Titan Architect

CokiCreative Titan Architect

When looking through the gallery or browning across social media we always find so many amazing Sims builders which makes us so proud of our

wonderful community and their never-

ending talents. On this occasion, we come across one of those extra special simmers

who go the extra mile, whilst making their Builds they do not use cc, enabling the community to download them from the

gallery, as well as playtesting each build to make sure you get 100% simming pleasure in your game. It simmers like this that we have to count as a true

community-supportive Titan Architect.

One such simmer is the gorgeous and talented CokiCreative, who you can find

on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Twitch sharing their builds, videos, yoga and pictures of the truly adorable Coki. Confused? Well don’t be all will be

revealed below as we introduce you to

Alana.

Hey Alana, thank you so much for chatting

with me today, we are really looking forward to getting to know you as the person behind CokiCreative and of course

more about your The Sims journey. So we

can clear up any confusion from my intro,

tell us all about you. Where are you from, how old will you be when you next ‘Age Up’, do you have any hobbies outside of

The Sims, what is your favourite music

genre/and or artist you listen to, and if you

could build your own home anywhere in

the human world what type of home would

it be, where and why?

Hey everyone, as you already know, my name is Alana. I grew up in Michigan, but I’m currently living in the Chicago suburbs. I’ll be turning 30 in November, which I’m pretty excited about actually. Some of my favorite hobbies outside of The Sims are skimboarding, aerial silks, beat saber, photography, and writing. My favorite music genre depends on my mood, but I usually like something with an upbeat tempo that’s fun to sing and dance along to. I also enjoy musicals every now and then. I’ve thought a lot about what my dream home would look like! In my mind, it takes many different shapes and forms since I love so many different styles. But if I were to pick one, I’d say my dream home would be a modern beachfront villa. Not too big, just enough space for our needs and it would be completely self-sustainable. I picture it having large windows that face the water, clean lines, and plenty of comfy furniture you can just sink into. There would be a spot outside for our watersports and for Coki to run and play. If I could choose anywhere in the world to put this on, it would be St. John, USVI. In my

“I wish I could bring my computer everywhere I went, but there isn’t always space. I do always bring my laptop though, just in case”

opinion, it’s one of the most beautiful islands I’ve ever been to. 75% of the land is national park and there are miles upon miles of unique hiking trails. If you never heard of St. John, definitely look it up!

You spend a lot of time building in The Sims and you even took your PC with you

whilst travelling in your RV in May, now that is dedication! Your husband also

works in the Rope adventure park

business, so you get to travel a lot. Do you always take your PC with you on these

travels, and what has been the place you

have been to that inspired you the most in

your Sims builds? Have you ever built an

adventure park build and if not, is there

one on the horizon?

I wish I could bring my computer everywhere I went, but there isn’t always space. I do always bring my laptop though, just in case. I’d like to get a gaming laptop at some point so it’ll be easy to game on the go. Believe it or not, North and South Carolina beach towns have been one of the most inspiring places I’ve been. We go on a trip with my in-laws every year to this beach cottage in North Carolina, and one activity we like to do is just walk up and down the beach and look at the houses. I’ll take pictures of the ones I really or that I feel like I could recreate a part of in The Sims. To paint a picture for you, these homes are usually bright pastels, with lots of decks and viewing windows, and are raised on stilts. I’ve thought about doing an adventure park build so many times in the past! The only reason why I haven’t yet is because I haven’t found a way to make it at least sort of “playable”. I’m thinking about messing around with T.O.O.L to see if I can do anything cool with the swings. Either way, you should expect an adventure park from me at some point in the future.

You previously lived in the USVI

(United States Virgin Islands) which if anyone doesn't know is

a group of Caribbean islands, and you moved back to the

states just before the pandemic

broke out. For someone who is

obviously quite active did you

find the pandemic helped you

in your build creations or do

you think not being able to

travel was more stifling?

The pandemic definitely gave me more time to work on my Sims creations and building. It’s hard to stay active with social media and building while travelling. I took a lot of time looking back at photos I took during my travels and got inspiration from them as well. For me, it was a welcomed change of pace.

Let's talk about CokiCreative. Coki is your

pet dog, or as I like to call them our

FurBabies, tell us about how Coki came

into your life and why you decided to

name your channel after your Fur Baby?

Coki is my pride and joy! Byron and I got her back in 2014 when we were living on St.

“ I took a lot of time looking back at photos I took during my travels and got inspiration from them as well.”

Thomas, USVI. It wasn’t uncommon to see stray cats or dogs on the island and at that time, I’d been looking at the shelter’s website for a rescue dog. Byron was the beach manager at this resort and the owner’s mother was involved in animal rescue work. She’d found Coki at the local landfill and it took her days to trap her. The vet guessed she was anywhere from 6 months to a year, that she had puppies at some point in her life, and was heartworm positive. Byron showed me a picture, told me about her, and asked if I wanted to go see her. She looked so scared, and frankly, not very cute, but I already loved her! The woman who found her paid all of the vet bills for us. They also provided us with a ton of food and dog supplies. We decided to name her Coconut (that’s her full name), and Coki for short. Coki is a beach on the island, so it all seemed very fitting. It took her a while to warm up to us or any humans at all. Now, she’s my best friend. She has changed my life in so many ways and helps keep me motivated on my bad days. So when naming my account, I couldn’t think of anything better than naming it after my biggest little motivator!

Coki

Another little detail we noticed about you,

was that you have a teeny tiny tattoo on

your righthand forefinger which is two arrows, is there a story behind this and do

you have any more tattoos? And talking about stories, you are also writing your own novel! Can you tell us about this or is

it still top secret?

I’m glad you noticed my hand tattoos! A little side hobby of mine is doing handpoke tattoos. My hands are now covered in tats, but I try to only give myself tattoos on special occasions. I don’t want to go overboard. I usually just do them on myself, but on the rare occasion, I have done a few on Byron and a few friends. It’s not something I encourage people to do unless they do their research first and get the proper equipment. I have about 20 tattoos though if you count each hand as just one. Sometimes, Byron and I will get a tattoo together while we are on vacation. Kind of like a souvenir! We got matching tattoos on our collarbones when we eloped in Ireland. I’m happy to say I’m in the home stretch of my novel right now. Here’s a teeny tiny synopsis. It’s about a woman who starts to dream and see into another dimension. My goal is to get it done by my 30th birthday, so wish me luck! I will say this though, I will be doing a little Sims series about my book once it’s published. I’m really looking forward to that project.

Before we get into The Sims, I would love to know how you got into Yoga. You stream yourself sometimes via Twitch

doing Yoga and post these videos on your YouTube channel. How has the

reaction to this been? We also know you have a condition called Crohn's, which

can have an extremely toll taking effect

on your body as well as your mental

health, can you tell our readers a little

about this illness to help raise awareness,

but also how do you keep your mental

health in check when you have a flareup? I do believe you are now in remission

from this, how are things now? Does Yoga help with this too?

My first experience with yoga was at my mom’s dance studio. Growing up, I spent a lot of my time taking classes there. We’d do a lot of Yoga-like stretching during warm ups and I always took note at the poses I liked the most. Let’s just say, I was not blessed with natural flexibility, so I’d take those poses and stretch at home regularly. Skip ahead a few years to my mid-20s with undiagnosed Crohn's and chronic joint pain. I was going to a physical therapist to see if that could help with my joint pain and they were making me do a lot of yoga stretches and movements. On my way home from PT, I drove past this yoga studio and stopped by and signed up. I worked from home at the time running my social media marketing business, so my schedule was very flexible. I started going to yoga 5-6 days a week. It was really helping my joint pain and I was enjoying it. I’ve had some very mixed reactions to my yoga videos, to be honest! I feel like anytime you do something that isn’t your usual content, some people are going to be turned off by it. I get that, but others have reached out to me privately and thanked me. So in a way, I feel like the trade-off is worth it. The impact that I’ve made on those few people outweighs the slight disappointment I gave those others. It’s been a while since I’ve uploaded any yoga videos and it’s been something I’ve been considering doing again. Spreading awareness is great! Crohn’s is an incurable autoimmune disease that affects

the lining of the digestive tract. It can cause a whole slew of issues you wouldn’t assume were connected. Thing’s like canker sores, chronic fatigue, joint pain, nausea, sudden weight loss, eye infections, just to name a few. Everyone’s experience is different, so no two Crohn's cases are alike. I’m still in remission, and things are going great. I take a weekly injection and now I’m just working on what foods I can and can’t eat. Even though I’m in remission, I do yoga every morning, even if it’s only for 5 minutes. I still struggle with fatigue and joint pain, even though it’s not as bad as it was. I find that moving is the best thing I can do. Even if it’s just going for a nice walk with Coconut. Mental health is so important, especially when your body needs to heal. If you have the means, I highly suggest therapy. I’ve been going to the same woman for 3 years online and it’s been really beneficial to have that resource. I also find that playing video games (and for fun, not just for content) can be really relaxing. I like to fall asleep playing Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley on my switch. I also find doing activities like yoga, taking Coki on a walk, or just sitting outside in the sun is a good way to disconnect from a negative mental space and potentially

enter a more level-headed level. P.S. One reason why I put off going to the doctor for so long was because I was embarrassed. I was nervous to reach out for professional help. Please don’t be embarrassed. It’s their job and you deserve to be healthy!

Now for The Sims! You have been a

simmer since the game's first release back

in the year 2000. Can you remember how

you first discovered The Sims and what

was your favourite thing to do in this first generation of the game?

I remember the first time I played The Sims very well! My dad came home with a copy of it for me since he wanted me to get into video games. He said it was like playing with dolls, but on the computer (I should mention he’s a self-proclaimed computer geek-IT guy). We played the Newbie Family. That’s a really fond memory of mine. My favorite thing was to try to do everything there possibly was to do! I wanted to max all the skills, to win the blue ribbon at the dog show, know all the spells, live in the spooky town, be a superstar… not too far from how I still like to play today.

The Sims has come so far since that first

release, with Sims 2 and Sims 3 along with the many expansions and packs to

enhance our gaming pleasure. Is there

anything you miss from those first generations of the game in Sims 4 and do

you still play them?

The Sims really has come a long way! I have to say that there are two things that I do miss in particular though. First, the color wheel and customization in Sims 3. I’d customize everything and it was so much easier to get items to match. It made the catalog feel so much larger without having a ton of items. And secondly, fairies. I’m a big fan of playing with a healthy mix of occults and humans. I always enjoyed their aesthetic and feel like they could be such a fun addition. I still play the older sims from time to time. Mostly sims 3. I feel like there are still things in all the games that I still haven’t done/ achieved and I’d like to see that through someday.

Let's talk Sims 4. You create gorgeous builds using no CC and after play testing,

you upload them to the gallery for other sims players to download and enjoy. How

long does a build take you to create? Which build took you the longest to create? And do you ever create builds

using CC? Do you use CC at all and if so which creators CC have you used?

On average, it takes me about 6-8 hours to make a 2 story build. There’s one build that took me 33 hours though! You want to know the wildest part? It was a collab with MySimsDreamHouse and she built the exterior, so all I had to do was furnish it. The build was an entire university on a 64x64 lot, complete with dorms, basketball court, swimming pool, gym, theatre, classrooms, library, lab, cafeteria, and student lounge. When I finished with it, I felt like I needed to take a vacation, but it was worth it. I do build with CC, but not that often! I occasionally will share them to my social media, but those are usually for my personal

“The Sims really has come a long way! I have to say that there are two things that I do miss in particular though”

game. I have a lot of CC from Peacemaker, Sixam, Myshunosun, Felixandre x Harrie, and Ravasheen. Those are just to name a few! But I also am always on the lookout for smaller cc creators also. There are so many incredibly talented people who might not have as big of a following out there. I definitely want their stuff, and maybe even help promote it if I can. I’ve played around with cc recolors and have wanted to make meshes in the past, but wow. It really makes you respect the time and skill these creators have to do what they do. T.O.O.L mod is an amazing mod created by Twisted Mexi who we were lucky to interview for our last issue. You do use this mod yourself and have created some really cool objects in your builds, one being a wine rack. What other things have you created using T.O.O.L? How easy do you find using T.O.O.L and would you recommend this mod to other Sims builders? I’ve used T.O.O.L to create so many things. I love making functional desks, benches, bookshelves, pretty much anything you can think of, with T.O.O.L. I can get bored of using the same items over and over again, so it encourages me to think more 3 dimensional in terms of how I look at the items in the game. If you’re someone who uses Sims in your screenshots like I do, T.O.O.L is a lifesaver! It works on sims, and it makes working with poses so much easier. You can move, rotate, raise or lower your sim to get in that perfect spot (or out of the picture entirely). It’s taken me some playing around to get used to, but trust me, it's worth it. I can’t build without it anymore!

We can also find you joining in on collaborations across social media and

getting involved with the community a lot, I believe this is one of the reasons simmers

just love to follow you, and has helped you

amass a following of over 3k on Twitter and 18.5k on Instagram, that's not including your growing YouTube channel or Twitch, these are huge achievements. How long has it taken you to build this following? Do

you find these social media platforms very

different in the interaction with your

community following, and what advice would you give to simmers who are also

trying to build their following but find it quite difficult?

I started my account on September 30, 2019, and had no expectations for it. I had been working as a social media manager since 2014 and learned a lot from that experience. I was also doing all the photography and digital/ print marketing for these businesses, and I was ready to do something for myself. At that point, I was following some sims accounts on my personal IG, so that’s where I got the idea to start my own. Soon after, I realized there was a bigger sims community on social media than I had imagined! From the very beginning, I just decided to be myself, use social media strategies that I’ve been doing for years and see what happens. The simplest, most effective thing you can do is post regularly and comment on others' posts. A little comment goes a long way! Spend a little time every day just showing people some support, and chances are, they give you some right back. And if you’re feeling

bold, you can reach out to someone about doing a collab with them! But whatever you do, don’t try to self-promote on other people’s accounts or in someone’s DM’s. Even though it comes from a good place, it comes off as rude. Also, each platform is very different, so treat them differently. What caption/photos might be engaging on IG might be a total miss on Twitter. Play around, have fun, and don’t try to just do what everyone else is doing.

You got your first Maxis Fave in April for your Lemon Lovers Garden,

congratulations from the team as this is another huge achievement. You were also

in the Top Ten entries for the mood board

competitions with The Sims and Logitech

collaboration, how did it feel when you

got recognition after playing for so long?

I almost cried, that’s how good it felt. I think I would make my younger self very proud! I think CC has a love-hate relationship with so many simmers, especially as you cannot download CC from the gallery, but you have created a No CC gallery art collection that simmers can download and place in their games. Can you tell us more about this and what was your inspiration behind creating them? I noticed I was downloading a lot of No CC art from the gallery to use in my builds and thought… I could do that! I like that no cc art gives builders more options while building. I feel like art is one of those things you can never have enough of! I’m also very picky when it comes to the art style in my game and I thought it would be fun to do a neighborhood collection. It’s also easier, for now at least, for me to take screenshots and edit them than to come up with an entire design on my own.

In May you

created a series

of builds

designed on d i f f e r e n t

cocktails and

sims players/

builders can

join in by

c r e a t i n g

their own

favourite

d r i n k

i n s p i r e d

S i m s

build and

tagging you

in them. What was your

inspiration behind this? How many

cocktail builds have you created so far?

I had been wanting to do some themed series because I thought it would be a way to keep myself motivated and inspired. Also, I thought maybe I could inspire others with my series. The cocktail series idea just hit me out of nowhere. It was kind of funny actually. My husband was home, and we were watching TV. I sprang up from the beanbag and started jotting down ideas on a scrap piece of paper. I believe I made 22 rooms/ sims and 5 builds, but I’ve only a few so far. My social media calendar is planned until the end of July! Before we come to the end of our interview tell us a little bit about your speed builds on

YouTube, when did you first s t a r t c r e a t i n g these? How easy or difficult did you or do you find making them and what advice can you give to our readers who also would like to do this? I started making YouTube videos in December 2019, and my speed-build journey has been a little bumpy. I was slightly nervous in the first few videos because talking to a camera felt really awkward, but slowly warmed up to it. Also, I haven’t been the most consistent with uploads because finding time to edit can be a challenge. I think I’m finally finding my groove after 2 years. Here’s some advice that I feel like would’ve helped me when I first started. Don’t be too ambitious. At least not from the get-go. Give yourself time to learn what you’re doing and get used to making time in your schedule. I wanted to post videos once a week, and when I couldn’t make that happen, I’d give up and not post for six months and then the cycle would repeat. Try making realistic goals for you and your time.

Thank you so much Alana for being such a great sport and being a part of our community and friendship issue of SIM

Magazine, you most definitely deserve

the title of Titan Architect. How can our

readers find, follow and subscribe to

you? And lastly, is there anyone out

there who has helped or inspired you

within the Sims community you would

like to give a shout-out to?

Thank you for having me! It’s been an honor and a pleasure. You can find me at Coki.Creative on Instagram or CokiCreative on Twitter, YouTube and the gallery There are so many people out there who have helped and inspired me in the sims community! I’d like to give a quick shoutout to my very talented friends Palakoslip and SimsieSmith. They are the people I go to when I need help with a build or just want to talk about life. Also, mushildasims is another account I’d love to shout out for giving me so many creative ideas using T.O.O.L and always having the latest details on what’s going on with the sims. Lastly, Taffissimo and rd.ptra as well. Even though Taffissimo and rd.ptra’s styles are very different, their accounts both inspire me to think outside of the box.