Em's Random Sim Pics and Projects

I hope to be able to join in and share what's happening with my sims, if I can find time to play the game. Lately I've been trying to finish up a couple of challenges over at Hunter's Basic for Sims forum.

One is the Liz Taylor challenge. Where you have one sim get married 8 times during their natural lifespan. My sim Jeanette just got married to Barry, hoping the third time is a charm.



You can read more about it here.

And I've also been playing the Duggar challenge. You start with a married couple and their goal is to have and raise 14 successful children in a certain sized house without using any money cheats. My family just had their 10th and 11th children. (One got left out of the picture somehow. They're family is too big to fit on the loading screen, I guess.)



Read more about it here.

Wow Em ^^ Your sim Jeanette is beautiful and I am so going to read the stuff for those challenges. Sounds like a lot of fun. Good luck with them and keep us posted.. :laughinclappin

Thanks, Meilyn. I wasn't sure if I should post this here or in the story updates forum, but hopefully I'll have some other things going on that I can post in this thread too.

Jeanette is really Amanda from my Arrendale Heights story with a makeover.



I think she looks much better as Jeanette. ;)

Yeah I like how she looks now better, not saying anything bad about Amanda of course, but still, she is stunning visually.. you make lovely sims dear.

Em, I am SO GLAD you've decided to start your own thread in this section.

I can't believe how far you have gotten in the Duggar challenge! (Did you read that family is expecting their 19th child? Good lord!) What a handsome family yours is!
I haven't been able to play my Duggar challenge in so long, I can't remember where I left off or even much about that family (the Kokopellis)! :cuckoo:

No matter what you'd like to share regarding what's going on in your game, we'd love to hear and see it here.
Thank you for sharing, m'lady. :dancinkitty1:

I like the "Jeanette" version of her better too.

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you make lovely sims dear.

Aw, thank you for saying so. She is a sim I made all on my own in bodyshop when the game first came out. . . oh, I forgot she was based on a TS1 sim, one who had a kind of puckered face and a mole, I think. I'll have to see if I can find a picture . . . Anyway, I might have to share more of my sims.

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I can't believe how far you have gotten in the Duggar challenge!

I kind of sped things up the last time I played. Sped up Diane's pregnancies and cheated to make her have twins twice in a row. She's one set of triplets away from finishing the challenge . . . the giving birth to 14 kids part anyway.

I did read that the real Duggar family is expecting their 19th child! I could not imagine! Some days I can barely handle having just one, but it is getting easier.

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you make lovely sims dear

Sapphira is my absolute favorite, hands down. I'm planning something for her in my new AL game soon.

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I did read that the real Duggar family is expecting their 19th child! I could not imagine! Some days I can barely handle having just one, but it is getting easier.

That's the way I look at it. Not just that the family feels compelled to give birth to a small army of children...
But most of us struggle to raise just a few kids or only one child. I'm sure if I read more about the fam, that they have tons of help.
And by now, surely the teens are helping with the little people.
Still ... and I'm not their judge ... but NINETEEN? Isn't that beyond excessive? Is it truly necessary?
And what of all the starving, abused, rejected children who are sad, lonely and just dying to be adopted?

I'll get off my podium now ...

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Sapphira is my absolute favorite, hands down. I'm planning something for her in my new AL game soon.

Aw, thanks, Sugah! I saw Sapphira walking through the neighborhood the last time I played my Duddly family. I snapped her picture because she was striking a pretty pose. Now, I'm not sure if she's the exact same Sapphira I gifted to you, because I know after I first put her in the game I went back into bodyshop and did some minor tweaking. I don't know if this is the test version or the final version.



I've seen the Duggar's reality show. It's on TLC or Discovery Health (I forget which) a couple of nights a week. I think it was on last night actually. They don't seem to have a lot of help, other than the older kids helping with the others, but maybe they have more than you see on the show. I heard that the reason they have so many kids is because the mother had a miscarriage while she was on birth control and decided not to use it anymore. Their philosophy is that they want to have as many kids as God blesses them with.

Personally, I think it would be worth trying other forms of birth control, if for nothing else than to just space the kids out a little bit. And if the good Lord really does want me to have a bazillion kids he can find away to do it despite any precautions I might take, so I'm going to go ahead and take the precautions. But since they want the big family and can take care of their kids well, to each his own.

OMG! She's GORGEOUS, Em!
If you're ever feeling like donating another gift to our "Gifts from Treasured Friends" section, I'd love the new, tweaked version of fair Sapphira.
(You can change the name to protect the innocent ) That hair is beautiful on her, too. What a beauty!

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And if the good Lord really does want me to have a bazillion kids he can find away to do it despite any precautions I might take, so I'm going to go ahead and take the precautions.

The gift I gave you was the tweaked version. She's either the same one or a previous version. I know I changed the hair and makeup before I packaged her for you because I was trying to use just cc that you had listed on your complete sims pages as being share friendly. I could extract her with simpe and package her up for you, if you think she looks different enough from the previous Sapphira.

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...if you think she looks different enough from the previous Sapphira...

I think she looks different enough, Em. Do you?
I've lightened up on the CC guidelines, so if you wish to submit her with the hair, makeup and ensemble of your choice ... tweaked or not ...
I would be honored to offer her here at Sugah's.

I may do that, Sugah. When I get the chance. I do need to make or find the right ensemble for her, so far I don't have anything that really suits her. I may come up with a new name for her and call her Sapphira's twin sister. ;)

Lately I've gotten this crazy notion to go through bodyshop, radically makeover some of my sims or just generally purdy them up and offer them for download. What do you think?

I was going to attempt to do that yesterday, but as soon as I loaded up my game, the little guy woke up and that was the end of my alone time for the day. Instead I ended up making my own family (which I won't be offering for download). I've mentioned that I'd tweaked mysimself and my husband's simself in bodyshop awhile ago and I know Sugah said she was interested in seeing the new sim versions of us. So here we are.



I'm not sure if I like that skintone on my hubby. I chose it because it has bodyhair and it looks slightly more tanned than the light skintone, but not as dark as the standard tan tone. I may need to use some face masks on him. I had to give my simself a little plastic surgery, because the lower half of her face looked way too narrow at first, but now I'm not sure if I like how her jaw sticks out in the back so much. Maybe it's ok though. Her hair should really be darker too. And I don't have a close up of the baby, because all of the toddlers we spawned with the "make a baby" tool looked kind of funky, especially around the eyes and cheekbones. A lot of my sim toddlers have that problem. His simself does not do him justice, but he does seem to age well in CAS. I think I'll probably keep him as a toddler or child though. I don't want to make my baby grow up.

Oh, and I forgot to add. When I pulled up my Simhubby in CAS, the baby pointed and said "Dada," so I must have done a pretty good job. But of course, he's only one and a half (as of yesterday) so he sometimes calls everyone Dada.

I'd love to have Sapphira's tweaked twin sister to offer (exclusively, of course ) here at Sugah's Place.
If you manage to get her to me before my update this Thursday evening, I could announce her with mine.
(No worries, either way. I'll just be grateful to have her. )

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...radically makeover some of my sims or just generally purdy them up and offer them for download. What do you think?

I think it's a great idea. Downloads are the big draw (or so it seems to me) for Sims 2 sites.
If you have the lure of offering goodies to Simmers, more will come, then hopefully, get enthralled in your stories.
Let's put it this way. It certainly couldn't hurt, Em. But that's just my opinion! I say GO FOR IT, lady!!!
You are welcome to announce any of your download updates here, too, of course. ;)

I think the new SteveSim and EmSim look quite nice.
I can't tell much difference in Steve, but the shape of your face has definitely been altered (more prominent back jawbone) ... and I am lovin' that hair on your Simself.
It looks so soft and hangs so naturally. Does it come in a darker shade, like you're needing for her?

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When I pulled up my Simhubby in CAS, the baby pointed and said "Dada," so I must have done a pretty good job.
But of course, he's only one and a half (as of yesterday) so he sometimes calls everyone Dada.

That's great, Em! Too funny! :lol!:

She's got to be exclusive? ;) Don't worry, that shouldn't be a problem. I packaged her up and took some screenshots last night, so if I get a chance tonight or tomorrow to get her togther, I might be able to meet the deadline. I'll see what I can do.

Believe me, I know what a boost downloads can add to your site. I think I showed you once the screenshot I took of my hitcounter after I updated with some outfits. It was a HUGE jump. I don't know if I'm going to really worry about putting things on my site right now or trying to draw people there right now. Maybe someday when if I can get enough freetime to do semi-regular updates I might try to get going again. Right now I've only got a few free hours alone where I could really sit down to work on anything. If I do offer some sims for download, I'll probably do it through one of the forums, not sure yet.

I didn't change SteveSim very much, I mostly just tried to smooth out his facial features so his face didn't look so lumpy. I've been struggling to get EmSim's lower face width right, without making her face look too chubby or having the back of the jaw stick out so far. I'm going to have to find out where I downloaded that hairstyle from and see if there is a darker shade of brown. I do like that style a lot, but I don't have a darker brown in my downloads. I changed her hair last night, but I didn't get a chance to copy the pictures over so I could share them online today.

Ok, so he doesn't call other people Dada that often, but sometimes once he starts saying it, he tends to keep saying it for awhile. I was trying to get him to say Mama the other day, but he kept saying Dada. So I'd say I'd shake my head and say, "No, I'm not Dada, I'm Mama." Then he'd say Dada again and start laughing. Silly boy. Last night he would say Nana instead of Mama, so I had to say "No, I'm not a banana." and he'd laugh. He can say Mama. Usually he does when he really wants me to come with him or do something for him.

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She's got to be exclusive? ;)

Yes, please!!! Here's the scoop on that, m'lady.

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...so if I get a chance tonight or tomorrow to get her togther, I might be able to meet the deadline...

If you feel you can, just post Sapphira's lovely twin yourself in our Gifts from Treasured Friends section, Em.
Once you do, let me know asap so I can include her in my update jpg and announcement, k?

When you decide to add regular downloads to your site, please let me know if you'll be receiving gifts from friends.
I am alway glad to help out whenever I can (if you'd like some contributions, that is).

I loved your little story about Chase saying "dada" and how you're not (nana) banana!
I think your son has already developed a sense of humor. Don't you?

SimEm wrote:

My family just had their 10th and 11th children. (One got left out of the picture somehow.

I cannot believe you can manage 11 children in this game; I really think I would lose my mind.

SimEm wrote:

(One got left out of the picture somehow. They're family is too big to fit on the loading screen, I guess.)

Wow, even your PC knows when it's too much.

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SimEm wrote:
(One got left out of the picture somehow. They're family is too big to fit on the loading screen, I guess.)

Autumnelle wrote:
Wow, even your PC knows when it's too much.

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I think your son has already developed a sense of humor. Don't you?

Yes, I do! Most of the time it's an ornery sense of humor. He thinks it's funny to do what you tell him not to do. He doesn't say many words yet. Almost everything is Bah. We've been trying to teach him to say "more" instead of just shouting when he wants more of something, it usually sounds like "mah."

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Wow, even your PC knows when it's too much.

:lol!:

Having that many kids hasn't been too bad really. Mostly the teens take care of the infants and toddlers (there's only been one of each at a time, until the very end when I started making the mother have twins) while their pregnant mom rests and the dad works. She takes care of the little ones when the bigger kids are at school. The child age children mostly fend for themselves. I do have the parents or teens cook for them, but they're pretty good at finding ways to entertain themselves.

Here's some more pictures of my simself's family. I changed her hair to make it look more like mine. Sort of, mine's not that long right now and it's way thicker and used some face masks on simhubby to improve his look.





Here's what the little guy looks like as a child and a teen.





Aw, he's sad that I turned him back into a baby again!




Here's a sim I decided to make over. This is Veronica Townsend, from Arrendale Heights. She's a psychiatrist, married to an older businessman. He has a daughter from a previous marriage, but they don't have any kids together. I need to play her sometime. I feel kind of bad that she hasn't had much of a life in the game and in the story her role was a small one too.



With a change of hair, make-up, and eyebrows she can look like this . . .



When I change her skintone, something about her look just pops. That skintone is from Anva. I really like them on some sims, but it's a little heavy on the blush, especially on the men.

Really nice pics. That Anva skintone is really hot but I can see what you mean about the make-up factor on a man.

SimEm wrote:

Having that many kids hasn't been too bad really. Mostly the teens take care of the infants and toddlers (there's only been one of each at a time, until the very end when I started making the mother have twins) while their pregnant mom rests and the dad works.

I am looking at your pics and really wanting to try this challenge, but I don't know. Seems like a bit much, but I really can't do anything until my real life home improvement project is done.

SimEm wrote:

Aw, he's sad that I turned him back into a baby again!

That is too funny!

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He doesn't say many words yet. Almost everything is Bah.

Should we start calling him "Eb" (short for Ebeneezer)? I'd be really worried if he started saying, "Bah. Humbug."

Where did you find Em's new hair? Looks great! Steve looks better with the face masks.

Your little guy looks way better as a teen than he does adult & toddler.

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That Anva skintone is really hot but I can see what you mean about the make-up factor on a man.

I concur! Veronica looks beautiful with the Anva skintone, but that much blush on a man is just plain icky!
I've seen a lot of skintones like that.

Thank you for sharing your Sims adventures with us, Em. I enjoyed all your pics and commentaries, as always.

Maybe someday if I get ambitious I'll try to edit those skintones and tone down the blush. I wonder if anyone has tried to do that already...

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I'd be really worried if he started saying, "Bah. Humbug."

Well, it's more like "ball" without the Ls on the end or sometimes it's more like "buh." I'm trying to get him to say some other sounds. Yesterday we were reading a book and on every single page or picture he'd point and say, "buh." Not everything starts with B.

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Yesterday we were reading a book and on every single page or picture he'd point and say, "buh."

Awww...
He's at such a precious age, Em. I love it when they're first discovering things and trying to communicate with us.
The world through a little one's eyes is truly a magical place, isn't it?

Not much has been going on in my game lately, but I read an update about a few of my sims in someone else's game today that made me very happy.

A long time ago I shared the story of my Carr family at PTS in our "Through the Years" thread. I had a pair of siblings, Suzanna and Jesse who were unlucky in love. They had both dated when they were younger, but the sims they dated in college ended up marrying each other and I never found anyone suitable for them in the neighborhood. Jesse tried to date, but the sim he dated after his college girlfriend got scared off when he proposed too soon and then the next girl he dated didn't seem quite right. He accidentally adopted a child out of college and became a single dad looking for love.

I'm sometimes active on the Simmerville site, which is a "For sims, By sims" site. Basically you role play as your sims, rather than posting as a sims player. Anyway, a sim posted looking for help finding potential mates for her single adult children, so Suzanna and Jesse's mother Layla responded and encouraged Jesse to write to this woman's daughter, Fiona. I ended up sending my Jesse to this other player and in her game Jesse and Fiona got married and have 3 daughters.

Suzanna was also having trouble finding a partner. There was one guy that she had chemistry with and who was good looking, but their interactions were rarely positive. I think he was kind of concieted. She also had a crush on the mailman, but he wasn't very attractive and she's a doctor, so their stations in life don't exactly mesh either. Suzanna is very career oriented, so finding a spouse wasn't so important to her. But she was getting on in years, nearing the end of her adult stage and her mother was also getting older and only had a few simdays left, so I hated for her to be left all alone. She ended up reconnecting with her brother, Jesse, on the boards (by me, writing as Suzanna to the player who now has Jesse) I sent Suzanna to visit Jesse and she ended up falling passionately in love with a friend of her sister-in-law. And thanks to ACR, in the other player's game, she ended up pregnant by him. So I let Suzanna move to their neighborhood permanently, marry her dream guy, Bradford and start a family with him.

So the other player posted an update on Suzanna, Jesse, and their families today. And it just made me so happy to see how full their lives had become. My game has become so stagnant and if I hadn't shared them, they would have been sitting there, no family or lives of their own. It just made my day.

Funny how attached we get to our little simmies. Sometimes they do become like old friends.

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I had a pair of siblings, Suzanna and Jesse who were unlucky in love ...
I ended up sending my Jesse to this other player and in her game Jesse and Fiona got married and have 3 daughters ...
I sent Suzanna to visit Jesse and she ended up falling passionately in love with a friend of her sister-in-law and pregnant by him.

Awww...EM! I remember Suzanna and Jesse. We all felt so badly for them.
How neat that they have found love and both have families now in someone else's game. That is TOO COOL!

I visited Apple Valley Blogs and Suzanna has such a lovely family now.
It's so much fun to see her with a nice, handsome hubby and beautiful twin girls.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

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Funny how attached we get to our little simmies. Sometimes they do become like old friends.

I bet there's not a single Simmer here who can not relate to that statement.

(I tried to post this yesterday, but it timed out and the forum went down for maintenance before I could push send. Then just now the fire alarm went off and I had to go outside in the cold and wind. I'm beginning to think I'm not meant to post this...)

Actually Jesse's the one with the twins. He has a child aged daughter (Veronica) and toddler twins (Jessica and Jennifer). Suzanna has a child aged step-daughter (Lacy) and an infant daughter (Lily). So many adorable little girls in that family! It's hard for me to give up my sims, but it's so nice to see them with such vibrant lives now. Things were pretty bleak for them in my game.

My latest simming endeavor is to recreate my Arrendale Heights neighborhood. I'm starting over with it so I can keep the neighborhood small and lose all of the billion townies that live in the original hood and I'm creating families with older children to skip ahead from where the story ended.

Lately Lucy has been calling to me. In this new hood she's a single mom. She was raised in a well off family, but had to simplify her life and downsize her home after some financial problems and after her divorce. She still has a taste for the finer things and wants to be as stylish as her budget will allow.



Her oldest child is her son, Stuart. He was named after his mother's maiden name, which she went back to after her divorce. Now that he's older he prefers to go by Vince, a shortened version of his middle name, because it sounds cooler.



This is her youngest, her daughter, Maura.



I moved them into this default Maxis house. It was sort of a random choice. I didn't feel like building from the ground up so I picked it out of the lots bin. I like this house, except for a few design flaws that are easily fixed. Like for example I've noticed sims feel like they have to walk into the bathroom at the top of the steps everytime they go upstairs, so I moved the bathroom door and it was no longer an issue.



I built walls to partition off the ground floor. It was all one large room, but in the past when I used this house I kind of arranged the furniture like it was separate rooms anyway, so I decided to go ahead and put up some walls. I've made a lot of changes since I took this picture (the pictures are at home and I'm not, so I'll have to share them later.) I worked on the middle room after this picture and I've been fiddling with the back room a lot. I'm not sure what I think of it. So if any of you with decorating skills or can recognize what looks good have any opinions or suggestions, let me know. I really would appreciate any honest, constructive feedback on this. Decorating is not my strong suit. I'm kind of lazy in that department.



I redid the kitchen / dining area first. The counters and appliances are pretty much as they were in the house from the start. I added the island and the decorative touches. I really like the shape of the chair backs and the table in the dining area, but I'm not sure if the colors really go that well with the rest of the room. What do you think? Does it look ok or should I look into some recolors?



Here is another view. It needs something in the corner by the table I think, but I'm not sure what. I don't have a lot of cc in terms of furniture in my game, so I couldn't find anything in my catalogue that looked like it would work.



Here's the backroom that I've been fiddling with. I think I like the way the furniture is arranged, but I'm not sure about the color scheme. Is it too bold? Since I've gone back and worked in the middle room, I think it doesn't match with the rest of the house very well. I'm not sure if that matters or not.



The picture over the desk is of Lucy's late parents. The one on the other wall was a wedding picture of her and her ex-husband. I'm not sure she'd really want to display that, but I took the time to make it and I like it, so I put it up anyway. Sometime I'll have to do some pictures of her and the kids to replace it maybe.



This is with a solid red wall. I actually used this one before trying the one in the above pictures. I couldn't decide on a floor to go with it. The original carpet was gray. That seemed too dingy, so I tried white, but that was too bright. Dark colors made it seem too dark, too much like a lounge. But maybe that's what it is. I don't know. What do you think? The last time I played I tried a two tone wall in more neutral colors. I'll have to upload that picture later.



Another view



I'm pretty happy with the center room, but I'll have to show pictures of that later. I didn't get them uploaded or copied over on my jump drive last night. It got late.

So suggestions? Tell me what you like or dislike about it. I'd appreciate the help.

(eta: looking at the pictures on this computer - those chairs are really red and clashy aren't they? It looked different on my computer screen at home.)