The Schofield Family's 3rd gen is comprised of 3 girls. From left to right, we have twins, Erin and Madeleine and their younger sister Deidre.
Erin wants to be Fabulously Wealthy - as a third-gen in the Schofield legacy, that's not likely to be hard. She is self-assured, materialistic, and a genius, with an aptitude for business. She was always the smart kid in school, and it's carried through.
Madeleine's aspiration is of the Bodybuilder variety, and jogs twice a day no matter how late or early it is. She is a romantic, a goofball and ambitious, but also the most responsible of the three. As a kid she'd never stay still, and is still looking for the adventure on the horizon.
Deirdre wants to get back to her family's roots, kick around San Myshuno like her grandmother and become a City Native. She's creative, outgoing but also a kleptomaniac, so while she's bedazzling you with an inspired plan, watch your pockets. She's a great mediator; good luck at staying mad about it.
If you would like these ladies for your own game, you can find them on the TS4 Gallery under thlyacinian.
A 2nd Gen that I’ve thrown up here for fun; Artist, pickpocket, mischief-maker. Alison wants two things in life: to make people laugh, and to make them remember her.
Created via gameplay, no CC. Find her on the TS4 Gallery under thylacinian.
Inspired by a collection I once did in TS2, Coloursand Ranch is perfect for 2nd gen onwards.
A colourful, one-story home with two large bedrooms, a simple kitchen and a cute backyard barbecue area, it is ideal for sims who love the outdoors, are always on the go, and aren't afraid of an earthquake.
Base game + expansions, no CC. Get it on the Gallery under thylacinian.
Ever been stuck for inspiration on how you want to build your sims house? Really, really stuck?
Sure, there's all kinds of cool floorplan databases that are out and about that you can find with a bit of google-fu, but maybe that doesn't quite cut it. Maybe you're in a mood where the absolute last thing you want to do is try to replicate someone else's design. You just wanna create.
Here's my handy dandy shortcut to a cool house with a ton of creativity. This works great for starters, for warm-ups, for whatever you want to do with that house when you're finished.
You can do this on paper or on a computer paint program, it really doesn't matter. Me, I prefer paper.
So you're gonna need:
Something to draw on
Something to draw with
Before we begin, a quick sidenote about my own design bias:
Personally I don't do big luxury bathrooms, one part from a lack of patience and one part because they just aren't my thing. My sim doesn’t care ??? But -- you do you!
I always build a house with a sim in mind. Adventurer, inventor, family-oriented, etc.
I don't worry about house aesthetic until I start actually building it in the game
I try to always include some cool concept, like a kitchen garden, or an entertainment deck, a science lab, etc.
The point is to break out of whatever it is that's stopping you from building - it's boring, it's too hard, you always build the same thing. This means it works excellently as a warm-up for that more elaborate project you're working on.
This can make roofing tricky, so watch out how many gaps and corners you give yourself
SO. Here's what we do.
1. Get the thing you are going to draw on.
2. Get the thing you are going to draw with.
Sketch a square. Overlap it with 3 to 4 other squares, different sizes and different amounts of overlap.
Go around the outside and thicken up the exterior lines. The sketched lines on the inside will help you inform the shape of the house interior.
Play with the orientation. In this one, I looked at it from all angles and decided to rotate it about 180 degrees.
Mark where you want your front door to be. This is a good opportunity to visualise decking, landscaping, etc.
Now fill in the interior rooms. This is where you can play around a bit with where you want your kitchen to go, your bedrooms. Think about vistas and how you would order things. Not many homes have a bedroom right off the front door. But, a lot of homes give the bedroom a door to a private balcony.
Think too about the climate and the lifestyle of where the house is going to be and who is going to live in it. This is why I always build with a sim in mind. A single sim who is active has no real use for much more than a small starter home.
Now we take that floor plan and throw it into the sims.
I used ts3, just because at this point I’m more proficient in it than ts4 - this particular layout did make roofing a bit of a challenge, but that’s good! Challenge yourself. When you really, really just can’t get it to go, trim something off. It’s just a shell after all.
Remember that the sketch you’ve done is just a guideline, your proportions will turn out differently once you build, and you’ll get a feel for what needs to be tweaked.
I only did a little bit of decorating, just to illustrate how the rooms would be used and what kind of layout that creates. I also used a smaller, starter-sized lot, so the house takes up most of it. You could do the same thing on a huge lot and maximise the use of that outdoor space.
At the end of the day you can make it as complex or as simple as you like. This is also a good way to create interesting starter homes that aren’t “just a box” - instead of 3 or 4 squares, use 2 or 3.
And there you go - a quick little how-to for making something a little different.
