You've gotta utilize the sliders, they're the backbone of making unique sims. Taking the old saying of "you can put makeup on a pig, but it's still a pig", not to use that negatively just that if you can't figure out how to make unique facial structures CC isn't going to get you near as far as you might hope. It's just putting makeup on the problem, not resolving it, and it can only do so much with the same facial structures. Your sims will still all look the same, they'll just be shinier versions of the same thing.
You've just gotta practice and experiment. Don't be afraid to push the sliders to their limits, you can't really harm anything so just go for it. Play around with some of the preset features, then run them through the sliders for even more enhancement. When you do make something you like that is different save that sim to use as a base in the future. I might have 5 different versions of the same sim that I've saved along the way working on each feature. I might not make that same sim ever again (try not to) but having a base I like to work with and adjust helps. You can also download base sims, they're not to hard to find on tumblr. Sims people have shared for other people to download and play around with. That might help too, playing with those sims, maybe seeing what others have done.
And just practising. Honestly as much as making a sim seems like it should be simple and straightforward, people get better the more they do it. I know I look at sims from a couple years ago and am amazed at how much my sim making has changed, a couple years ago I looked at sims from a couple years before then and was amazed at how much had changed.
I will say my very favourite CAS tool is Master Controller and the ability it grants to change your slider multiple. You can push those bad boys a lot further with it. But you might want to be somewhat comfortable with the normal sliders first, or not set your multiple too high, because it can make for some very drastic results (I never put mine above 3 anyway, so you might want to keep it at 2 if you want more range with less risk of going too far).
Custom sliders also help. But you can do a lot with the base game sliders, custom ones aren't that essential to diverse sims. There's also a thousand custom sliders out there and it can be overwhelming. But they can be really cool and useful.
CC skins would be your next best bet. But it's another thing with a thousand options and so many different styles.
Sketchbook Pixels, for example makes a bunch of unique skins that really can change a sims look sometimes with like no effort on your part. But they have a very distinct, more realistic, look that is not everybody's thing.
So CC is largely a personal preference thing. But I will say
Lana CC Finds is fantastic for finding stuff it's really organized so you can just search by the category you're looking for and not wade through everything on it. Fabulous resource if you are wanting to try some CC.
And wow this is waayyy longer than I anticipated, I'll just shut up now. Kudos if you actually read my novel lol.
