ready to be launched on one day only, so I decided to make this a celebration that will last at least a week -- or until I have everything I'd planned to do posted. This includes both skins and meshes and obejcts (and maybe even a house) for the Sims, as well as new fiction on my other site as well as some new and improved recordings of my Tolkien-inspired symphonies (alas, even though they're better than the old MIDI-based versions, they're not going to be the last, since I just got hold of the means to make my "orchestra" sound more real than ever -- but it's going to need a lot of work and practice to learn to use these things well).

Back to the Sims: The first part of my Anniversary gift for visitors will be up today, the Seven Sons of Feanor. The next part will be three ladies: Miriel (Feanor's mother), Indis (Fingolfin and Finarfin's mother), and Nerdanel (Feanor's wife and the mother of his sons). To complete the known persons in Feanor's life, I also plan to make a Sim for Mahtan, Nerdanel's father, who studied with Aule and taught Feanor, and Celebrimbor, Feanor's grandson, who helped make the Rings of Power. Later in the week, I should have a few new objects (things have been slow on that end because all my programs for object making were on a slowly dying computer, and I wanted to get them ported over to my new Sims computer. There were some problems, of course, but there's only one more program to move, and things should be up and running again). And lastly, I've been working on a version of "Thangorodrim," the house I built for Melkor and Sauron as a download (there seems to be an inordinate amount of interest in it). Unfortunately, I don't know if I can provide a proper "shopping list" for items, since many were things I downloaded from sites long ago that had no mention of who made them, or where they came from, and I know rather a lot of those sites no longer exist. I'll try to do the best I can, but it may take longer than I'd hoped. If nothing else, I will eventually be able to provide an unfurnished version of the structure with windows, doors, walls, floors, and landscaping. Having never constructed a house for upload before, I'm not even sure I can get it to work, but I plan to give it a try.

Lastly, a big thank you to all the folks who sent emails in support of my last Message/Announcement (which you can still find posted below). It's good to know that there's so much appreciation not only for the hard work but also for the creative energy that so many Sim artists put into their creations. Gives one hope for a more positive view of our society. And I wasn't being sarcastic when I suggested that those who want certain specific items they can't find try their hand at creating their own. I wouldn't have this site at all if I hadn't sat down one day and taken a shot at making skins for characters no one else wanted in their game. It's been frustrating at times, but mostly, it's been rewarding.

Happy Simming, and Namárië!

Mary Jean

March 1, 2005

A week to go, and I'm still hard at work getting ready for the anniversary on the 8th (which will encompass both my sites, not merely the Simarillion). While I was in the middle of working on some new skins and meshes, I ran into some unpleasantness that prompted me to make this statement, which I have made before.

First, I don't take requests. If you think that repeatedly "suggesting" things to me is a way of encouraging me to do what you'd like, think again. It is the surest way of encouraging me to NEVER do it. I am not a commercial artist who has been trained to jump through hoops at the order of an employer, or to make "products" in response to what's currently popular in the market. As I am giving away what I do for free, I respond to no one but my Muse, and she goes where she wants, not where it's suggested that she go by others. To tell an artist that you like their work, but then to add "except you should do what I want, not what you want" is not a compliment. It is a profound insult. It's treating the artist not as a creative person with their own tastes and feelings, but as a machine for cranking out products to your specifications. Moreover, Simming is not my only creative outlet. I have many other interests that I pursue with equal fervor, and I have no plans to give up those interests to devote all my creative energies to making items for the Sims.

Secondly, I have completely abandoned any plans to make additional Sims based on any of Peter Jackson's films. I had made this decision quite some time ago, when I realized that it was actively boring for me to make reproductions of someone else's designs rather than use my own training as an artist, illustrator, and costume designer to interpret the works of Tolkien, as I have been doing for 40 years. Reducing the potential inspiration that abounds in Tolkien's works to the vision of a single small group of people is, in my opinion, diminishing the whole, undermining the rich mythology that was the basis for the good Professor's work, and ultimately robbing those who have yet to read the books of the freedom to imagine Middle-earth and its people as they will, not as they have been shown through someone else's eyes. These are the work of my own vision and my own imagination, and having envisioned all of these characters many times during the decades since I first read the books, I feel cheated -- and hurt -- whenever someone tells me they don't care about my interpretation (or any other artist's), they want reproductions of Peter Jackson's. But it is more important to me to be true to myself than it is to appeal to persons who only bother to contact me because they want me to do something for them, not because they appreciate what they have been given for free. I will never do another Jackson-based Sim for Lord of the Rings, and may eventually remove those few that I have and replace them with my own designs. So if you're a movie fan and are looking for Sims to recreate Jackson's notion of Middle-earth and its denizens, look elsewhere for celebrity Sims to complete your neighborhood. I'm afraid you won't find them here. I'm sorry if that disappoints some people, but I assure you, they can't be half as disappointed in this as I was in Jackson's ultimate mistreatment of LotR, and the fact that it is becoming the "official" depiction of these characters and places simply because it's easier for many people to look at a movie than to use their own imaginations. There are plenty of other Sim sites out there with folks who enjoy recreating people from movies and TV; as near as I can tell, I'm the only one interested in designing living illustrations for Tolkien's books. If I'm not making what you like and you can't find it elsewhere, I recommend that you do what I did: learn to do it yourself. You may find the experience very rewarding.

Happy Simming, and Namárië!

Mary Jean