Character Makeovers

I will never regret beginning Pruett Family Legacy when I did, but I have two serious laments. The Pruett family is multi-generations of beautiful sims of color. Most of you out there started playing this game from the very beginning like I did, so you understand the limitations on the hairstyles I had to choose from. I didn’t start dabbling with custom content until generation 8, but even then my options were limited. So my first lament is I could never portray this family like I saw them in my head. The second is we never got to see any of these characters as toddlers, except our precocious Oliver, of course. But that one is neither here nor there. Years—and too many GBs of CC—later, I have the tools to make them look more how they should! I’m very excited for you to see them.

Besides new hair and wardrobe, I also made slight changes to some of their faces. Over the summer, I decided I wanted to learn to draw. That idea didn’t last long, heh, but I learned a lot in the 3 classes I watched. The best thing I learned was about facial proportions. I always figured there had to be some logic to how our faces are laid out, but it never bothered me enough to look it up. But of course now that I know this, I have to make sure all the millions of sims I create have proportional faces lol. So, like I said, the changes are minor. Mostly just moving eyes closer or farther apart, moving noses up or down, making them bigger/smaller, etc. Okay! Let’s get into these sims!

This is not how I picture Jonathan’s hair, but more on that later.

He has quite the genetic makeup! One day, years ago, I wanted to know what his exact history is, so I made very colorful pie charts for heirs and spouses for each generation and funneled my way down to Jonathan’s children who are multi multi racial but mostly black. I mentioned that to say, there is no reason anyone in this family should have straight hair (naturally). But that’s what we’ve had to do all this time.

We all know curly styles are scarce, and styles for men are even less. We also know Jonathan’s hair is a big part of his personality, so I couldn’t pick just any ol’ hair. I honestly liked Jonathan’s old look. Maybe I was just used to it, but it wasn’t right. I needed a curly hair that was long enough for him to tease and put all his products in (lol), but not super long because I just don’t see him with long hair. Of the hairs I had, this was the best. I’m still searching for his perfect hair, though.

Of all the makeovers, Maya changed the most. Her face is still a mystery to me. She has none of Jonathan’s features, but she’s not Skyla’s twin like Aubrey is, and I love it!

I left the girls with straight hair because I don’t see them embracing their natural curls yet. Maya sometimes lets them out, but Aubrey never does.

I imagine hair being a big struggle in Skyla’s formative years, especially growing up mulatto without a mother or even close friends. Even though she’s older now with her own children and in a better place, I can see how the past hair trauma might still affect her. On top of that, she was never a hair person anyway and keeps it simple and tame. So I gave her curls. This style is neat like Skyla is, but it’s a lot to deal with and probably takes a bit of effort to get it like this.

If you thought finding curly hair for men was bad… I went with this new-ish base game hair for our boy. These tighter curls are how I see Jonathan’s hair, actually. But I’ve never seen any mesh edits of this hair, and I don’t like how it looks on him, so the baby got it!

I didn’t do anything to Ranveer because he is perfection. Julio got a new old do. And I finally found some eyes I like on him that are the right color!

“Little Cousin” Derek finally cut his hair at OJenn’s behest lol. It also occurred to me that since Jonathan took the youth potion, Derek is older than him now. I gave him a few aging lines and salt & pepper hair. Though, with my new custom age spans, neither of them are probably as old as they think they are in the story. It won’t matter, anyway. We won’t see any of them as elders.

I tend to focus only on the main characters’ appearances and leave everyone else with the same two outfits their whole lives. But Keegan deserves some love too, especially because we see him so much. His life is so much better now than when he first entered the story as a teenage immigrant struggling to raise his little brother. He’s a manager at Aubrey’s restaurant now, making decent money. It was time for an upgrade. I like this hair because, unlike Jonathan and Ranveer, Keegan is not a hair guy. I can see him running his fingers through his hair a few times in the mornings and it comes out accidentally cute like this lol.

Aaliyah, Julio’s mom, is another neglected sim. I gave her a few more outfits because we’ll probably see her more often. I was tired of her hair, though. I chose her previous hair because it was the only blonde hair I had with a graying swatch, but I hated the color. Besides, that hair was a bit too tame for her personality, so I gave her something classy but sassy and easy to take care of with her 17 children lol.

She got an age update too because she’s actually very old. Before I changed my age ranges, she was very close to being an elder. Now she’s probably as young as you imagine her to be.

Well, that’s all, folks! I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look into these characters’ lives and histories. Stay tuned for the next chapter!