Test pictures

So I've mentioned before that after I create a character, I give them a test run in the sim world to see how well they match up with the character I see in my head. Some come out perfectly the first time, and some I have to edit quite a bit.

Pat is one of those that came out fully formed, perfectly. While looking for pictures of her body, I ran across the original test shots I ran her through after I made her. These were also Brandon's test shots as an adult.






But, of course, it wasn't until these pictures below that I was absolutely SURE I had them down perfectly.



Love LOVE this shot, because it looks like he's trying to cajole her into doing something. I would bet he does this to her from time to time when they're alone, just the two of them. They aren't often alone, not if Pat has her way. But if he stops by when they're cleaning up or closing, I can see Rita (Pat's mom) excusing herself and taking Melissa with her. (I think she'd make it very obvious that she was leaving them alone, and she'd invite Melissa in on this very obvious not so secret secret. I can imagine Melissa giggling about it even if she isn't completely sure what is going on and needs her grandmother to explain it to her which would bring up some awkward questions from Melissa later I'm sure.)







And of course, he wins here. Did she ever really have a chance?


Kyrene was made at the same time, and so Brandon was also used for her test shots.


Kyrene's first try. So not her. It was her eyes, so I sent her back to CAS.








What I love about Kyrene's sim is how expressive her face is. She can look dangerous, sultry, and sad with very little facial movements.

Three days?

Don't know why, I guess I've just been killing time. But it was three days to make three sims.

It started with this guy.





I'm calling him Luke right now. He is Kyrene's father. He knew Henri when they were both teens; I'm certain of that. But they weren't exactly friends. Though I see Luke as being somewhat laid back, even in his youth, so it was probably more like a slightly unfriendly competition between the two men-- err, boys really at the time.

And then the Revolution happens and they run across each other again, and together, the two of them were the founders of the Southlands. Now they're good friends. Luke is Henri's adviser and his partner, though his role is probably less visible.

I see him being a pretty intimidating man, very much like Henri. He can definitely back up his words. But he's also got that laid back streak that I think surprises people.


One of the surprising aspects of this man who is very much like Henri and at the same time very much not like him is the fact that he fell in love. So of course I had to make her.


I don't have a good name for her yet. Kyrene's mother was a complete surprise to him. She really came out of nowhere, and it was really lucky for Henri and Luke.



I don't think he was this nervous before in front of a woman or this nervous since.


I love her eyes. They're not my normal defaults. They're actually Tamo's Ultra Plain Tri-color Eye Contacts.



Luke, of course, required that I download more tattoos. I actually see him having a tattoo of some sort on his face. His hands have tattoos by Newone that say "Free Mind" which is actually very fitting and slightly important. I also downloaded a bunch of new Ambitions tattoos.

But there are a couple he's missing. The older Luke will have a tattoo ring from his bonding with Kyrene's mom that will match her tattoo ring, and I think I'd like to make that face tattoo. It's not going to be large, but very small.

Body shapes or Shirtless men!

*ahem* Well, one of the plus sides of TS3 is the ability to sculpt the bodies as well as the faces. So without much more needing to be said (it's really all in the title of this post) I'm going to start with our main three guys: Henry, Brandon and Jimmy.



Right away, I can tell it's hard to tell the differences. One of the problem with TS3 men is that they all have muscle definition around the shoulder, the forearms are shaped the same, the backs have the same (for lack of a better word) dents. It's just the mesh it seems. These are things that don't change no matter how flabby a male sim is or how muscular.

What does change is the upper arm, the shape of the torso, width of the body.

Here's a comparison where you can see the arms. Jimmy actually has a smoother arm. He's less muscular than Brandon and Jimmy. In my head, Brandon is much more compact, somewhat short but blocky. Henri is tall, but it's clear Brandon gets his muscles from Henri. Meanwhile, of the three of them, Jimmy is actually a bit more lithe. (But only of the three of them.)

Here's a shot from the back. See what I mean? The body mesh will all have the same depth of the spine regardless of muscle mass when I'd expect that Brandon's spine would probably be a bit deeper than Jimmy's. Well, it almost looks like it is, but I think that's just because of the angle of the light.

From this picture, you can see the curve to their backs. Brandon and Henri both have waists that are more defined. Jimmy's more straight up and down. His waist is actually a bit thicker than Brandon's. And Henri, being the oldest actually has the thickest waist, but I couldn't easily get a comparison shot of that. You'll have to trust me on that.


Oh, well actually, this is a good comparison shot of the waists. What I mostly wanted to show here is that Aaron is a giant.

Aaron is taller than Henri and as muscular as Brandon. His waist is actually a bit smaller though, despite that he's older. I imagine that Aaron moves fast and he's strong.

Another comparison shot of the torsos. Jimmy's starting to look flabby next to those three.



So then my next thing was to show you Alex between Brandon and Aaron. Alex is one of the guys who's actually very lithe. He's young, but he's scrappy. Ignoring the fact that his skin tone is ripped, and only looking at the shape of his torso, there's not much to him. I imagine that Alex is very wiry. He's young, but he hasn't had a very easy life. He's got one of the thinnest waists because he's one of the youngest. He also isn't actually very muscular in CAS. See the line of his torso is pretty straight compared to Brandon's.


A side comparison makes it more clear I think. I'd also like to point out how pinchable Aaron's butt is right here. I am pretty sure that was intentional on my part when I was sculpting him. I gave him a little bit more butt because it makes his waist look more defined.


Of course my two favorite guys. Mitchell is actually taller than Angel and thicker. Angel is the older one, but he's naturally more agile because of his power (or ability I suppose would be more accurate). Angel has more muscle mass though. You can see it in his arms.


Poor Mitchell. I can hear him asking in my head, "Can I put my shirt back on now? It's cold."


With the guys, the differences are subtle. Even when it comes to heights, it's hard to make changes that are drastically different. I find that if you make them too tall, they look weird. The original slider hack I'd been using that was by Delphy extends the sim skeleton similar to the way we used to in TS2, but I find that's not a good way to do it. It ends up distorting the body and distorting the skin on the body.

Jonha had some sliders in testing here which break the sliders down, so instead of one slider, you have to use a minimum of three- one for the torso, one for the legs, and one for the arm length. It's a pretty clever system actually, since in real life people don't always have the same proportions. (Like Jay and I noticed a while ago we have almost the same torso length but his legs are way longer making him 6' to my 5'4".)

But as always, the fun ones to play with are really the girls.




I think the differences are obvious. Paula, coming from the Neutral area where her biggest concerns were studying and hanging out with friends, is an average size. She's got a little belly, she's wider, and her boobs are big because she has some weight to her.

Maria is the smallest. She's more of an athletic body. Her breasts are smaller, her waist is less defined, she has less of a butt. I see her always being like this even when she's older.

Kyrene is more voluptuous of course. She has hips and breasts. She's muscular, and she's not skinny. But it's unfair to compare her to these two since she is a full grown woman. You can compare her to Pat though.

With Pat, I flat out admit I spent some time on her butt. I have no good reason for it but that I'm rather proud of the way she came out. She's got a waist and hips that flare out a bit. I imagine she's young, but she's healthy and strong.


Looking for pictures of Pat, I've come across some Brandon and Pat ones I should probably share one of these days. They were the original test shots that let me know I had Pat down perfectly.

Sim to share and a game/peek

First up I offer a sim!


This sim was inspired by a good friend who gave me a link to this doll. I wanted to create a sim to resemble her.






I was playing with her looks, so this was the last outfit I actually had her in:


It's definitely a store outfit. Part of the steam punk set I think.




Heck if I know where I got the hair from. Pretty sure it's one of Miss Bonbon's recolors which can be found at GOS. The eyes are actually contacts by Heiret which I can't seem to find, but they were linked over at My Sims 3 Blog. And the eyeshadow here is Tri-tone shadow by arfmoo at MTS.

That's it. I didn't use any slider hacks so she should be fine in anyone's game. I gave her a random name and some random traits.

Sim to share (Mediafire link) Just put the file in your savedsim folder and she'll appear in the pre-made sim folder of CAS with traits and everything.




Also, over at TSR (I know, players are all, "TSR??" But I like the forum. Generally friendly and pretty drama free even if it's a little stifling with so many rules), we had a discussion about the faces of sims. That's why I was asking on Twitter what faces people recognized easier.

Even before I liked their faces, I could tell TS3 faces apart right away. With TS2 sims, unless they look really unique or they're my sims, I can't tell them apart. Give them different hair, and usually they look the same to me.

I think that shows in my sim creations. I can see the differences and I have a lot of fun molding them.

For the story, I play around with the faces, and I don't rely on the game's aging system to age their faces realistically. Instead, I tweak them to make them look older or younger. They're story sims after all, so they aren't meant for playing really. I've even gone so far as to age up toddlers with the edit in CAS feature of the supercomputer, edit their faces, then age them back down and save.

So here's a little game. I saved some story sims to the bin and de-aged them. Lets see how well I did it and how distinguishable they are.

There's probably only one that is really randomly tossed out there, but you've seen her. Once on this blog, and very recently in the story blog. ;)



Sim 1



Sim 2
(TS3 toddlers will eat you. Do not turn your back. Seriously. *walks you backwards to the next pic*)


Sim 3


Sim 4

Whenever I need inspiration

I make sims. Or at least, TS3 sims. I have never enjoyed making sims so much before. Something about the puddingness of TS3 makes the sims really appealing to me. Like I can reach out and pinch their little cheeks.

So the other night I made this guy here. He'll make an appearance in Ruin at some point (as a random background character, nothing more), but he's content to hang out and wait. True to his character, he's patient and rather laid back. He doesn't talk much, but he does smile a lot so he appears friendly at least.

I loved that thread where Stacy/Medlymisty asked about obsession. Yeah, been there. I don't usually talk about it though. Never outloud to anyone. I don't gush about the characters or even talk about them, which I guess is good because I hope that makes you want to read. XD

But I do get obsessed with characters of mine and I want to know more. The only way I know how is to look at their lives and dig. Generally, I start with the present, then hop into the past. I basically decide that I want to know what is going on with this character.

Recently, I had an old character appear out of no where and completely disobey me until he had to be written into the story. (Thanks dude.) This one here sort of waved his hand, "Aw, you don't wanna know more about me." Yes, yes I would. "Nah, it's okay."

But I got really really curious then. Why's he being so coy and mysterious?


Then I saw a scene where this guy was talking to one of the characters from Michael & Edith's story. And this new third character appeared out of no where. Truthfully, I don't know that I want her to be a part of his story. I worry that I repeat themes too much and I'll get stuck on the same one over and over again.

But then I stop and think, "Well, so what?" My story, my world, right? If this is his story, his secret that I somehow stumbled upon, well then that should be that.


Things about him that I know: His blond hair and blue eyes stand out. There aren't a lot of blonds in my world. He is friendly; it's disarming. He's dangerous and has a lot of status in both the Wildlands and the Neutral Territory. So he's one of my few characters who gets to dress nicely.

Which makes me realize that I need more nice clothes for males. My trusted sites don't have much it seems. Of course, I can also use some nice hairs for males. I seem to like hair that falls into faces.


She is utterly human. No powers, though I imagine she has an artistic streak she's never been able to mine, so it's hidden even from her. She's quiet, but curious about the things around her. There are a lot of things she knows she doesn't know and couldn't imagine, but she will do what she has to. She has a strong sense of responsibility and is thankful for whatever she has.



I can definitely see a story. (geeze, can't I always?) Don't know what to do with these side stories. There aren't usually many as most end up getting absorbed into the main story. Maybe, if things work out, I might start a separate blog or something for the side stories that are separate from the main. I have to admit, I sort of hate doing that. That gets messy. I'm not nearly organized enough.