I'm awful most of my sims look the same. Unless i use bodyshop i just use the maxis face templates. My sims all look to perfect to be at all real or unique.

My suggestion?
Randomize from the CAS, Then toy around with the structure and nose/mouth etc.
I find it helpful and it got me to a point with a beautiful realistic-looking sim :D
Delilah Harlin, I love you.

An Addition To breeding: Lets say you have a beautiful lady, face structure perfect, even without make-up she looks perfect. I have a sim like that and I decided to go to the unique way and get her a townie husband since I was sick of making the same faces.. [I usually randomize But I just found a very cute facial face that I use almost every time I make a new sim :confused: ] Moving on, He was some-what rich so I accepted him and he wasn't far from ugly. I cheated and got the plastic-surgery and had made him, Perfect but have very thin lips. When it came to getting a baby, she had the perfect skin tone as mom, thin lips [This made her look old, other than her face structure], and since she's a baby you really can't tell about the facial structure. As she grew she got a rectangular/square-ish face. [The parents did NOT have this at all!] You don't want this at all!!! I am thinking some of the guys gene are still behind his face and passed on to his daughter. Now that I think of it, it upsets me, I got her a new guy and the girl is shy and very nice to have around. Just her face disturbs me. Now I will have to use the Insim cheat to get her face perfect. Or I might just keep the unique her. [Cough]

Solsol,
Valerie. :howdy:

I use the random button and then I edit some of the facial features. Then I go about halfway or so on one templates. I tweak it a bit. Go a bit on another template. ( try not to use the first one much)

I just use the defualt skintone, eyes, ect. while doing this if I'm trying to create a face of a beautiful sim, since I figure that if the sim's feature look good in those then it'll look better with the custom items.

I usually just choose a face in CASand work with it from there.
Most of my sims chins get rounded, their eyebrows up like they're worried,
full lips and large eyes.

I like when they look realllyy pretty. Although if something goes wrong I feel bad.

I tend to use the first face template to start and then start tweking with it mostly I fucus on the chin eyes and cheeks I like to make my sims have more smooth tapering faces with long thin almost cat like eyes. I then always check them as toddlers and the oposite gender, unless I am making one of my charaters then I dont care about breedablity becuse I am to focused on making them look like what is in my head.

As far as I know, Uni Plastic Surgery and the Makeover Chair don't change genes... That may be your problem.

I use a CAS default replacement and I started to model my sims faces at Bodyshop to get best results. I like to mix them, using Maxis default families and my new sims to get more interesting results. I am deeply interested in how genetics works and how I can get interesting facial geometry results, so I have a hood just to make genetics experiments. Recently I am getting better results but I believe the grat responsible for that is the CAS default replacement.

I tend to download premade Sims, then edit 'em. Obviously, I dl Sims that I think are nice looking, but I always, always adjust things a bit. Other than that, I randomize. Many of my female sims have purple eyes, because I love purple - lol.

I don't know... I just play around until I make something I like. I try not to make them too... "beautiful"... just kinda cute and quirky.

Is it possible to change the skin tone of an already made sim without a program like SimPE? I have a sim who I've been playing with and his skin is too dark, I need to change it, is there anyway to do it without creating a new sim?

Forrest, you can download Christianlov's Skintone Selector right here : http://sims2graveyard.com/download.html

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it.

Wow, that's a great method. I think I'll use that for my "poor" sims in my new neighbourhood.

I just discovered a Body Shop trick for unique sims.

1. Open Body Shop.
2. Click the "Create Sims" option.
3. Click the plus sign beside the first sim.
4. Go to "Faces".
5. Select the "Face" option.
6. Choose an archetype. Any archetype.
7. Notice the sliders below each archetype? Yes? Good.
8. Adjust the sliders to the right, but not all the way to the right (or else you'll fully express the archetype).
9. Repeat the procedure for the brows, eyes, nose, mouth, and jawline.
10. Use the modifier sliders for further tweaking.

It doesn't matter what archetype you choose, as long as you get the result that you want. Example, you can use the Heart face as the base and blend some features from the ugly #18 face. You can blend the Kaylynn nose with the Joe Carr nose. Order doesn't matter either.

Talk about detailed instructions :D

I'm really bad in creating sims. All the founder's in my current city are downloaded, which I then use as a base and work from that. Some need major modifications becaue the moment you remove makeup, change to default skin and remove full face paint. What used to be a really unique sim, turns out to be extremely plain. Then I just work from that, enhancing the features I think suits them. If I had to make the sim from scratch, most would look the same, this way all of them are different from the start.

I usually use bodyshop. There are more sliders, therefore you can creat more unique simmies!

I sometimes create Sims in BodyShop, but one time I got a very interesting face from CAS. Anyway, what I do is I just take a random Maxis template and tweak it a bit to my liking. Or I'll download a Sim and edit them. You could also try to make a Sim version of someone you know in real life. The result might not look exactly like them, but maybe you'll end up with an interesting face.
I always try to give them one ugly feature, like in real life, and one feature that stands out a bit, be it full lips, a big nose, or thick eyebrows. I've gotten some very nice faces that way.
Although sometimes it's better to throw all the tips out the window and just start randomly going crazy with the sliders. You may not get beauty queens/kings that way but you'll have an unusual face.
Breeding Sims... well, I breed Sims that don't have radically different faces, and I try to make sure that the Sim's face looks good as the opposite gender too, and in all life stages. Other than that it's pretty much luck.