Strangetown Extras: Ajay Loner has new hair

[strangetomato]

Check it out.

Ajay is testing out some new short, curly hair by AlfredAskew at MTS2. He decided to chop off his mess of curls, in favour of a shorter, neater style. He likes it (and I do too).





I would love to see more cc like this for male sims. More subtle variations on short male hair would be great. This lovely hair is on the New Roman mesh by HystericalParoxysm, a hair which I had removed from my game because I decided that I didn't really like the texture or the cut (it looks more like a woman's haircut, in my opinion). This new texture convinced me to redownload it.






I was testing out Beau's adult look, and I'm pretty sure he'll be wearing this semi-casual work attire most of the time. He has to look sharp and approachable, ya know. The blue also matches his eyes perfectly. I'm thinking he's going to chop off his long, messy hair in favour of something short at some point too. I gave him the caesar from Seasons in these pics, and I really liked it (even though Buck has it too... what to do, what to do).




Frances likes it.

(All these shots were taken on Jaxy and Zoe's lot, by the way. I was there on business.)




I was also testing out some sideburns on Ripp. I'm considering them for when he gets older. beyondheroism__ usually hints at them when she draws him and I like it. I don't like how much sideburns he has here, though. The Maxis 'burns are a bit much. Has anyone seen a toned down version that isn't as thick or as long? His scruff gives him a hint of sideburns, but I'd like to explore some other options for enhancing them. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Looks like Ripp's been hitting the bubble blower again. :P

Comments

[drx4000.livejournal.com]

If only there was a longer hair style with that same texture then Ajay would look even better!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

The one I used to use on him has a similar texture, though it's mostly just long in the front. I do like that one, but the short seems more professional (and he is a lawyer).

I'd love to see this texture on a mesh as long as the one I've been using on Beau - the surfer hair from TSS. That would be very cool. There aren't a lot of curly styles for male or female.

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

Nevermind Ripp sniffing the flowers- what in the world is Beau doing in the second picture? Was he on the bubbles too? XD

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

He's TAKING OVER THE WORLD! :D

Really, though, he's doing the "rally forth!" interaction. Beau already has most all of the OFB business perks. I've been playing businesses with him, since you can buy them in uni (to be completely honest, he's already achieved his LTW for 5 top level businesses).

[music-simbol.livejournal.com]

I LOVE THAT NEW ICON OF YOURS!!!! :D:D:D:D

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :D

[aledstrange.livejournal.com]

Nice, I like Ajay with short hair. Looks good! :)

and love Frances outfit, is that a new makeover??
He looks AWESOME!!!! <3
(sorry, if he changed style on the story and I missed it, haven't read the last updates yet)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

He starts the game with short hair, right? I can't remember what it was like. Oh, wait... it's that unfortunate "parted in the middle" crew cut, right? :P

Yeah, I like the curly hair better. That's a nice new hair for males.

Yeah, it's his adult look. I did show it briefly in the chapter where I jumped ahead in time (Chapter 28), but it hasn't been shown much. I like him in mostly all black like that. It suits him, I think.

Thanks. :)

[aledstrange.livejournal.com]

lol yes, poor Ajay, comes with the worse hair style (and outfit) ever!! XD

Agree, as well, black totally suits Frances. That type of sweater and pants are perfect for him. :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the outfit isn't great either. I guess it's because he's a loner and he doesn't care how he looks around the house? :P

It's a good colour for him, or other dark colours work well too, like his original navy blue. That sweater is the liberated top version by aikea-guinea from GoS. The mesh was thinned out under some odd notion that all guys are waif thin (one of a number of reasons I don't really ever use her meshes). I really like the thin version on Frances, though, because he's meant to be a small guy.

[aledstrange.livejournal.com]

lol funny, I actually rather slimmer meshes.
I don't really appreciate the lack of shape and fit of many maxis meshes. I get not all men dress like that in RL, but for *sims* imo works better. Besides I live in Miami, in my perspective most men DO dress with very tight, fitted shirts ROFL!(or extremely loose oversize ones, but that's the other extreme)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't mind fitted. That sweater was always fitted. It's just that the body itself is made very slim. Sims are feminine enough in general, so I like a little bulk on the male sims. That post mentions the "annoying" habit of Maxis to make male sims rectangular. I think it's a little sad that so many simmers think that's a bad thing. Many guys are rectangular. (And this is coming from someone who married a guy who's stick-thin, so it's not just my preference either. I love skinny guys.)

I see what you're saying, though, like with the meshes that Nevrous Subject and Pascal are wearing. They're pretty loose and shapeless. Again, I probably prefer that extreme to the literally "painted on" untuckable tees. From my point of view, most men wouldn't wear a tee that's sized for a teenaged girl. There are exceptions, of course.

[hidden-kitten.livejournal.com]

Ugh, so nice. That mesh would NOT DL for me.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like. Hmmm... what's that mesh's problem? It should be nicer to you and let you download it.

[javabean-dreams.livejournal.com]

I LOVE THAT SHORT AND CURLY HAIR! It is currently my ONLY custom male hair. Well, except for 2 sets of neon hairs in preparation for a rainbow-like thing I'll be doing soon, and a hair for my Edward Cullen sim. *shifty eyes* But I hardly think those count. But I saw it and absolutely had to have it, and since I already had the New Roman mesh for one of those neon sets, I took it a a ~sign~. xD

What I find amusing is that when I saw it I instantly loved it, then a couple hours later lauriethemuppet IMed me with the link to it saying it was awesome, then someone posted it in maxismatch, and then YOU posted with it. IT IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD.

edit: wrong community name

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

*snicker* Sorry... when you say it that way, all I can think about is "short and curlies." This hair really reminds me of one of my cousins' hair (one side of my family has mega curls), and he picked up a pube-related nickname somewhere along the line because of it.

I have a surprisingly large amount of male cc hair, but most are all-age conversions. It's cool that you already had the mesh. It's a sign, for sure. *nods*

Word spreads fast. I think it reflects how desperate we are for some short male hair.

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

AJ is looking pretty good. Well, as good as AJ can look anyway.

Beau! He is so gleeful! Also, Beau/Frances is yummy.

I do love sideburns, but the maxis ones are kind of overbearing. But if you can find something like you seem to be looking for Ripp's sexiness will definitely level up.

[aledstrange.livejournal.com]

Well, as good as AJ can look anyway.

:( awwwwwwww *sobs*

imo he's quite handsome, just needs the right makeover <3
But of course, is all about personal taste :P

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

Haha, he's not terrible looking, but just sort of... plain? Baby-faced? IDK. He's just okay to me.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know lots of people (maybe most?) do find him attractive, but I have to agree about the baby-faced thing. I have a bit of an aversion to face one and most of its derivatives.

[aledstrange.livejournal.com]

I don't use cas enough to recognize face templates, so that part ain't a problem for me and well, babyface?? maybe a bit, but not really imo, at least not the way I see him.

(Plus I have a special weakness for Ajay, he was the first sim I actually played in STown.)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Well, you see the templates all the time with the townies, though, right? I hardly ever work from templates to make sims either, but I know the templates (though only a few of the numbers - the "pretty" faces being one and two).

The babyface thing comes from his slightly chubby cheeks and very small chin. It's the chin that turns me off from the first template. It's okay on females, but I really prefer a strong chin on a male. Combined with the button nose, it's all a bit soft in the feature department for me.

I can see how others would like him, but he does very little for me.

[aledstrange.livejournal.com]

Not really. Excluding townies that are related to controllables, all the rest are simply background noise for me, so I don't really see them (as in, i don't pay enough attention to them to actually notice the faces and I don't use them for anything on my games either)

And I said I can't recognize templates, because I simply can't. Literally I barely do cas, so I have no idea how template one, two, three, etc look, for the same reason, I don't really care if maxis sims were created using the same faces *shrug*

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Well, to each their own, I suppose. I tend to notice all the little details of the sim facial features quite a bit, but I guess I'm just really interested in the way faces are constructed. Mentioning the templates is just an easy way to reference specific things about features when you're talking about sims, so that's why I do it. They're different facial types.

It doesn't really bother me when Maxis sims are almost straight templates either, though I prefer them to have some unique features. It gives them more character. And, like you said about the "template townies" being background noise, if a Maxis sim has a template face, they sort of fade into the background like that for me too.

[aledstrange.livejournal.com]

if a Maxis sim has a template face, they sort of fade into the background like that

Well, maybe, but because I don't care for templates or townies, I tend to think all controllables have pretty unique faces and they don't really fade in the background for me.
Call it a blessing of ignorance if you wish. lol

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Well, ignorance is bliss, right? ^_^

As I said, I don't mind it either, but I do take a little pause when two sims who aren't supposed to be related have a very similar face (like Mortimer and Don Lothario, for example). With styling and colouring, it's not so noticeable, though.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it works pretty well for him. I like him better with curly hair.

Beau is motivated, okay. He's going to take over the world. And they're so cute with their couch snuggling, aren't they? They're always all over each other. It's very cute.

I agree, that's why I wouldn't use them for him (though I could see Ripp growing out his beard at some point to be funny, and then cutting it into creative facial hair, like a moustache, for a joke). Yes, a little extra side detail could bring his sexy up to level 50.

Ripp is really funny to play with lately, because he gets that romance swoon reaction, and also the "hey, you're cool!" finger gunning reaction to a sim with a good reputation, and people heart fart over him all the time, because he's hot. He really does seem like a rock star already.

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

I actually don't like that hair all that much. I recognized the mesh, and decided against it. Is it any good? You might make me reconsider.

EVERYONE looks good with tat Seasons hair. When I post my VV picspam, you'll see Antonio with it. (I have a thing for the Monty Men, *swoons*)

EEE FRANNY!

Did you check Nymphy? She's the only one I can think of with facial hair, maybe she has sideburns? I would search Mod too, but they never have any good stuff for the men.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

No? I didn't like the orginal hair that uses that mesh much either. Even on women, I prefer the M to F conversion of the Seasons caesar. That's such a good hair. I'd love to see it with some minor texture variations too. We need more optioons.

I agree. It's one of the best male hairs. I love it on females too.

^___^

I will look into that. Thanks for the suggestion.

[a-gates.livejournal.com]

Everything looks good to me, but really the point for me is to stare dreamily at all the boys :D ahaha XD

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with that. ;) They appreciate your looks of approval, I'm sure. (Well, maybe Frances and Beau would prefer some privacy, but you'd never think that with all the PDAs.)

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

My first thought of the picture of Beau and Frances cuddling was "Why is Fracnes cuddeling Buck?"

I'm a huge fan of that Seasons style, but I think having it on two sims who are both blond with four letter names beginning with B may be a bit confusing. Maybe Jill will convince Buck to grow his hair out to something a little longer?

I do wish there were more shorter styles for guys. I work with about 16 guys each night. None of them have exceptionally long hair and each one wears their hair different from the other. I don't want to complain too much about what cc creators make, but man... I wish for every ten female to male conversions being done, someone would make one short, decent male hair.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it wouldn't be so bad if they weren't both blond with blue eyes. They're too similar. I do really like this look for him, so maybe I'll consider Buck growing his out. but it's really perfect for Buck too. I'm torn.

I wish for every ten female to male conversions being done, someone would make one short, decent male hair.

YES!!! I agree so very, very much. We need this.

Most of the men I know have some variation of short hair. There are plenty of different things to do with the textures to make them different. Some part it here or part it there, they comb it forward or back or straight up, they comb the hair down to hide their receeding hairline (and I want more of those - they're cute), and so many other things. There are plenty of options that haven't been explored yet for short hair.

I know the teen and early-twenties crowd likes to wear their hair long and silky these days (if they happen to have silky instead of coarse, and not that many guys do), but they'll come to their senses once they begin to lose some hair in the front or it thins out on the top. There's a reason most sensible adult men keep it short.

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

Confession Time!

I-I actually REALLY love long, shaggy hair on guys. Yes, I bemoan the lack of good short hair for the Sims (because not everyone looks good with long hair and because there's just WAY too much long hair CC), but IRL I'm a total nut when it comes to hair that's been grown out some.

I totally get it from my mom, though she likes it really long and flowy and I'm more fond of Beau-length hair. Also blondes! Blondes with chin-length wild hair and brown or green eyes is TOTALLY the best thing EVER. This is why I'm always giving Johnny extra length to his hair - it pleases me.

So I shall be a little sad when Beau chops off his Samson locks. ;_;

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Actually... I'm a little into that same type too. :P It's a small but significant segment of the types I'm generally attracted to. It's just as you decribed, including the natural blond thing.

I actually style Beau based on two such guys that I know (one was a relationship, and one was a sort of pseudo boyfriend/friend). Both of them were fairly feminine too. They both had longish hair at one point, then later cut it short. I cut it for one of them myself (!!!) with a pair of scissors. His hair was sort of wavy too, but he was quite a bit older than me and the gods of hair thinning were not being kind to him. He was also the guy with the silver hoop earrings, like I gave Beau. He was cute.

So, yeah... that's the end of my ramble about bonds with long, pretty blond hair.

Frances might be sad to see it go too, but then there's always that thrill of a fresh new look for someone you love. It makes then shiny and new and super sexy. It works every time. ;)

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

Heehee, it's such a wonderful type. If I ever do my ah - "hurricane" list, my number one totally has that sort of hair. I love him so - he's like my one true celeb crush.

Also, cutting someone's hair must have been really fun. It seems like something that could end up being a kind of a strangely intimate thing.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

It was very intimate. That's why I called him a "pseudo boyfriend." We were on a university trip together and sort of fell into a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with each other, minus the sex, because we were both in committed relationships back home, and used each other as replacements for them, in a sense. Some people would probably consider it emotional cheating, but that's what we did.

Hair things are always very significant in relationships. Well, you know how I feel about hair symbolism. ;)

[showercapfrog.livejournal.com]

Wow, Beau looks a lot like Buck in that picture. I was all "WHY IS BUCK AN ADULT ALREADY? IT TOOK YEARS FOR EVERYONE ELSE TO GET THROUGH UNIVERSITY?!"

I saw that hair too - isn't it great?

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I doubt the crowd coming through LFT right now will take as long as the last batch did. Time will speed up considerably as my main cast hits adulthood, especially if children are involved.

I love it. :)

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

This mesh looks great! It's about time we had more short hairs for the guys. Of course, someone's going to have to make an M to F conversion. I wish I knew how.

Also, yay, pic spam!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it will be great for females too. I look forward to that too. I do love short hair on females.

I haven't been pic spamming so much lately. Maybe I should do it more often. It's fun. ^_^

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

Funny, I spent a long time yesterday at MTS2 and I didn't see that hair until I read your post! :D

My Download folder somehow reached 6GB size, which is ridiculous. It got cluttered with all the stuff I got for my posters, which I propably won't use every again and I also had a huge mess of meshes, so I had no idea what to delete because I didn't want to mess up other sets.

So I dumped all my bodyshop stuff and started over. And this time I'm sticking with just Maxis match hair. I had three different "Nouk" retextures of the same mesh! It's stupid! I'm gonna miss some meshes but heck, perhaps that'll motivate me to retexture them myself :P.

And that short curly hair is already among my new files!

I used that short hair on Beau for a long, long time. Perhaps from the time he married Lilith until his death. It suits him a lot, I agree! :) And that "rally forth" picture is hilarious. He already has five businesses?! Dude, that's an extremely difficult LTW! O_o WOw!

(Says the lame one who's currently struggling with the 20 woohoo LTW :S)

I love pic spam! :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

6 GB?! Wow. I used the Compressorizer on my downloads just the other day, and I'm down to a little over 2 GB. That's not too bad.

When I download things for specific scenes or photoshoots, I try to keep them in a temporary folder, and then I remove it after I get the images. I'm very obsessive about not having too many things I never use, or use only rarely (though they're there).

Hoorah for more hair retextures! ^_^ It's nice to clean out folder entirely like that. Somehow, even when I'm being careful, I end up with missing meshes and things like that.

Yes, I rememeber that now. It really does suit him, and I love how it makes his earrings more noticeable too. I made the rally forth image into an icon. :D

I cheated a little with the busineeses. He only has two at top level, really, but if the business drops to level nine and then goes back to ten, it counts as a whole other business (one of those little loopholes in the game). I used that to get him to perma-platinum. I do plan to have him open 5 businesses, though, eventually.

There's a sneaky trick for the 20 woohoos too. Public woohoo with the same person counts as a second woohoo for the LTW purposes. ;) Maybe you could take advantage of that.

Yeah, pic spam is fun. I've been trying to focus my time on the story, so I haven't been doing it as much lately.

[ohcherub.livejournal.com]

I don't know if these (http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=7314.0) are what you're looking for in terms of sideburns, but they're pretty good IMO. Just a thinner version of the Maxis ones. :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I do like those. :) They don't quite match up perfectly where they meet the hairline, but they're quite nice. Thanks for suggesting them!