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How do you make your sims? What inspires you?
annaliese39
Posts: 2,797 Member
Hi, after a short break from TS4, I'm thinking of starting a new sim/household, but I'm unsure how to go about it. In the past I've often used photos or characters I like at the time as inspiration for my sims, but I want my sim to look and feel unique and hold my interest. It would be interesting to know what other simmers do, particularly when creating the appearance of their sims. Should I simply use my imagination or do you find a visual guide works better? Do you like to give your sims backstories and if so do you include lore and premades? What helps you become more attached to a particular sim and keep playing them or their families? Any tips would be appreciated.
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My last save, however, did not develop that way. When I got RoM, I saw in Morgyn Ember a potential fantasy quest character, so I pulled them out and set that story in motion. My current save is a sort of sequel to that save and has developed into a multi character fantasy world story that now has multiple storylines that keep changing. I’m really enjoying it and will probably be here for a long time.
Tales From The Myst
The Blue Moon Jukebox
Some of them are created strictly for comedic value, can be male or female, and they'll have wacky clothes and exaggerated body proportions, while others will be created simply because I like creating beautiful ladies in CAS
I don't really get too attached to sims anymore, because I realized that aside from minor differences due to traits, sims are pretty much all the same
What about the contextual differences, like relationships, environments and events? Would you say these help to make your sims feel different at least a little bit?
It's also been fun to use a challenge and then give my starting sim some quirk that works against the challenge or makes it more interesting. Like a rags to riches legacy challenge with a freegan or lazy founder.
Currently, I'm playing legacy-style (without the rules) with my founder being an alien. His backstory was pretty cliche. He crash-landed in StrangerVille. With no way of communicating with his home planet, and no way back home, he started to blend in with his surroundings. He took a job as a scientist. He later became a single father of three, 2 were with a human sim, and one was through abduction. He eventually found the love of his life, and had another child.
I do love making Sims, in general. I tend to come up with some basics (job, personality quirks or even stereotype…) and then mash that randomise button in CAS til I find a “base” I can work with. From there it’s refine the hair (all over these days considering body hair and facial hair for any dudes) and make their wardrobe.
One huge helpful tip that may be helping me is give them some roots. Have a wee bit of backstory in mind and consider giving them a parent or sibling. Happy Simming!
Then it is time to get into CAS. I do tend to button-mash the randomize button in CAS just like @NRowe to get a base and then work from there. As I work, a more detailed backstory usually develops.
Some of my more recent Sims I created was a household of three roommates. I started it because I wanted to play a vampire. I was trying to go a very traditional route of what he looked like, but that was extremely uninspiring, so I ended up using one piece of clothing to create his whole personality and backstory around, and that piece of clothing happened to be a red pirate outfit from Get to Work. So everything after that fell into place pretty quickly: long black hair, long beard, pirate hat, lots of red and black clothes. Backstory-wise, I decided that he was a pirate captain from around the 1700s who got turned into a vampire by another pirate captain, and he has just been lurking around under the radar since then.
His two roommates--since the pirate captain is such an over-the-top concept, I knew I needed to make them pretty unusual as well so that they wouldn't just fade into the background. I decided that since the vampire was unemployed (so I wouldn't have to worry about him burning up in the sun), one roommate would have an active career and the other would be in a traditional career. I decided that the one with the active career would be an Actor since I haven't played one of those for a while, and in CAS he ended up with a floppy purple hat, which I turned green, and from there he ended up with longish brown hair, a little beard, and green and brown clothes that made him look like one of Robin Hood's merry men. The third roommate, to be visually distinct from the others, I decided to make a blond guy with white clothes, and that color made me decide to make him an astronaut.
Other Sims--I have a girl who is the 8th generation from her family, and she aged up to teenager just when Cottage Living came out, so she ended up with some 1920's-ish outfits to take advantage of the hat that came with that pack (I think it is the same hat that Crumplebottom wears). But she's also a mermaid, so she has a couple of tiny details that hint of that (a necklace in formal clothes, a skirt in her party outfit).
Another guy was the third generation of a different family, and I wanted to attempt the celebrity levels again, so even as a kid, I had him interested in music. As a teenager, he went for a pop-star look and personality, so I think he's one of the only male Sims I've had with dark eyeliner. He liked suits and slacks/buttoned-up shirts combos, but typically went for sparkly or unusual prints.
My inspirations vary. Sometimes I begin with a story, and my daughter (who LOVES CAS) and I create a Sim to fit the story. Other times, the Sim comes first, and then a story takes shape around the Sim.
Two or three of our Sims have become favorites whom we regularly cast as "leads" in our saves. The favorites who don't get the "lead" in a given save are always placed in houses, so they're part of the story. These favorites have families, and once they have families, we create lore for them.
The rest of our cast come from all kinds of places. Some are based on fictional characters we enjoy. A few have been based on real people; if they're alive, we'll change their names. We have an ever-growing collection of Sims, and we let MCCC tap them when the game needs baristas, mixologists, vendors, etc.
Exie hay, cavero, mabza meeah vendarzo.
Yevsas mairzeemo!
My sims participate in none of that
One inspiration I have was recreating Sims I created in Sims 2 for Sims 4, so I can technically play with them again on a different format.
Also, I tend to base some of my Sims on my favorite series, and will make multiple versions of them in the same file. For example, I have a harry Potter save file, and have the canon versions of the main characters, but I may throw in a version where Lily and James are still alive and raise Harry.
I also have a Frozen save file, where I plan to the next generations to slowly move into another series I like through generations.
I also like to mix it up with Sims I create and Sims I downloaded.
Things in my game are similar, but still different enough. None of my families are exactly the same, and my motivations for them change as well.
I like for my main sims to feel uniquely my own.
Just for fun I have also created sims based on pictures of people. I sit the photo next to my PC screen and try to see how accurate I can get it.
I give the sim a small backstory and let the rest of their story unfold through playing with them. Their story and personality sort of grows on it's own if you stick with the same sims long enough.
Hard to say what makes me attached to them.
My most beloved sims are loved because they are characters from a story I'm writing in real life.
A few others were with me since I started ts4 so I feel connected to those pool of sims. Otherwise, it's hard to say. There are families I've played with for a while and just wasn't feeling 😅 and others that I just feel attached and connected to lol. Kind of like real life people I guess haha.
I think if you make likable sims and play them for a long while with interesting backstories, goals, and personalities you may get attached to them.😄
I don't really play with premades because I prefer to use all of my own sims but I do make background characters to help play out my stories. I don't do too much lore just because I can't keep up with it all lol 😅
Other Sims I create, are usually for a challenge, such as Not So Berry or a Legacy Challenge. I usually get attached to the Sims that are born in-game or the heirs.
I typically don't really have an idea of how I want my Sims to look. & I don't think I've played a premade family since 2014 when Sims first launched.
Sometimes I might have a specific direction I want to aim for, like certain physical characteristics. But more often than not, I will just adjust whatever the dice throws at me.
When I do attempt to make a copy of a celebrity or person IRL, I'll have some pictures of that person open in a window on my other monitor (using a dual screen setup is really handy for that sort of thing).
My next project is to have a set of four dudes based on the Banana Splits, that old 1970's puppet / variety / cartoon series. Making someone look like an elephant will be challenging.
EDIT: I just want to echo what @Sha2520032003 said up above, I haven't played a pre-made Sims family at all in the Sims 4. (Logging in to that vampire NPC household and ordering 20 garlic bulbs to scatter around their house doesn't count).
Personally, I usually get more attached to the sims that are born/raised in game. Since I can see their personality and skills develop, it makes it easier to give their adult life direction. If you're looking to try something different, maybe try making a sim you like the look of in CAS, then age them down, give them parents, and let them grow up.