BigBizkit: Thank you, Kalilies, for agreeing to give us an interview. To those of you who may be unfamiliar with you or your work, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?
Kalilies: Hi! I'm Kalilies and I live in the middle of Germany. I love making all things hair as well as jewellery related mods. Most of the time I work together with Stealthic whom I’ve met here on Nexus and who I am happy to call one of my best friends now.
KS Hairdos is an amazing Skyrim and Skyrim Special Edition mod that adds a staggering 725 new hairstyles to the game. What prompted your and Stealthic’s decision to work on adding more variety to the available hairstyles in Skyrim?
It all started very small actually. Together with Shockero we did a tiny hair pack of, like, 20 hairs. When Stealthic took notice and joined, we started talking and hanging out for hours and hours and did hair on the side, so it just added up. At first, we only shared it with a handful of people. But seeing more and more people use our hair, we got motivated to expand our mod and share it on Nexus.
How has KS Hairdos evolved over the years? Has your approach to modding changed in any way?
As we got more familiar with the tools and the workflow, the only thing that really changed was the speed and the quality of each hair. By quality, I mean the smoothness of the weighting, the textures and other details here and there.
We also applied physics to a small selection of our hairs. It was quite an experience.
Can you tell us a bit about how you got started with modding? What made you want to create and share your mods in the first place?
Next to Skyrim, I also love playing The Sims. So, naturally, character creation is an important part of the game for me. The more variety, the better. That's why I started porting little things here and there for personal use. Everything was completely new to me and didn't know how to do anything, so it wasn’t anything good enough to share before Shocky and Stealthic came along and really taught me everything.
How does it make you feel knowing that your mod has become a staple in the load orders of millions of users?
It’s bananas. We literally did all this for fun and seeing so many people use our mod feels great.
Which of the hundreds of hairstyles in KS Hairdos most closely resembles your current haircut?
I would say Foam Summer, but mine is a little shorter at the moment.
What are your favourite mods you like to use or that you find particularly inspirational?
I’m currently playing with very few mods because I felt like doing a new playthrough. My character steals and cooks all kinds of foods, so kryptopyr’s Complete Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul is my jam right now.
Is there a modding related skill that you wish you had?
Knowing how to code would be neat. I would also love to dig deeper into creating 3D models and textures.
Are you playing any games currently? Anything you can recommend to our community?
Ousnius and I were looking for games to play together. We ended up with Overwatch, Trine 2 and Overcooked 2 – they’re really cute and fun!
My favourite single player games would be Slime Rancher and The Sims at the moment.
What other hobbies do you have outside of gaming and/or modding?
Lifting weights, tennis and cooking are my biggest passions.
What would you recommend to people who would like to get involved with modding?
- Find something that you really want to do and let that be your motivation.
- Don't be afraid to make mistakes. They will happen. Keep going despite them.
- There are lots of helpful tutorials out there. (I have one up on youtube as well)
Is there anything else you would like to say to our community?
Thanks to the modding community, I got to meet lots of people that have become very important to me, most importantly Stealthic and of course: ousnius. Love you the most :)
A big thank you to Kalilies for answering our questions. As always, if there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to BigBizkit or Pickysaurus.
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A moderator has closed this comment topic for the time beingThank you Kalilies and the rest of the modders out there for all the fantastic work you do!