So, whenever I play the sims it's always with content other's have created. For example if I want a family with a mother and a father I'd download the two most decent looking sims and play with them as well as have them live in lots I've downloaded. I'm getting kind of sick of it but if I even try and "beautify" a sim they end up looking like something out of a horror film. I was wondering if maybe the veterans use a specific slider for specifically the face and head shape? Or if...maybe I'm just going at it wrong. Thanks!

My own favourites are:
(1) Narrow the head width
(2) Make the eyes a little smaller
(3) Space the eyes about one eye-width apart.
Your mileage may vary.

The first thing that helped me in creating better looking Sims is to get a mod that stops them from constantly smiling when in CAS. It is still beyond me why the developers decided to let them smile in the character creation screen in the first place. I use AwesomeMod in my regular game for this and this one here in my test games.
The next thing is a decent default replacement skin. It makes a huge difference.
I don't use any extra sliders or slider hacks and am quite content with how my Sims look. Of course your mileage may vary with regard to what is considered a horrendous face.

PAGING MINGHAM SMITH BECAUSE I CAN'T REMEMBER WHEREABOUTS IN HIS BIG THREAD HIS ANTI PUDDING GUIDE IS

Well, this is the second or third time I've reposted it on this forum, but here we go:

How Not To Make Puddings: Version 1.0

With regard to making memorable children that don't look like crap:

- Use a default replacement skin for children, because the base game one is terrible. Ladyfrontbum made a good one once, I think it was called Jack and Jill.

- Use Wojtek's chin to neck slider and the separate child chin to neck slider someone else made to correct the odd way the lower jaw connects to the neck. If necessary, edit your townspeople in CAS and retroactively apply them both to everybody so their jaws don't look off.

- Don't leave your sim child's personality underdeveloped. Give them just as much character as an older one- believe me, it makes them easier to get attached to. And if you're writing about your child sims, a golden rule of mine is not to underestimate them. Realistically, children are neither unintelligent nor as innocent as many people like to assume they are. If you just define them as the sons/daughters of your main adult sims and don't consider them outside that, you're missing out on plenty of opportunities for funny or endearing moments.

With regard to making sims in general not look like puddings:

In my experience, there are a few very specific things that make many TS3 sims look off-putting and wrong, and basically all of them stem from the fact that someone at EA doesn't know how skulls work. Use a 2x slider multiplier and drag your town out of the Uncanny Valley by doing the following:

- Pudding eyes are much too far apart. Generally, the distance between human eyes is equal to the width of one eye. Move them far closer together.

- Pudding eyebrows are way, way, WAY too high. Lower them a great deal, and find lower-positioned CC eyebrows until you have something that doesn't look permanently surprised. This is particularly important for toddlers and children, who have awful default eyebrows that I never use.

- Pudding heads are generally much too wide- they appear to have several inches between the outer corners of the eyes and the sides of the head, while most actual human beings don't have much more than an inch and a half there. Reduce head width. A lot.

- Pudding mouths smile by default. But a smile is, of course, totally meaningless as an expression if that's all you can do. Reshape mouths into a neutral expression in CAS. Suddenly, everybody emotes far more naturally.

- Puddings are far too rounded and undefined, especially male ones. Lower the cheek fullness until they seem reasonable for somebody with their skull shape and build. The overall idea would be to give some impression of there being underlying facial bones, which puddings lack because they're worthless lumps of clay.

All of the above suggestions lead to sims with facial proportions much closer to TS2 sims, and also help to reduce the apparent size of sim heads to something closer to reality.

I woulda posted it myself if I could remember whereabouts it was. :P

What I do personally to make nicer looking Sims...
- Lessen Head Width
- Lessen Head Size
- Lessen Eye Size
- Thick lips
- Puffy, cute cheeks for women
- More defined Jawline for men

I also have some custom sliders that change their waist, hips, breast and leg width. Helpful for me, if I want to create "chunky legged" women or similar.

C-A

One thing I do is increase the jaw shape to make it way way more defined, and then use the jaw width slider to bring that back to where I want it since jaw shape makes sims jaws go way wide.

For a long time, I just assumed I was somehow incapable of making attractive Sims and thus put absolutely 0 effort into my Sims, but after reading Mingham's guide, I got a lot more into it, and I'd consider myself an a'ight Sim maker now. I don't use any slider hacks, but I downloaded some default replacement skins and eyes (the Tiffany Glaze eyes and all of LadyFrontBum's skins) and it really does make a huge difference.

Three more tips:

• Try making Sims from a photographic reference. Use pictures of yourself, people you know, celebrities, stock photos, whatever, just reference a picture of an actual human face while you make your Sims. You don't necessarily need to try and recreate the person in the photo exactly (although that can be a good way to teach yourself what each slider does), but it helps to have something to look back at, especially if you're playing around in the extreme ends of the slider range. If I spend a long time in create-a-sim, I always start to lose sight of how faces are proportioned, so the first two Sims I make look fine, and then the rest are uncanny valley refugees.
• Whenever you make a Sim you like, save 'em to the bin. I've got a decent "stock" of attractive (or at least non-horrifying) Sims, and if I'm short on time (or I'm making Sims for a challenge or something and don't care as much about appearance), I'll load two Sims I like and use the "Play With Genetics" option until I get something I like. It's an easy way to generate non-puddings when you don't actually care too much about their appearance.
• Another fun exercise: try building the Sim in a different age/gender/lifestate/whatever than what you intend them to be. Make their face look good at that life stage/gender, then switch the demographics in the Information panel. I sometimes get stuck in a rut and start making really same-y Sims, and this helps me break out of my comfort zone a little. Switching a female child to an adult male adds a little element of surprise to CAS, which can be really fun. It's always an experiment, and sometimes it doesn't work out, but it can also generate some really interesting, distinctive Sims.

And don't worry too much if your first few creations aren't successful. Give yourself time to learn the tools, and you'll be making fab Sims in no time

Well, everyone's already given you valuable advises about using sliders, custom skins, eyes... There's only one thing left to mention as far as I'm concerned - makeup.

Ever seen how make-up can make us girls much prettier? . Even Barbie uses it . Well, it's the same with Sims. They can be both more attractive and more realistic looking with some of the makeup available in the Sims community. Makeup CC artists I'd recommend, are Ephemera, Tifa, mochi029, Gosik, S-club (also, like Pakia said, S-club eyelashes are a must have!)...

But besides all this, talent is needed I guess. I have a bunch of CC and sliders, but I can never create unique pretty Sims like I see more skilful sim makers do. I'm more of a builder type. But I hope this helps a bit..

True about the makeup MystAngel. I even use some of the makeup as shading on the guys. The one eyeshadow from SN, just play with the color and it brings the skintones out or find a good matte lipstick that give the guys lipcolor. Big difference there.

Download some hair you like, perhaps a new skin, some outfits and yadiyadiyada, play around a bit in CAS.

Absolutely, lewis. Good thing about especially high-quality CC makeup, is that it can be anything but gender restrictive. There are really very creative ways people use shading and blushing. Lips too. I noticed dry lips by In3s are pretty popular among simmers when making a male sim. Also, many blushes and eyeshadows are made to look like wrinkles, pores... We even have scars! Many, many ways to use makeup tool to make even male sims look more realistic and unique but also keep their manly appearance intact.

I agree with this, except for one thing. Use a video, not a photo. Brains process static and dynamic images differently; it's why there's such a difference between looking at a photo of yourself and looking at a mirror. In CAS, the sims move, so it makes sense to base them off of a dynamic image.

Another default skin worth looking at, and one I now prefer to the Lady Frontbum one that Mingham suggested, is the E Skin Natural which can be found right on this site. It's a reasonable size, and the details are, IMO, terrific. It actually replaced the older LFB defaults for me.The link is http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=493687.

And yes, judicious use of makeup can go a long way in improving appearance. And, while I know some folks do great work with the stock sliders and no multiplier, I'm not one of them, and rely on a ton of sliders gathered up over the years. And the chin to neck slider is a must have. One other new slider I just found is from YStudio, and is called a "shape the face line", and is nice in that it resizes the chin line along with the jawline for a more natural blend. It can be found here http://ysstudio.org/slider_page/yuu..._face_line.html

Thank you for the great response everyone, it has greatly helped me. And I can't help but feel a small improvement. With all the tips and advice I managed to create a few sims I can't help but feel a little bit proud of, this being one of the ( forgive the heavy editing) examples:

I kind of just gave up and have been downloading premade Sims then adjusting them to fit my needs. I did make one, and based her off of a photo of a real person, which did help but she's not stunningly gorgeous like the premade ones.

Although two premades that I downloaded had a baby and he grew up into the hottest male Sim that I've ever seen. Usually that doesn't happen because the poor kid tends to get the worst slider combinations, but not this time.

Downloading premades started giving me headaches, I mean you have to download a sh** ton of cc and sliders and even then they end up looking like a shovel most of the time in-game x_x.

yes i also find downloading premade sims no sufficient solution because they can bring really bad stuff with them. sharing/learning some tricks and trying to make own sims is a lot better. also who says that all sims have to look like supermodels? i am really sikk of premade sims cause most look simply boring (meaning oh so beautiful) there is no need in mimicing and recreating those beauties all the time. maybe the sims some of you guys here made are absolutely awesome and much better exactly because they look different.
also there has to be a level up at some point if one doesnt stop creating sims ;-)

Yeah, I've been trying to slowly learn to make my own. Downloading pre-mades helps since I can see what they did. I also have started "collecting" custom sliders and they really help. I know that people can make very lovely Sims without custom sliders, but I'm not at that level of skill yet.

LOL - i also use a lot of sliders on my sims and see no disadvantage in it (but i am not planning to share them) i couldnt live without oneeuromutts sliders . especially the uneven ones - it doesnt matter if one likes overrealistic faces or maxis match sweet ones, they always give sims a better assymetrical look (one has to use them really subtle of course ). maybe you know them already but i cant stop promoting this creator
also a huge difference apart from shaping a face with sliders actually is the make up. none of my sims leaves the house without make up (like wrinkles and eye bags, pores and reddish face details or subtle "impure skin" effects, everything that additionally shapes the face like darkening certain sections with blush) but the extend always depends on the personal taste. i undoubtly like my sims more off grid than others do

I keep trying to make good looking sims unsuccessfully. I think it has something to do with the jaw? I was randomizing sims and I got a really nice looking one her jaw might've been different. I am lowering the amount of fat on their face, making their heads smaller, moving their eyebrows down. Its not doing me much good. Unless I get a randomized sim that already looks kind of ok.. well..