With the 10th anniversary of Stardew Valley behind us, the 10th anniversary of my modding journey is approaching! I thought it would be fun to have a little retrospective of the mods I've made over the years and how far I've come since 2016.

When Stardew Valley came out, the most experience I'd had with anything similar to pixel art was making super simple cross stitch patterns. I had no idea what I was doing! But in October 2016, I released my first animal mod. Content Patcher didn't exist yet, so these were all .xnb replacers. I actually forgot my first barn animal mod had no cows! It had deer instead, because a friend of mine at the time loved deer. I also made my first set of buildings using the framework Seasonal Immersion, so they could change each season.

These mods were mostly something silly I made for friends and I to use; I didn't really imagine other people playing with them. Looking back, the art was pretty rough, haha. I could never have imagined I'd be making mods for 10 more years.

In 2017, I still didn't have a great grasp on pixel art, but I was branching out and trying different things. I reworked my animal sprites and made a whole new set of buildings (there were a lot less buildings then!), but I also made mods for town critters, kitchens, and my dirt recolor. Not long after these first released, Content Patcher came out! Now that configs were a thing, this is where I started my habit of being extra adding lots of options.

Starting in 2019, I took more time with my art/sprites. I made a new, third set of animals, this time finally making dog and cat replacements! I also focused a lot on buildings; I made several big updates to Seasonal Buildings and released my Town Buildings later on. I feel like this is when I really started cleaning up and improving my pixel art and developing my own style. This is also when it really hit me how many people actually use my mods. It's still crazy to think about.

2023 was the start of my Cuter mods series! They didn't release until 2024, but I had been working on them for over a year by that point. They coincidentally were nearing completion when the release date of 1.6 was announced, so I joined the mod author beta, made sure they'd work with the new skins feature, and dropped them all the day it released. The amount of people playing and modding Stardew Valley at that time was shocking! And I think I'll maybe never stop being surprised by the reception to my work.

Since then, I've released a few more 'Cuter' mods, with some more stuff in the works (that you can see in the last gif above!). Last year I took a bit of a break from drawing, but when the Stardew Valley Modfest was announced, I was inspired to create something I never had before:

Cuter Foliage. Had I ever drawn foliage before? No! Was I a bit out of my depth? Very possible. But I really wanted to do something new, and I'm proud of the work that's gone into it.

And if you've enjoyed my work over the last decade, I'd also really appreciate your support on this mod! The modfest entry period is over, but the winners won't be called until April 25th! Until then, every download and endorsement still counts, and yours would mean a lot to me.

But regardless of the mod contest, I want to say thank you all so, so much. Without all your support, kind words, and encouragements over the years, I wouldn't still be making mods for this game. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

I'll be updating all of my cuter animal mods this week with some new options and minor fixes. I also think I might post some sort of retrospective on my 10 years of modding. 🤔

I'm not taking a break from modding though! I'm working on finally adding some new options to my animal mods (that I showed in WIPs here ages ago) + some adoption price configs. Stay tuned 👀

I also finally updated my dirt & cliff recolor mod to fix some old bugs.

I've recently started considering creating a discord server, because I really enjoy hearing from you guys and seeing people's screenshots and stuff, but I also fear it would be a lot for me since I usually have a very low social battery 😭I dunno!

Cuter Foliage now has a version to match VPR!

Hi! I'm making another poll since the most voted option in the last one was added over the weekend. This time I'm adding some more options for recolors, in case more people would be interested in those!

Cuter Foliage has been updated again with the winner of the last poll! There are now retextures for debris (rocks, logs, stumps, and branches) and the weeds on the farm! There are also a couple of options for artifact and seed dig spots.

Elle's Cuter Foliage on Nexus

There is now a version of Cuter Foliage to match DaisyNiko's Earthy Recolour!

Elle's Cuter Foliage on Nexus