Sylla's Simmerize Tutorial

[Sylla]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/Untitled-11.jpg

Done using PhotoShop CS2

Ok, I’ve had a few requests to do a tutorial so I finally got up the motivation to do it and so here it is. I hope I’ve explained myself clearly, but if there are any questions, feel free to ask.

We start off by selecting your sim picture; try to make sure that there is plenty of light in your shot. Pictures that are too dark are very hard to blend and adjust later on. In door shots like this one are the best. You may or may not want to reduce the size of your pic, it’s usually best to keep it at its original size and work from there. Also, try to have a picture with minimal hair on the face as this makes working on it a LOT easier.

[Sylla]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/snapshot_9250f51a_f25921d2.jpg
~Picture courtesy of CoryG~

Try to get close up to your sim, a head and shoulders shot like this is perfect.

So now you have your shot! Look at your picture carefully, the major points I look at are nose angle and jaw line. Now off to find the perfect base picture to put your sim on. One of the best sources for a base picture are wallpaper sites that include models and celebrities, they are large pictures which is a must in order to get good detail and a large working area is always better. Other methods to find good pictures is to google image search words like ‘beautiful women’ or ‘***y ladies’ be warned, some images may not be unsavory! Another source is lingerie and make-up catalogues online.

When searching for your base picture take note of skin tone, you want as close a match as you can get, for me personally because I do requests, I try to colour match the hair as well. Most importantly, look at the angle and direction that the face is pointing, with particular attention to the nose. It is no good trying to put your sim’s face that is looking straight ahead on a base that is looking to the left! It will just cause difficulties and a picture that isn’t in proportion and just looks odd! Minor differences are fine because we can edit them later.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/katewinslet24-1.jpg
My base picture is Kate Winslet.

* TIP: note that the shadows of my two pictures are opposite to each other, it’s just a simple matter of going to flipping your canvas so that both images match. I generally do this to the sim picture, not the base.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim3.jpg

Next, get your polygonal lasso tool and select the area around your sim’s face so that you end up with the entire head, it is better to go a little outside the edges rather than cutting off too much of your sim’s skin. If there is hair covering part of your sim’s face, don’t worry about it too much at this point.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim1.jpg

Now go to edit and copy, then paste your selected area on to your base picture.

* TIP: if your sim base picture has a face much larger than that of your sim, reduce its size so that it is more in proportion to your sim. You lose too much detail by trying to expand your Sims face to fit the base, it is much better to have them at a similar size or slighter larger than the base picture.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/BAD.jpghttp://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/GOOD.jpg

Line your sim up as closely as you can to that of the base picture, once you have done that, go to your layers panel and change the opacity to around 55% or to a level so that you can see both layers relatively clearly.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/layers.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/simm.jpg

* TIP: if you haven’t all ready, with your move tool check the box so that it shows transform controls.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/trans.jpg

[Sylla]

Zoom in so that only the face that is visible, then click back onto your move tool.

* TIP: holding down the shift key while dragging the edges prevents your sim face from going out of proportion.

Drag the corners until it is fitting closely over the base, paying careful attention to the eyes, this is the most important feature to line up correctly. Your Sims eyes will most likely be larger than your base; this is fine so don’t worry about it. Once you have the eyes in position, drag the lower part until the mouth lines up, don’t hold shift while doing this though as it will move your eyes as well. This may take a bit of fiddling around to get right, but as long as everything is in line, it will look good.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim5.jpg

Once you have everything in position it’s time to get out the good ol’ eraser tool. Keep it at 100% opacity, I have it on size 25 with a hard edge, you don’t want it too large at this point. Remove your Sims skin that overlaps any hair that is on your base picture.

Next it’s smudge time! I’m using a size 35 on 100%. Gently smudge the edges of your sim face until it entirely cover the base, it doesn’t matter if it looks a bit messy as we will be removing a lot it with the eraser tool. The idea is to get a uniform colour evenly spread out over the face.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim6.jpg

Now get your eraser tool again and remove those parts that have over lapped the edges until you get a nice clean line.

Back to the layers panel and put your opacity back to 100%

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim7.jpg

Looks pretty funny doesn’t it?

[Sylla]

Back to the eraser tool, I’m using a soft edge, size 45 with opacity set to 25%. Carefully erase away the Sims skin on the lower jaw and chin area using a blotting motion (one click at a time) rather than a stroke. Continue to do this until the base colours show through; be careful not to erase the cheek bone and any of the mouth.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim9.jpg

Next, concentrate on the forehead until you get a natural looking complexion.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim10.jpg

She’s starting to come together now isn’t she? Erase lightly until you are happy with the result, try not to go over board though, it still needs to have some resemblance to the original sim!

Once you are happy, go to image-adjustments, if there is any noticeable light/dark differences between your two layers use the brightness/contrast slider to fix this.

For this picture I have added brightness to the value of 15 and contrast to 10.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim11.jpg

The colour isn’t quite right either, so once again go to image-adjustments and choose colour balance (I very rarely bother with the hue/saturation slider). I think my top layer is a bit too pink so I’m going to add some different variations of colour. This can take a fair bit of messing around with the sliders until you find a balance that works for your picture, but once you get the hang of it, the results are amazing.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim12.jpg

I think she’s pretty much accurate at this point, if you see anything that doesn’t look right then erase or adjust until your happy with the final result.

Finally flatten your image.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/sim13.jpg

A handy tool at this point can be auto contrast and auto colour, but it wasn’t needed for this particular picture.

Add some filters or some different lighting or even a frame if you want to get creative, and then you are done!

Congratulations, you have made a simmerize using the Sylla method.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/Sylla/simfinal-1.jpg


* Special thanks to CoryG for allowing me to use her sim for this tutorial.

[flyingpigeon]

Heh, I've always thought simmerizes were creepy when they are done badly (you've done it very well though)... this is an awesome tutorial though! You are very talented! Thanks :D

[smulan]

Sylla thanks for a wonderful tut. :love2:

[SimScicle]

Wow! Thank you! I've been wanting to know how this was accomplished and I think even I will be able to do it using your tutorial (with practice).

[GenericImbroglio]

Very, very nice. I must admit, you are a Photoshop Estraordinaire, lol. And Kate Winslet!? I havent really given her much thought since I watched Heavenly Creatures the other day, lol. Congrats!

Cliff Johnson :blob8:
Muh Nuhma Nuh! Doo Dooo Buh Doo Dooo