Advice on Bento Head

[LuxCross]

Hi! 

Earlier this week I was trying out a free version of The Sims 4, and I was amazed with how much detail and how good the characters look. So I began wondering if it's possible to make a bento head look exactly like my The Sims 4 character. Obviously it should be possible with the customization features but I'm not very good with sliders and with bento at all. Maybe people have tips for me. Like which bento head is best to use for this, which skin is best to use for this. 

I would really love to receive advice. Perhaps people have a suggestion for me on skin, or on the bento head. For me, the facial features (nose, eyes, lips, cheeks, chin, etc.) are important to this specific style of character. If anyone perhaps knows a shape similar to this, I'd love to know as well. Because I'm not very good at making facial shapes. 

Below is my The Sims 4 character.

Edited November 27, 2017 by LuxCross

[Ariel Vuissent]

The best advice is really to try a bunch and make a decision from there. Catwa and Lelutka are the two most popular brands, but there are several others; take a look at Mesh Body Addicts for thorough reviews and a more complete list. GA.EG, Genesis Labs, LOGO all have bento heads available, so you have plenty of choices. You want to look for something SIMILAR - the key features. Bento is great for customization, but you can't completely eliminate the core elements of the face. Catwa's Lona comes to mind - she has a very specific lip shape, and while that shape can be edited to a degree, it never disappears entirely. When you demo, test the sliders a bit to see how much the shape can be edited - some are harder than others - and what features work or don't work for you. 

Skin-wise, as a fellow pale, freckled ginger, Pink Fuel comes to mind first. I'm also a fan of Deetalez and Lara Hurley, but there are SO MANY out there. Ask inworld - the Skin Addiction group is super helpful and generally pretty friendly - or poke around on your own. Mesh Body Addicts also has a list of skin creators who make appliers for different bodies and heads, although I believe it's not longer being updated and may be out of date. Take some applier demos, and use them with the head demos to give you the best idea of how close you might be able to get.

Short of paying someone to fiddle for you - or chancing upon a kind soul with the time, energy, skill, and patience to assist for free - you're going to have to mess around on your own and see what you can do. I don't, off hand, know what heads might closely match what you're looking for, but there will almost definitely be something you can tweak close. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 11/26/2017 at 10:44 AM, LuxCross said:

Hi! 

Earlier this week I was trying out a free version of The Sims 4, and I was amazed with how much detail and how good the characters look. So I began wondering if it's possible to make a bento head look exactly like my The Sims 4 character. Obviously it should be possible with the customization features but I'm not very good with sliders and with bento at all. Maybe people have tips for me. Like which bento head is best to use for this, which skin is best to use for this. 

I would really love to receive advice. Perhaps people have a suggestion for me on skin, or on the bento head. For me, the facial features (nose, eyes, lips, cheeks, chin, etc.) are important to this specific style of character. If anyone perhaps knows a shape similar to this, I'd love to know as well. Because I'm not very good at making facial shapes. 

Below is my The Sims 4 character.

The Sims 4 looks good because it was designed as a whole, consistent environment so things tend to look "right" with other elements. You describe how "detailed" the Sims 4 avatar looks but if you put that exact avatar into Second Life it would look quite cartoony because most builds tend to be less stylized in Second Life. I'm not putting down the Sims 4; I have it myself. But I'd suggest that what you're really looking for isn't what you think you're looking for.

[Janet Voxel]

I dunno, that looks doable with maybe a Logo head and a Maitreya body. 

[Penny Patton]

The shape of the sims characters is a big part of why it looks so much better than the typical SL avatar. Do you see how much longer the Sims model's arms are compared to possibly any SL avatar you've seen? This is because in SL people tend to have really, really, REALLY short arms. Also note that the Sims model's legs are only half her height. In SL it's not uncommon for an avatar's legs to be a full 2/3 their height.

Unless you're an artist who has studied proportion, people don't typically recognize these problems, but even to the untrained eye SL Avatars typically look "wrong" even if the person looking can't quite put their finger on why. Here's a link to a guide I wrote a while back on proportion and using prims to sort out the proportions of an avatar. I made it pre-mesh but everything still applies. It will help you achieve proportions similar to the Sims character.

 I'm thinking Avatar 2.0 from Utilizator might be your best bet for achieving a similar overall appearance but if you already have a mesh body and mesh head then you could probably get a very close look with the right skin.