Cosmetics 101: Lesson 1
Aug 31, 2008 20:53:34 GMT
Post by andavri on Aug 31, 2008 20:53:34 GMT
Look at the lips on her.
Cosmetics One-oh-One lesson one:
"I think I hate lipstick." If I had a dime for every time I've heard and or said that as regards the sims, I would have at least enough to buy a book.
As it is a big complaint (and not that I blame the complainer), I figured we could start with lipstick. It can be tricky, there is no denying that, and anyone who doesn't think so, probably either has done it so much that it's never a problem or their sims look exactly the same or they don't use make-up at all. But if you keep certain things in mind, it's not as difficult as it seems.
Part of the reason I think we find lipstick so difficult comes from the number of things involved in lipstick for your sims. As hard as it is to find a good lipstick in real life, (and I should know I've quested for years to find the right ones), it's even harder in the game.
Think about it. There are Matte, Semi matte, Gloss, High Gloss, Sheer, Opaque, open mouth, closed mouth. Then you have the way the light hits, the edge of the alpha – is it hard or soft? Is the alpha exaggerated in some way, did the person use a soft alpha with a skintone underneath when they created it? Then you get into shades and lightness, color.
You have a headache just writing all the things you have issues with down on the page, let alone using these things to your advantage. No worries, we'll take it simply. I promise.
First of all, there's getting good lipstick. It's happened to me more times than I can count, something looks promising on the site and then I get it into game and bleh. Gag me!! And where do you download from? With the exception of one creator, all the lipsticks I'm using are free content. The one non-free content is Xandher's from TSR. I'm using hers at all because she has some good examples and I have sort of a love/hate relationship with it. I love the way it's so well done, I don't like the way a lot of it looks on my sims and it's easy enough to point out why.
Most of the lipsticks that I use are from MTS actually, I have several creators who put their stuff up there that I really like. Also La Pink and JustSims 2, Lyran's stuff is of course excellent, but I tend not to use it quite as much.
I think the easiest way to find good lipstick is to download and cull. If you can, use a clean game to test your make-up and test it in game on a couple sims – not just in CAS. You'll see why when we get a little further along in the lesson. But basically download what you think looks good, even if it's more than you think you'll use. Chances are you won't keep a lot of it.
I can't tell you what to download; I know what I download to make my sims look like my sims. You're not me, and what your sims look like isn't what my sims look like.
So when you've got all the stuff you want to try, it's time to hop into the game. I'm running a completely clean game, other than the genetics I'm using for the sims in the game, some teeshirts and jeans, Lipstick is what I have in it. It's easier this way, all things considered. And less load time.
My first rule: DO NOT obsessively apply make-up in CAS. Just like Bodyshop and CAS don't look the same, once you get into the game your sims are going to look different than in CAS. The game is really the only place to work with make-up. So getting all obsessive about what looks good in CAS is a waste of time more or less.
And remember, in CAS you have one light. In the game, especially if you have Seasons, you have tons. So what looks good in CAS might look like the south end of a north-bound horse on a rainy day in game. You're playing in game, you want to test in game.
Here are my models:
A. Sim-Juleah: Model edition
B. Sim-Kellie: Model edition
D. Malinda: Randomly created sim by way of blended default face templates.
E. Sandy: See above.
C. Sim-Steph: I'm everywhere don't you know?
At this point the only make-up being worn by anyone is the beauty marks on Sim-Steph I forgot to take off. Everything you see is skintone.
So I'm using a "specially designed" set of cells more or less. A four x four room with chairs, lighting, mirror, dresser, and flowers to keep it from completely looking like a prison. There are no windows at this point.
We'll be starting with Kellie as she has a neutral skintone and an average lightness. As her hair falls in part over her face, it's not so important right now, but will be when we get to the other elements, I'm temporarily swapping her hair for one of the towels that comes with K&B. If you don't have K&B, use a pulled back style without fringe.
[1] On Kellie's sim her lower lip is narrower than her upper lip, some lipsticks will exaggerate this. If this is something you mind, I'd pick something else of course. Pay attention to how the lipstick makes the lips look, cause where the highlights fall can make or break an appearance.
[2-4] Dark lipsticks, while not wholly for dark-skintoned sims or goths and emo kids, tend to make lips look smaller. So a sim with very full lips might compensate for that by making her lipstick darker. Conversely, putting a dark lipstick on someone with very thin lips would make them look too small.
[5] Bright lipsticks, especially glossy ones, tend to look somewhat plastic. Think Barbie.
With a sim like Kellie, whose skintone is slightly cool but mostly neutral, you don't have to worry so much about tones as lightness. With darker skintones, especially warm ones, tone will play as much if not more of a role in the choice you make as the lightness and brightness.
[6] This lipstick doesn't map quite right, the contour of the light (shiny) should follow the lip it's just straight across.
[7-8] Kellie is a very wholesome scrubbed sort of person. She's not someone for sultriness, she doesn't do midriff even as a sim, and she's never been emo. So choosing dark lipsticks for her doesn't make much sense.
[9] I thought I had more lipsticks with open mouths, but apparently I've only got the one. It does subtly change the appearance of the face. It tends to give a more innocent, naïve sort of look. Perfect for Kellie. (Who, just so you know, is proofing this for me and will more than likely torture me for that comment. Oh well, she got Larry knocked up with an alien baby and I never did get her married to Voldemort.)
But we don't play the game in the mirror world either, so once you have a selection you think you like, put the hair back on your sim and get out of the mirror.
The other thing people, even me, tend to forget about playing is that sims don't have static faces, and as their expressions change so does how their make-up look. For testing this I recommend a tester box. (I'm using Decorgal's talk hack which is a painting actually but whatever) Watch the expressions on the sim and look at how the make-up maps as the face stretches.
If you don't like that lipstick in half of the poses you choose, you might not want to keep it. Notice also at this point, we're still in a controlled environment. Indoor daylight light with a lamp (nighttime light is cooler and darker even with a lamp) No weather, no light from a window and the light is not colored.
All of these will change how your sim looks. Test as many as possible. We're going to move onto Malinda, but I will show you what I mean with someone later.
As Malinda's hair is pulled back, you don't have to worry about using the towel or pulled back hair. She's got a much darker skintone and I don't have much lipstick specifically designed for darker sims. I don't tend to use them as much for two reasons, neither of which is prejudice. There are just pathetically few good dark skintones out there; they're either shiny or they're photo realistic and I don't like either. Number two, I have a hard time sculpting faces that suit them and I would rather not have dark skinned sims than have badly done, ugly dark skinned sims
[1-2] On Malinda a lot of the lipsticks that were good on Kellie are far too bright, and [3-4] as her skintone is a bit warmer than Kellie's those cool pink tones don't work that great either.
[6]Notice the way that the toothy lipstick that in the end I chose for Kellie doesn't look so good on Malinda, also, this is because her lips are shaped a lot differently than Kellie's are so the lipstick stretches differently. [7] Notice though that just because her skin is darker doesn't mean that the lipstick that looked too dark on Kellie is going to automatically look great.
[8-9] I included a couple of Xandher's lipsticks specifically for dark skinned sims to prove a point, there's dark and then there's dark and you can get into the same trouble with a dark skintone like the one I'm using that you can get into with a hyper pale one.
Okay, another thing to remember about playing. You don't always play the game from two feet in front of a sim's face looking straight at them. How your sim looks from far away is just as important as up close.
Now for Sim-Juleah, her skintone is between Kellie's and Malinda's, and we're now adding in a very definite yellow undertone. [1] Juleah's bottom lip is very pouty and full almost to the point of being a facial defect, so lipsticks that "plump" the bottom lip will only make her lips look bigger—and because her top lip isn't overly full, a dark-dark lipstick will make her look like she hasn't even got an upper lip.
[2] The pink tones that I chose for Kellie are for the most part going to look pretty bad on Juleah; they're going to make her look sallow. So I would definitely, if you're using a skintone like this one, avoid blue-y pinks, choose warmer pinks, orange-y pinks.
[3] Now if you notice, the lipstick that looked pretty bad on both Malinda and Kellie because of where the light shine hit actually looks okay on Juleah because of the way her lower lip pouts. (Way too light, but the light shine is okay) When you're testing, try on a variety of different lip shapes unless all of your sims have basically the same lips.
Some lipsticks just don't seem to look good on anybody.
Light changes the way your sim looks; be careful of that when it comes time to choose something for actually playing. Outdoors light, indoors light if you use colored lights, it all changes the look. Which is why I encourage testing in game and not just at the mirror.
We're going to go onto Sandy. So, basically let's gloss over choosing a lipstick for her as we already have one of her skintone, and move onto the testing part.
See how this is different? With Seasons the light subtly changes depending on season and weather. But because it's subtle, unless your lipstick already tends heavily one direction (IE it's already very yellow) it's not going to make that much difference that you can't live with it. But if you're picky, and I am, I tend to cull out tones that go too yellow or too dark or too blue.
With Sim-Steph, you have another concern other than just her very pale skintone, and that is she's a redhead. And red hair is one of those things that the red you've chosen can greatly effect what she looks like with certain tones of lipstick. [1-9] Now this is a fairly neutral auburn tone I've used here, but if you're using a very gingery red, don't use a very cool or neon pink. [2-4] Not to say that you can't use pinks. I wear, in rl, rose-colored lipstick a lot. That you just can't do pink with red hair is a fallacy. But it takes paying attention to the undertones.
[5-7] Here are a few examples of Steph with dark toned lipsticks. I'm a different personality than Kellie is and so the darker tones don't look as freaky weird on me as they would on Kellie. But your sims' personality, what you're trying to portray with her should effect your choices. (We'll cover that in depth in L5)
In closing, trying for lipstick is a lot of hit or miss, and a lot of things have to be considered.
Shaping: How do the lips look with this lipstick on? Does it exaggerate any flaws in the appearance? Is flawed what you want?
Color: Does this color go with hair, eyes, and clothing? Is it too yellow? too blue?
Lightness: Does this lipstick wash out the lips? Does it make the lips look too small?
Brightness: Does it look plasticky and bright? Better suited to a little girl's shoe than a face?
Personality: Does my choice reflect the sim that I'm using it on? Is it too innocent? Is it not innocent enough?
Focal point: Are the lips going to be where you want the attention (use brighter or more dynamic colors) or are the eyes (go more neutral or softer colors)?
Now do I always think of these things?
Yes and no. A lot of them are things I think of sort of subconsciously, they're things I'm so used to considering that I don't actively think about them until I'm thinking about what I think about. And there's probably more I'm forgetting.
Cosmetics One-oh-One lesson one:
"I think I hate lipstick." If I had a dime for every time I've heard and or said that as regards the sims, I would have at least enough to buy a book.
As it is a big complaint (and not that I blame the complainer), I figured we could start with lipstick. It can be tricky, there is no denying that, and anyone who doesn't think so, probably either has done it so much that it's never a problem or their sims look exactly the same or they don't use make-up at all. But if you keep certain things in mind, it's not as difficult as it seems.
Part of the reason I think we find lipstick so difficult comes from the number of things involved in lipstick for your sims. As hard as it is to find a good lipstick in real life, (and I should know I've quested for years to find the right ones), it's even harder in the game.
Think about it. There are Matte, Semi matte, Gloss, High Gloss, Sheer, Opaque, open mouth, closed mouth. Then you have the way the light hits, the edge of the alpha – is it hard or soft? Is the alpha exaggerated in some way, did the person use a soft alpha with a skintone underneath when they created it? Then you get into shades and lightness, color.
You have a headache just writing all the things you have issues with down on the page, let alone using these things to your advantage. No worries, we'll take it simply. I promise.
First of all, there's getting good lipstick. It's happened to me more times than I can count, something looks promising on the site and then I get it into game and bleh. Gag me!! And where do you download from? With the exception of one creator, all the lipsticks I'm using are free content. The one non-free content is Xandher's from TSR. I'm using hers at all because she has some good examples and I have sort of a love/hate relationship with it. I love the way it's so well done, I don't like the way a lot of it looks on my sims and it's easy enough to point out why.
Most of the lipsticks that I use are from MTS actually, I have several creators who put their stuff up there that I really like. Also La Pink and JustSims 2, Lyran's stuff is of course excellent, but I tend not to use it quite as much.
I think the easiest way to find good lipstick is to download and cull. If you can, use a clean game to test your make-up and test it in game on a couple sims – not just in CAS. You'll see why when we get a little further along in the lesson. But basically download what you think looks good, even if it's more than you think you'll use. Chances are you won't keep a lot of it.
I can't tell you what to download; I know what I download to make my sims look like my sims. You're not me, and what your sims look like isn't what my sims look like.
So when you've got all the stuff you want to try, it's time to hop into the game. I'm running a completely clean game, other than the genetics I'm using for the sims in the game, some teeshirts and jeans, Lipstick is what I have in it. It's easier this way, all things considered. And less load time.
My first rule: DO NOT obsessively apply make-up in CAS. Just like Bodyshop and CAS don't look the same, once you get into the game your sims are going to look different than in CAS. The game is really the only place to work with make-up. So getting all obsessive about what looks good in CAS is a waste of time more or less.
And remember, in CAS you have one light. In the game, especially if you have Seasons, you have tons. So what looks good in CAS might look like the south end of a north-bound horse on a rainy day in game. You're playing in game, you want to test in game.
Here are my models:
A. Sim-Juleah: Model edition
B. Sim-Kellie: Model edition
D. Malinda: Randomly created sim by way of blended default face templates.
E. Sandy: See above.
C. Sim-Steph: I'm everywhere don't you know?
At this point the only make-up being worn by anyone is the beauty marks on Sim-Steph I forgot to take off. Everything you see is skintone.
So I'm using a "specially designed" set of cells more or less. A four x four room with chairs, lighting, mirror, dresser, and flowers to keep it from completely looking like a prison. There are no windows at this point.
We'll be starting with Kellie as she has a neutral skintone and an average lightness. As her hair falls in part over her face, it's not so important right now, but will be when we get to the other elements, I'm temporarily swapping her hair for one of the towels that comes with K&B. If you don't have K&B, use a pulled back style without fringe.
[1] On Kellie's sim her lower lip is narrower than her upper lip, some lipsticks will exaggerate this. If this is something you mind, I'd pick something else of course. Pay attention to how the lipstick makes the lips look, cause where the highlights fall can make or break an appearance.
[2-4] Dark lipsticks, while not wholly for dark-skintoned sims or goths and emo kids, tend to make lips look smaller. So a sim with very full lips might compensate for that by making her lipstick darker. Conversely, putting a dark lipstick on someone with very thin lips would make them look too small.
[5] Bright lipsticks, especially glossy ones, tend to look somewhat plastic. Think Barbie.
With a sim like Kellie, whose skintone is slightly cool but mostly neutral, you don't have to worry so much about tones as lightness. With darker skintones, especially warm ones, tone will play as much if not more of a role in the choice you make as the lightness and brightness.
[6] This lipstick doesn't map quite right, the contour of the light (shiny) should follow the lip it's just straight across.
[7-8] Kellie is a very wholesome scrubbed sort of person. She's not someone for sultriness, she doesn't do midriff even as a sim, and she's never been emo. So choosing dark lipsticks for her doesn't make much sense.
[9] I thought I had more lipsticks with open mouths, but apparently I've only got the one. It does subtly change the appearance of the face. It tends to give a more innocent, naïve sort of look. Perfect for Kellie. (Who, just so you know, is proofing this for me and will more than likely torture me for that comment. Oh well, she got Larry knocked up with an alien baby and I never did get her married to Voldemort.)
But we don't play the game in the mirror world either, so once you have a selection you think you like, put the hair back on your sim and get out of the mirror.
The other thing people, even me, tend to forget about playing is that sims don't have static faces, and as their expressions change so does how their make-up look. For testing this I recommend a tester box. (I'm using Decorgal's talk hack which is a painting actually but whatever) Watch the expressions on the sim and look at how the make-up maps as the face stretches.
If you don't like that lipstick in half of the poses you choose, you might not want to keep it. Notice also at this point, we're still in a controlled environment. Indoor daylight light with a lamp (nighttime light is cooler and darker even with a lamp) No weather, no light from a window and the light is not colored.
All of these will change how your sim looks. Test as many as possible. We're going to move onto Malinda, but I will show you what I mean with someone later.
As Malinda's hair is pulled back, you don't have to worry about using the towel or pulled back hair. She's got a much darker skintone and I don't have much lipstick specifically designed for darker sims. I don't tend to use them as much for two reasons, neither of which is prejudice. There are just pathetically few good dark skintones out there; they're either shiny or they're photo realistic and I don't like either. Number two, I have a hard time sculpting faces that suit them and I would rather not have dark skinned sims than have badly done, ugly dark skinned sims
[1-2] On Malinda a lot of the lipsticks that were good on Kellie are far too bright, and [3-4] as her skintone is a bit warmer than Kellie's those cool pink tones don't work that great either.
[6]Notice the way that the toothy lipstick that in the end I chose for Kellie doesn't look so good on Malinda, also, this is because her lips are shaped a lot differently than Kellie's are so the lipstick stretches differently. [7] Notice though that just because her skin is darker doesn't mean that the lipstick that looked too dark on Kellie is going to automatically look great.
[8-9] I included a couple of Xandher's lipsticks specifically for dark skinned sims to prove a point, there's dark and then there's dark and you can get into the same trouble with a dark skintone like the one I'm using that you can get into with a hyper pale one.
Okay, another thing to remember about playing. You don't always play the game from two feet in front of a sim's face looking straight at them. How your sim looks from far away is just as important as up close.
Now for Sim-Juleah, her skintone is between Kellie's and Malinda's, and we're now adding in a very definite yellow undertone. [1] Juleah's bottom lip is very pouty and full almost to the point of being a facial defect, so lipsticks that "plump" the bottom lip will only make her lips look bigger—and because her top lip isn't overly full, a dark-dark lipstick will make her look like she hasn't even got an upper lip.
[2] The pink tones that I chose for Kellie are for the most part going to look pretty bad on Juleah; they're going to make her look sallow. So I would definitely, if you're using a skintone like this one, avoid blue-y pinks, choose warmer pinks, orange-y pinks.
[3] Now if you notice, the lipstick that looked pretty bad on both Malinda and Kellie because of where the light shine hit actually looks okay on Juleah because of the way her lower lip pouts. (Way too light, but the light shine is okay) When you're testing, try on a variety of different lip shapes unless all of your sims have basically the same lips.
Some lipsticks just don't seem to look good on anybody.
Light changes the way your sim looks; be careful of that when it comes time to choose something for actually playing. Outdoors light, indoors light if you use colored lights, it all changes the look. Which is why I encourage testing in game and not just at the mirror.
We're going to go onto Sandy. So, basically let's gloss over choosing a lipstick for her as we already have one of her skintone, and move onto the testing part.
See how this is different? With Seasons the light subtly changes depending on season and weather. But because it's subtle, unless your lipstick already tends heavily one direction (IE it's already very yellow) it's not going to make that much difference that you can't live with it. But if you're picky, and I am, I tend to cull out tones that go too yellow or too dark or too blue.
With Sim-Steph, you have another concern other than just her very pale skintone, and that is she's a redhead. And red hair is one of those things that the red you've chosen can greatly effect what she looks like with certain tones of lipstick. [1-9] Now this is a fairly neutral auburn tone I've used here, but if you're using a very gingery red, don't use a very cool or neon pink. [2-4] Not to say that you can't use pinks. I wear, in rl, rose-colored lipstick a lot. That you just can't do pink with red hair is a fallacy. But it takes paying attention to the undertones.
[5-7] Here are a few examples of Steph with dark toned lipsticks. I'm a different personality than Kellie is and so the darker tones don't look as freaky weird on me as they would on Kellie. But your sims' personality, what you're trying to portray with her should effect your choices. (We'll cover that in depth in L5)
In closing, trying for lipstick is a lot of hit or miss, and a lot of things have to be considered.
Shaping: How do the lips look with this lipstick on? Does it exaggerate any flaws in the appearance? Is flawed what you want?
Color: Does this color go with hair, eyes, and clothing? Is it too yellow? too blue?
Lightness: Does this lipstick wash out the lips? Does it make the lips look too small?
Brightness: Does it look plasticky and bright? Better suited to a little girl's shoe than a face?
Personality: Does my choice reflect the sim that I'm using it on? Is it too innocent? Is it not innocent enough?
Focal point: Are the lips going to be where you want the attention (use brighter or more dynamic colors) or are the eyes (go more neutral or softer colors)?
Now do I always think of these things?
Yes and no. A lot of them are things I think of sort of subconsciously, they're things I'm so used to considering that I don't actively think about them until I'm thinking about what I think about. And there's probably more I'm forgetting.
But this was what I found every time I try to work on a tutorial for make-up, it's not easy to explain concisely, which is probably why there are more tutorials on creating make-up for your sims than actually using it. 
Jenni. Thanks but aren't you supposed to tell me the dog ate it when it's not on time, not when it's first been assigned. 
I'm glad you're finding stuff, can't wait to see what you've come up with. 
