strangetomato | Strangetown extras: Grunt Family Portrait

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extras: shwc

Strangetown extras: Grunt Family Portrait

So, I finally decided to try my hand at making a custom painting with SimPE, and the process was super easy. I'll definitely be making more of these to customize the artwork in my story. More specifically, I'm going to decorate homes with photos of the characters in my story whenever appropriate. This will include family portraits, wedding portraits, and so on. I'd really like to recolour that cluster of smaller frames with random snapshots (but I don't recall seeing that template in SimPE. I'll have to look into how I'd go about doing that.)

My first first project was, predictably, a Grunt family portrait. I wanted to have the boys discover this stashed away with the General's belongings. It would be something he put away after Lyla left, since he couldn't bear to be reminded of her. I have no idea when this might turn up in the story, so I decided to just share it right away.

Ripp: Wow. I haven't seen this in forever!

Buck: I found it with Dad's things.

Tank: We're all so happy looking.

I've never made a group of sims view art at the same time before. They have a conversation, just like they do while eating or watching TV. The boys all stood around and discussed having 5 best friends (how appropriate!), and maxing out a skill, while they thought about the portrait.

The general behavior was mostly positive, especially from Ripp, and they made some of those puzzled expressions like the one that Buck has in this shot.

And what was their final reaction?

It's enough to just break your heart. They were all really sad about it.

Here's a better look at the source material. I posed them as if they went to a portrait studio. (I guess Buzz must have chosen the background colour.)

The photo is a little blurry when you get really close to it in-game, so I'm going to see if there's a way to improve it, but this might be as good as it gets with a .jpg file from the in-game camera. It will work just fine for story purposes as it is, so I'm not too concerned.

Pretty cool, don't you think?

ETA: I followed this tutorial from MTS2 to make the custom painting.

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It's really neat! Especially how much Buck looked like Tank at that age.

Thanks! I love aging them back like this. Yeah, I do see the similarities between Tank and Buck. Interesting.

Awwww! I love that got useable reactions- imagine in Tank had started laughing! Stuff like that's a huge part of the reason I've been keeping my eye out for a cheap used pc laptop on craigslist. I wanna make photos, too!

Yeah, having Tank crack up at the portrait would not have really worked. But my sims excelled at staying in character tonight (sometimes, they just KNOW).

That's right - you're usually on a mac, and don't have SimPE, right? I'm only just getting into using SimPE much at all, and I'm really loving stuff like this.

Aww, Tank. . .(it's just a little more "aww" than the other two).

Do you have a link for the tutorial you used? I might want to steal your idea (if you don't mind). I could use this for my cross over (Angus/Rocky could send a portrait to the grandparents).

Yeah, Tank does look a little sadder, doesn't he? (And we're not as used to seeing it from him either.)

I added a link to the tutorial.

Steal away. I think it's a great tool for storytelling. You can tell so much in just the background "junk" this way. Using it in your crossover is a great idea.

I also like the idea that these could exist for generations after the sims are dead, in a long running series. I guess that's the idea behind the heir portraits in a legacy.

These end up being buyable items right?

So that means they're BETTER (not ~better~) than painted portraits. You could stash the buyable picture in inventory and not have to worry about it turning into a maxis sunset.

(a glitch I've had before and was not amused by, let me tell you)

Wow, Tank really looked like Buck when he was little! I'm amazed; I thought Buck didn't look like any of them.
Very cute picture... And I love the reactions you got from it.

Yeah, they're found in the buy menu as a recolour of one of the paintings. That makes it easy to buy from any lot you want, with as many copies as you want, and even in separate hoods (which will be convenient for your crossover). It's a lot easier.

Things like that Maxis sunset painting glitch really freak me out. I have some custom "paint: landscape" paintings from the easel that I really wouldn't like to lose. So far, I've been lucky, so I hope it stays that way.

It's funny how we can sit here and pick out family resemblances from this portrait, just like people tend to do with these things in their own families. Buck wasn't adopted afterall (and he resembles my Lyla quite a bit, since I based her on him and Ripp, so he fits in that way too).

Thanks. I was pleased that they gave an appropriate reaction for this.

This was really neat, thanks for the link. I'm going to have to try my hand at it.

What a pretty picture. :)

The boy's reaction is so spot on.

Hmmmm, I might just have to try my hand at recoloring a maxis painting then. . .

What miffs me about the "maxis sunset" glitch is NO ONE has ever tried to fix/figure it out. Not that it's really a huge deal but it seems like every little annoyance is being fixed but NOT that. "The glitch that dare not be spoken of!"

RIPP WAS SO CUTE AS A CHILD! I still can't get over that!

Tank wore camo even during his childhood? The General is one pushy father, isn't he?

Yeah, that is pretty funny. In my family I'm sort of the oddball because I look not much like my my parents, but like my aunt. I have pictures of her when she was a teenager that are so freaky because she looked almost exactly like me.

Oh, and I love your Lyla! She is the perfect combination of the features that the Grunt boys have that Buzz lacks. It's unfortunate that the one that they had in game just looked like a default face with blonde hair that they pasted into the family tree.

That is such a lovely family portrait.
And their reaction to the picture?
Awwwww! :( So sad! But considering the story, so very much in character.

Oh, by the way, on the subject of pictures.
Remember that picture your S.O. made and you put up for download? You said you wanted to see it being used? Well, I put it up in the little mall in Ferrisport which is the home of my prosperity challenge. I sent Hiram Demento out to do some shopping and while he was in the electronics store, he checked it out.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v707/indigoleo/sims%202%20shots/snapshot_7468c6ed_14feffff.jpg[/IMG]

He found it quite amusing.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v707/indigoleo/sims%202%20shots/snapshot_7468c6ed_34ff0017.jpg[/IMG]

I'm highly envious of your skeelz, lady! :D That's an awesome picture. And I love Lyla Grunt.
Random thought: the Grunt boys really have the best noses. I'm especially fond of Tank's hawkishly bent bridge.

Thanks! That's great that you're going to try it out too. It has to be the easiest way to customize the game. Setting up and taking the photos was way more work than actually recolouring the painting. It was so quick and easy! :)

I loved their reaction. So sad. (Just watch... they probably won't repeat the same performance when I try to get them to do this for the story.)

I know. Isn't he? He was a cutie, for sure!

Tank was molded from an early age, but I imagine that he really liked the military stuff too, or he wouldn't have been so into it. Buzz did push it on him, but I think that Tank WANTED to be like his father too.

Thanks. I think it makes a nice addition to their home (and perhaps one of their future homes... I wonder who'll claim it).

Ooops! Your images seem to have been moved or deleted by photobucket. I was really looking forward to seeing them too. Can you repost them, please? I want to see how you used the painting! :)

Oh my gosh... I love it!

The closest I've ever come to doing something like that was having the sim paint a screenshot I'd taken and put into the custom artwork folder (I think it was Pets that allowed the sims to do that) but I've never tried to make a recolor of another in-game painting! That's much better... since the Sim-painted portraits aren't always the right size for something like this. Especially if it's a larger portrait!

They all look so perfect. Sigh.

Their reactions were SO appropriate. I agree... it's like they know somehow!

He was. What a cute little boy. I'll bet he was a brat though. I imagine him showing off constantly, asking a million questions, and whining about having to pick up his toys.

They do look like they are actually related to each other, and the more I analyze them the more I see it. You can see Buck in Tank here, and Ripp even looked a little like Buzz when he was cleaned up. (And I much prefer my Lyla to the bland one in Olive's graveyard - she just a straight face template, and doesn't match the family AT ALL). And the colouring of their genetics makes sense too (including recessive traits).

I think the Smith/Curious family has some good family resemblances too, now that I've spent more time with them. Jill obviously looks like Jenny, and Johnny actually resembles his uncle Vidcund in the nose (and chin too, I believe).

I find Pleasantview to be the worst for families that don't resemble each other. The Pleasant twins don't look like either of their parents, especially in the nose. I always assume that Mary-Sue (and Brandi Broke) must be meant to have recessive blond genes (even though they don't in the game). That's the only way to make the hair colours of their children make sense.

I've heard nothing but bad things about the Lyla in Olive's graveyard. That's another reason I decided to make my own. She's supposed to be missing data or corrupted in some way.

Oh, it didn't really require much skills. Anyone can do this, if they follow the tutorial (and can work with a basic photo editing program). You should give it a try!

Thanks. I was pretty happy with how my Lyla turned out. I'm glad you like her. She has most of Buck's features (all of the basic facial shape), and Ripp's eyes. I think her nose started as Ripp's, but I did a bit of tweaking to make it slightly different.

I'm a huge fan of the Grunt noses. It's a big draw for me. They're all distinct, and appealing in their own way. Ripp's nose is my favourite, which shouldn't come as a surprise. I really think it's the key to his attractiveness. It's a little upturned when he's younger, but then it straightens out, with that nice bump on the bridge. Yummy. Tank definitely has an impressive hawk-like hook, doesn't he? He must have inherited it from a grandparent (I still wish the game allowed for facial traits to be recessive like that. I really hope it will be that was in Sims 3).

I also like that fact that the Maxis paintings come in different sizes and *gasp* formats (I get so sick of that upright portrait canvas on the easel). I love the square format of the Bella painting. And they have FRAMES too! Detailed frames.

Hmmm, I wonder why that is? Has the glitch been around since Nightlife? You'd think that someone would care enough about art to make a fix for it.

I'm a clone of my father (well, to quote my SO, I have, "My Dad's head on my Mom's body." *snort*). I seriously look like someone opened him up in CAS and just switched the gender to female. :P I also look much more like my aunt than my mother. Family resemblances are so interesting. I love following the genetics with sims, but I really wish they made the facial features carry on as recessives, so sims could inherit things from their grandparents, like they do with hair and eye colour.

Yeah, the game Lyla is just a default face template yawn-fest. Creating my own Lyla was a good opportunity to tie the family together a little better, and I think she ended up very pretty with Buck and Ripp's genetics. Now I'm looking forward to seeing them pass them on to children of their own (and I can make more family portraits too).

Thanks. They do look like a perfect family, don't they? They look really happy in that photo. Maybe they even were close to perfect back then, but sadly, it had to change.

I haven't tried out the custom painting feature to full advantage yet, but I will be using it for some of my arty sims (like Jayne and Buck). It's great for story purposes, since you can see them painting it. If you really wanted to, you could use the same source image to do a custom painting, and then also make a copy with SimPE, to give it a different frame (I know Free Time has frames, but this would give you more options). I agree with you about being frustrated with the painting format. I love square canvases, and the easel canvas is a little too narrow for me.

I do wonder about those sims sometimes. They "learn" certain things, like which bed is theirs, so maybe they pick up more of our gaming habits than we realize.

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Strangetown extras: Grunt Family Portrait

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