The fresh air out here was wonderful! Rural Windenburg was great, but something about the mountains just called to her.
If Miera could live out here permanently she would, but the area was owned by Landgraab and Landgraab Inc., and they kept a tight hold over their rental properties.
Thank you so much! I’ve held on to this ask for awhile because I just don’t feel like an authority on this subject. I think everyone has a sim style, and I don’t always feel like my faces are as variant as I would like them.
That said, I had a few tips and ideas to share!
1. Study Faces. I’ve been fascinated by the human face my entire life. I studied to be a portrait artist so I’m always looking at people and imagining how I would draw them!
You don’t need to be an artist to be fascinated by faces though. Start collecting images of people whose faces strike you – I have a whole Pinterest board of them! You can use these images to base entire sims off of, or you could find just one particular facial feature inspires you.
2. Proportion. Here’s a very basic guide to human facial proportions. I like to make my sims feel a bit more realistic, and I’ve noticed that the default sims 4 faces have very large eyes and teeny tiny noses. So the first thing I start with is reducing the eye size and increasing the nose. I’ll also usually reduce the head size as well.
Then, once things are feeling more human, I mess with the proportions to create interesting shapes. Maybe one sim will have really wide-set eyes and a long nose; someone else might have a very small mouth and longer chin. Don’t be afraid to make non-conventionally attractive people. Play around and have fun!
3. Use Different Presets. This is kind of an obvious tip, but if you always use the same presets, it’s going to be hard to make different-looking sims. I am guilty of this – there’s a particular jaw that I prefer and I only use the eyes without eyelashes so I can use cc eyelashes. But try to stay out of preset ruts!
4. Profile. Don’t forget to visit the profile. You can have the best looking sim from the front, and then you turn to the side and they look like a frog. You can adjust the individual features as well as the depth of the entire face.
5. Touch Every Slider. I make a point to touch every slider, including in the detailed view, for every sim I make. Some will just have small changes, but I don’t leave anything exactly how the preset is.
6. Don’t underestimate the power of Skin Details. Skin details bring sims to life. Freckles, eye bags, nose masks, mouth corners, overlays, etc. – they all contribute to making your sims feel alive and unique. I have a collection of my favorite skin details here.
7. Step away and come back. Work on your new sim, then take a break and go do something else. When you return with fresh eyes, you will notice things you’d like to change that you didn’t see before.
Miera was invited to the birthday party of an old acquaintance, Akito Maeda, who was about to become an old man. There were only a few other party guests, and they quickly clustered around the food, which turned out to be the requisite cake… and pancakes?
I’d like to say ‘why are you all standing around in the kitchen instead of the spacious living room?’ but I’m more disturbed by the terrible lighting in this house…
Her previous savings combined with what Aunt Edna had given her allowed Miera to extend the front of the house enough to fit a small table and chair, and a reading nook complete with tiny bookshelf. She bought a dresser in the hopes of filling it soon, hung the adorable cat painting up over the new couch, and bought curtains to decorate her brand new windows.
During the construction, the contractors found termites trying to make a home in her re-purposed wood siding, so she opted to tear it off and go with stucco, and a
fresh
coat of white paint.
She planted the fruits and veggies she got from the Chalet in a few planters around the house, and the flowers she brought home from the Festival were planted around her easel.
While she was out, Miera heard that the Romance Festival was in town, and decided to check it out. She didn’t meet anyone of interest, but she found a bunch of free fruits and flowers she could take home, and they had free paintings lessons as long as you donated the pictures back to the Festival hosts. Apparently they were to be part of a raffle at the end of the event. Miera made her first picture for the donation, and with the new techniques they showed her, she made an adorable kitty painting.
“Now that’s a keeper!”
When she got home, she checked her mailbox and found a letter from her aunt Edna. She had heard about Miera’s plight and sent her a check for 1,000 simoleons to help her out.
Do you know what that means?
It means she can afford a real living room, and windows!
Sims County 
