How do you create your Sims?

Elliandre · February 2020

What inspires you when you are making your Sim in CAS? Do you try to create yourself as accurately as possible? Or, do you try to create someone who looks like you, but maybe has qualities you wish you had? Do you create new characters who are nothing like you? Do you make your favorite celebrities or characters from novels? Do you like to create mostly supernatural Sims? How do you choose the clothes?

I was watching a video the other day and the Simmer was choosing clothes based on the 1980's, and as an 80's kid I was totally impressed and inspired and now I think I need a 1980's neighborhood or world. I'm thinking of taking Strangerville back to the 1980's, since it's inspired by the 1980's Stranger Things.

BridgetKV · February 2020

I love making new characters, and they’re mostly supernaturals. When I’m not making vampire queen #218 I like to make people based (very) loosely off of customers and other randos I see when I’m working.

I try to keep little bits of realism when it comes to picking outfits. I tend to do 4-5 outfits for every category, and I will use the same handful of clothing pieces in different categories. I like to make it look like the sim went out and bought the clothing, and they style it in different outfits for different events (like a sim will wear jeans from a party outfit in an everyday outfit, and will wear the party top for hot weather, for example

). I’ll also use the same accessory among people in the same household so that it looks like a girl “borrowed” her sisters necklace, or an antique watch was passed down from father to son.

Chazzzy · February 2020

I press randomize and if I like the bones I adjust to make them the most attractive they can be

Finvola · February 2020

I make a lot of occult or fantasy sims, or really ridiculous looking ones. I'm not very good at making real people, so I just have fun with it. Sometimes I do stick with a theme/make a sim based on the title or lyrics of a song.

I am terrible at making male sims, I can never get chins and jaws right so I mostly stick with that I know. The males might look *right* to me in CAS but when they start having kids I'm like "Oh my, where's that kid's chin?? Why does that child's face look like melting marshmallows?"

Any time I've tried to create, I guess, what might be considered, an attractive sim they come out looking so wrong I end up creating something purposely silly instead to help with my frustration of not getting the look I want.

I made a spellcaster inspired by one of my cats a couple of days ago. She's sick and on that particular day, her test results came back better than I expected and I was over the moon. Because the sim is based on my cat's features I gave her some exaggerated looks. I think she still resembles a person, but she has big pointy ears, cat shaped eyes, those kinds of things. That's why I'm better at occult and fantasy sims, because they can be as realistic or unrealistic looking as I want.

As far as what to wear, I think of who it is I'm creating. I once made a sim based on a song and I based her color scheme and outfits off the album artwork the song came from. I do put little details and touches like that in.

Fantasy sims usually get put in medievally stuff, but not all my occults do. I tend to dress spellcasters like every day people. One of them dresses like your everyday soccer mom. Vampires, I normally go for a mix of modern and classic styles.

If they're merfolk, I usually go for island attire because I wouldn't play them outside of Sulani as it's easier for them to go swimming there.

Regular sims, it depends on their personalities. I make a lot of hippies or rock n' rollers, sometimes I make preppy sims or ones who like designer clothes. It depends on who they are.

I love making sims, but I have to be in the mood/inspired to. I'm terrible at building, but I do enjoy making new sims when the mood strikes.

Admiral8Q · February 2020

@Elliandre Interesting you ask this now. I was thinking of making a Sims4 version of Anita and Roger. And of course, Cruella De Vil.

-Anita: Cheerful, Good, Family Oriented
-Roger: Music Lover, Self-Assured, Romantic

-Cruella: Evil, Mean, Slob

I could design their house from the movie. I don't have the pets expansion yet, so it wouldn't be complete without the dalmatians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuKDbx1hhrE

SimAlexandria · February 2020

I create sims that are nothing like me and never supernatural

99% of my sims are characters from stories I've written. The other few are characters from my Fav TV shows haha

I also pick all good traits for them

NRowe · February 2020

I’ve never really played a Simself and I’ve never made one personally.

I like to come up with a career I haven’t tried or an aspiration I want to do or maybe the idea that I’d like to play some archetype (the geeky scientist, the bad/tough girl criminal, a cowboy type... ...)
I randomise the relevant gender Sim til I find one I like the look of and adjust. Usually hair and outfit rather than body or facial structure. Clothing can take ages.
Traits to suit the character envisaged.

I have a bunch of characters saved in my library/gallery. I’m even reusing some of my favourites.

Seems like create a story hasn’t been around that long, but I think I could get into trying to manipulate the system to give me something close to what I want. I did do an alien that way once...

Kimmer · February 2020

The Sims that I create are completely different than I am. If I ever played with my simself I'd be bored as plum, lol. I also don't make characters from TV or films or books. I just create random characters.

I create both regular Sims and occults, but more regular ones. I start with randomizing a character and once I see a one that I like I start changing their face and body. I usually know how I like my Sim to look like, sometimes pretty/handsome, sometimes average and sometimes unique. I have a lot of different characters. I like to randomize the traits if I don't have a specific story planned for her/him.

I choose the clothes that I think the Sim would wear. I'm not a fashionista, I don't spend too much time choosing their clothes. It's the easiest part on creating a Sim. Adult males are a bit more difficult to dress, because the choices are so limited (I don't use CC), though.

becks1112 · February 2020

I'm kind of lazy in CAS. What I really care about is their hair and wardrobe, so I usually just find a sim on the Gallery that I like, download him/her, and then spent a lot of time on hair, accessories, clothes, shoes, etc.

Admiral8Q · February 2020

So far for Anita, Roger, and Cruella I have made this. As close to the cartoon characters as I could. I'll keep working on them.

MissyHissy · February 2020

I tend to mix it up. Sometimes I'll base them on characters from movies, sitcoms or books. I usually don't intend them to be exact (which is just as well sometimes

) but usually reasonably close. Other times, I'll base them on people I know - again, loosly based. Occasionaly, I'll have an idea for the look of a Sim in my head and I'll run with that.

As for their traits, personablities and hobbies, I sometimes define this myself if I've got a particular character in mind. Lately, I've been having some fun with the Story feature of Create-A-Sim, which is helping me to mix it up a bit

Faberries · February 2020

I usually just randomize a sim until i find one that looks alright. Then i tweak them to my liking
If I’m really lazy, i just find one from the gallery and change the hair and clothes

Simmingal · February 2020

my main is often sim that is half me half barbie doll like me minus ugly

and probably has traits that are fun instead of traits that would suit me cause itd just be boring to play me

I don't really create that many sims at all tbh

because I suck at making them fit in with premades and townies p_p

like maybe if I had townie toggles I'd actually have fun creating sims

I just don't like having the problem of " I like this townie but their head is 10 times bigger than my sims so this looks stupid"

funnily enough I don't mind it with vlad tho

as for clothes I let them dress fancy
no need to be boring and casual in a game

and I just really choose what looks nice on the sim in question though i do make some stereotypical ones at times like "aight he is gonna be thug kind of guy"

HopeyStarr · February 2020

A lot of characters in my main save are ocs I made up in my teens. Because their appearance, personalities, and traits were already established in my head it was pretty easy to recreate them and I was surprised at how well they came out.

Even til this day I'm sometimes surprised at how good my sims turn out. When making a sim I'll randomize until I get close to what I want and then edit from there.

DevilNDisguise · February 2020

I don't often create Sims from scratch. I did when starting off my main save; a brother and a sister. But that save is so old, most of my Sims have been born in-game with mostly just their outfits and hairstyles edited. My main save is free of supernaturals, as well.

I like to edit NPC Sims/randomly generated townies too, but even then I try to keep it to just the hairstyle and clothing.
If I ever need a Sim that a randomly renerated one isn't catching my interest for, I'll go on the gallery and try to find Sims with backstories and/or history. I've even come here to the forums for requests before. It's a lot of fun.

In any case, I don't make or play Sims based off of myself or anyone I know. Everyone is a completely originally made character simply living their lives based off of the story I try to give them.
I do the same as you as far as clothing is concerned; I tend to stick to similar items in different categories, like they're using the same pants to go with a different top or they have a favorite piece of jewelry that they like to wear all the time. That kind of stuff. It makes them feel a little more personable to me.

Nindigo · February 2020

I make almost no Sims myself. At least none that I play. The ones in my gallery are the results of me mucking around whimsically, until I feel they look decent. When I'm on a creative streak, I usually don't feel like playing - just creating. I'm simple like that.

ListentoToppDogg · February 2020

I just make families. I prefer creating kids and toddlers the most as I find them the most interesting so I usually make a lot of them per family. I really like giving them specific color these with their clothing as if they have a favorite color.

LiELF · February 2020

Elliandre wrote: »

Do you try to create yourself as accurately as possible? Or, do you try to create someone who looks like you, but maybe has qualities you wish you had? Do you create new characters who are nothing like you? Do you make your favorite celebrities or characters from novels? Do you like to create mostly supernatural Sims?

Yes.

LiELF · February 2020

Honestly though, I love to create Sims of all sorts, especially with Sims 4 because I feel like the CAS is the most flexible we've ever had for creating likenesses. I tend to spend a very long time on Sims because I often overthink them and sometimes, if I'm trying to create a TV/film/famous fictional character, I'll have to keep referencing a photo or art render and continuously make small tweaks to their features until I'm satisfied. There are definitely days when I just want to get my Sims done so I put less effort in, but I tend to revisit them later to change their faces because I've noticed that they can come out looking very generic and I don't like that. I use almost all of the Sims I create in one giant main save where I fill the world with them as sort of my own townies. If some time goes by and I notice that I've never checked into their household or wanted to play them, I'll pull them back into CAS to make them more interesting or evict them into NPC status.

One of the mistakes I often make is when creating Occults. I'll get an idea and rush into CAS and start working on a Sim, only to realize that I forgot to choose to make them the intended life state so I'm stuck with a "normal" Sim that I don't want to start over and will now have to play in the game to "change" them. I know there are cheats for this, but I try not to use too many because I know that they have potential to corrupt a save and there are a few that I already use too much. But I really wish there was a way to just change an existing Sim in CAS into a select Occult because that would make my life so much easier, lol.

I love to see the personalized art styles of other players who create Sims, especially people who push the boundaries and/or create imperfect faces. I find that the Sims who have stranger features or imperfections tend to become my favorites, so I've started to branch out more with characteristics and tried to push outside of my comfort zone of visual appeal.

Also, men are difficult to create and I don't know why.

DaWaterRat · February 2020

There's no one way I create my sims. I only have a couple that I've tried to do as Simselves - and they honestly don't work right as they're too tall.

Generally it depends on why I'm making a new sim.

If I'm testing/messing around, I'll start with whatever the game throws up at me and add a few tweaks, and in the course of those tweaks work out a personality and a backstory (I would do this all the time back when I painted D&D miniatures with my dad as a kid.)

If I'm specifically starting a new challenge/story/etc, then I'll put a little more thought into the sim before I start - but often the only part of their look that's in any way predetermined is by their type - sporty, scholarly, feminine, masculine, fashionable, relaxed - and their age (I tend to dress adults and elders more conservatively in terms of skin coverage than I do teens and YA.) Things like hair/eye/skin color I generally don't mess with (unless I think the randomly generated combination looks off - some skin tones just don't work with green hair, ya know? - or has shown up too much in my play lately) Features I may tweak for better aesthetics, but unless something really bothers me, I'll usually just roll with whatever the game gave me.

I've made a few "fan art" characters, but that's not usually my sort of play, so they're either there just because, or to add color to the landscape.

annaliese39 · February 2020

I have always enjoyed creating characters and stories in my head. The Sims allows me to bring these to 'life'. My sims are very different from me (and each other), in fact my main sim is the opposite sex and a vampire, but I suppose there is naturally a bit of 'me' in all my characters. I also like to create my favourite characters from books/films etc. sometimes and I am often inspired by history, music, people, books, films etc. I usually plan out my characters in depth first i.e. their personality, background, appearance etc. before I create them in CAS. I like to find face claims/photos of real people to base their appearance on and when choosing outfits I also think about what suits their personality and background. I am a family player so I tend to create couples or families and I am also a supernatural fan so I often create occult sims. It takes me a ridiculously long time to finish creating a new sim, but it is a lot of fun.

Beardedgeek · February 2020

I have never used a self sim. It's too weird for me (plus I'm ugly

).
Also I'm a man and has always preferred to play female characters (in all games).

Anyway, I tend to start with the looks; I try to make them "realistically pretty". No CC, no supermodel looks or exaggerated features. Then I look at the result and try to decide their personality from that.

Finvola · February 2020

My self sim is my avatar. While I do have a save file with her in it, I often use her as a tester sim to try new things out. I don't think she looks much like me, though. I am just not good at making likenesses of real people, myself included, lol. I gave her the traits of Loner, Cat Person, and Goofball. As far as my other sims, a few are based on songs, but most are just people I've thought up. I like goofy sims, I like baddies/meanies, I like a variety of personalities in my households. I also like a variety of looks. I very seldom recycle one of my sims as a base for a new sim, although I have done it a few times. For the most part, I start from scratch.

I did use the CAS story mode before and the end result was that he ended up being one of my new favorites. He's so different than anything I would have thought to come up with, so I do see myself using that feature again if I want to make a new sim but can't come up with an idea for something I haven't done before.

netney52 · February 2020

In a new save I always make my simself near enough to me as possible with the traits as close to my personality as possible. After that if I feel the game is lacking sims I will make a sim or sims with what I have in mind for that household and match the traits to how I imagine that sim to be. I have never based any sims off characters or other real life people I can’t really explain my non-simself process. When I make my simself it is just me and never anyone in my family. I like to play a fantasy version of my life. I don’t know why I’ve tried challenges and playing pre-makes but I have no vested interest in those sort of gameplays.

drakharis · February 2020

Elliandre wrote: »

What inspires you when you are making your Sim in CAS? Do you try to create yourself as accurately as possible? Or, do you try to create someone who looks like you, but maybe has qualities you wish you had? Do you create new characters who are nothing like you? Do you make your favorite celebrities or characters from novels? Do you like to create mostly supernatural Sims? How do you choose the clothes?

I was watching a video the other day and the Simmer was choosing clothes based on the 1980's, and as an 80's kid I was totally impressed and inspired and now I think I need a 1980's neighborhood or world. I'm thinking of taking Strangerville back to the 1980's, since it's inspired by the 1980's Stranger Things.

Sometimes it's from comic books and manga and anime like having the John Constantine and Steven Strange (Dr Strange). Sometimes its from movies and shows. Sometimes its from books. Usually, I have a scenario in mind and create or 'chose a sim I created best suited for This Mission.' Plumb I was thinking of how great it would be to have Matt Trakker as a Sim from M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand). His car ThunderHawk turns into a plane and Gloria Baker... Ooooh, I might have the CC to create him and make him rich and handsome too but sadly I won't be able to have Trakker Enterprises and do I really want his annoying kid Scott in the same household. Wait I think I have a mod to send him to private school so that maybe I can find my sim Victoria VanHelsing a love interest that we both like. I think I can work with this one. Yes, I do. I can live without a cool car that turns into a plane. I don't think I have his suit he has leader of M.A.S.K. or his mask Spectrum but I do have suits and lots of them. I think I'll turn a handsome man like Matt Trakker into a sim along with Brad Turner, Bruce Sato and the rest of M.A.S.K. and Venom into Sims. This is going to be fun. Sorry about that.

While other sims like Belit Gula just come to mind and I come up with a scenario working with them. Belit is my spellcaster who was trapped in the Astral Plane for thousands of years. I have her backstory here
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/971496/my-latest-sim

Victoria Van Helsing is my goto sim and my favourite. I feel guilty when I don't play her for too long. She just came to mind one day after I got The Vampire Game Pack and I've had her in my library ever since. Her clothing choice is masculine and when I play her Joquin Le Chien really tries to get with her but she ignores him. Mr Rocca tries to run game on her and his best pick up lines don't even work on her. She is not impressed by him. Johnny Zest makes her laugh. Believe me laughter is an amazing gift for her. I haven't played her in a while and am starting to feel guilty about it.

Right now I have Arcadia Windsong who was given to a Vampire Nobel at birth during The Last Occult War. She is a spellcaster and knows vampires better than she knows her own kind. But the vampires have been keeping her safe from harm. Now its time for her to learn her true heritage.

Some scenarios and Sims I create are based on songs, movies, and tv shows and occasionally videogames and RPGs and tabletop games I play like Malifaux. I have a vampire who was inspired by Nekima and Lilith's rivalry in Malifaux. I have a sim that was inspired by Collodi and another inspired by my Dark Mechanicum army for Warhammer 40K. I have an alien that is inspired by the Orcs in 40K. Tau from 40k has inspired some of the Mermaids I have created.

I am simply inspired by tons of things.

thecatsred · February 2020

My last sim I made I went in thinking "I'm gonna make a prettyboy orc kid" and then I did that.

Sometimes I have a little story for the sim in my head, and I match them to their story. But most of the time I just mess around and see what 'sticks'.

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How do you create your Sims?

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