Your Favourite Ways to Find Inspiration

Well, I've always had my head in the clouds and enjoyed creating my own characters and stories. Sometimes I like to bring these to 'life' with the Sims. I think my main inspirations would be my favourite films/shows/theatre, art, history, literature and (especially) music. Perhaps a bit of real life and people too, as well as wish fulfilment and fantasy. Sometimes I just find a 'face claim' I like or someone that leaves an impression and it goes from there. I love drama, romance, horror, historical and supernatural themes. I also have a background in psychology and mental health, which often has a big influence on my characters. I'm a terrible sucker for the tragic anti-hero, angst and hurt/comfort. I put my favourites through so much misery, but always give them a happy ending! Well, most of the time... o:)

This is probably gonna sound weird, but since I'm an animation student, I tend to come up with ideas by thinking of something I'd like to watch on TV. I'll think of interesting characters and scenarios that I think would make for a good episodic series and plan everything out from there.

When I'm really struggling to find an interesting build, I just look at google images of something related to what I'm doing.
For exemple I've been rencently working on a old creepy Manor, and I just couldn't get any design right. I typed "Creepy Manor" in google images, spent a few minutes browsing, and boom, got something that sparked a really nice building. It was just a detail, the way the porch was, but it was enough to spark everything else naturally.

I play 50 households rotationally, so it's pretty easy to simply switch my focus. There's always some family or single sim that is different, that needs my attention to move on with their lives. Some own businesses, some seek fame, some are rebells, some has a mission in life. But still, with all this variety, there are times I just don't get into it. Taking a break might trigger some new ideas, but sometimes I just visit households without playing, just to watch the simology etc. I might get new ideas that way, or at least some inspiration to play. Or I might ponder over my sim community, realizing that there are important jobs that someone ought to have. Formal jobs like Doctors or police etc, or some job that I make up, like Janitors. Then I will need to organize and suddenly I'm into playing again. Oh, and because I make videos featuring my sims there will often be need of adjusting looks and locations before a scene is shot, which is kinda playing the game, too :)

IRL

Like irl friends. I have a friend who’s a hair stylist so I made him a stylist in the game. I have a friend who’s vegetarian so he’s vegetarian in the game, etc. It was a lot better in ts3 since there was around 100 traits and you could equip 4 or 5 on each sim. In ts4 there is half that or less and you can only do 3 traits.

I have a household of 8 that is made up of irl ex girlfriends. I don’t visit the household, it’s just fun to sometimes see them out and about in the world.

I have a former irl president at the top of the political career in my game.

MEDIA

My kid really loves Ninjago, so I made a sim (I actually made mr miyagi instead of Jackie Chan) who runs a shop selling all the rarest things in the game. It’s lead to weeks of gameplay collecting all the things and building/playing the store.

From YouTube I have LGR, Duke Nukem, Curtis Paradise, etc...

CELEBRITIES(not celebrities in my game)

I have a household made up of Al Pacino, Robert Dinero, Tony Soprano, etc who are all dressed like mobsters. They are in the criminal career.

I have a household of SNL alum who are in their alter egos, Wayne and Garth, Billy Madison, etc. they are comedians in game.

My in game cops are Sonya Blade, The Rock, Paul Walker etc...

MYSELF

I have 3 versions of my simself in my game. A realistic version, a vampire version, and a famous version.

I get inspiration to make Sims from pulling from various sources, mainly from clothes available in CAS, or different ethnicities I haven't tried, sometimes from roleplay, maybe from an exotic name or two, various Gallery challenges, or simply from what the game has already generated out of townies.

I hadn’t played Sims since around 2006 - give or take two years, lol. I just didn’t have a computer that could handle the specs. So, when my daughter saw Sims 4 on sale in January 2018, we bought it. We had Sims of ourselves at first, and played them a lot. Then lost interest in the game.

Since then, the first thing I did was make 6 families, of different ethnicities. Each family had either 2 sons, or 2 daughters. One a young adult, the other a teen. Then I had all the young adults hang out together, and saw who they gravitated to, and married them off. So then there were 3 new couples in the game. So I aged up the teens, and did the same with them. Let them choose each other. So, 3 more families in the game.

Then I decided I wanted portraits painted of each family, so I made a sim (Jasmine) and got her to master painter very quickly, and she moved from house to house painting portraits.

Then, for some odd reason, that I can’t remember, I wanted her as a male sim. So I went into CAS, made a female twin of Jasmine, so they’d be exactly alike, then just changed the twin to a male - his name is Jasper, and he is the hero of the town. He got Master painter status super easily, then got to be the MVP of the team. Now all of the other stories/families revolve around him.

Except for two, but they are too long to explain- lol. They were spawned by townies doing interesting things to my played Sims. And now I endlessly write stories about them all. The stories come from faces they make or actions they do during interactions. The stories write themselves. And I can safely say I am addicted to this game, and regularly stay up until 3 am playing and taking pictures for the stories.

I take a thoughtful shower, or sing in the shower :D

*sorry, couldn't help myself* >:)

I love to build in the game, my favorite way to find inspiration is to go for a walk or if the weather is warm cycling around my city to admire different styles of architecture. I also like to watch let's plays and build videos for the Sims 4 on Youtube, or visit my favorite simblrs and find inspiration in beautiful screenshots of their sims' houses.

Edited: corrected a typo.

At this point in the Sims franchise most of my inspiration is me waiting for certain packs that add a game feature I need to recreate families I've had in previous iterations of the game. Otherwise it could be anything from a snazzily dressed townie I see walking by in game, or I'm bored at work and thinking about what I'd like to do in my game next, and sometimes that leads me to new sims I want to create.