I'm not sure if this is the correct thread, but I'm going try anyway. Please let me know if it isn't.

So, I've been playing The Sims 2 for a few months and I love it, but lately, I've been getting bored with the skin and eyes the sims have.

I have seen both maxis-match and realistic (and semi) skins and it's getting hard to choose which one I want. The same thing for eyes. While the realistic ones don't strike my attention, the semi-realistic ones are pretty. Then again, I did see some very pretty maxis-match eyes, so this makes my dilemma worse.

Then, it hit me that I could get a combination of both maxis-match and (semi) realistic to make it more enjoyable.

But, here's where I'm stuck: What default replacement combination do you think looks better?

Maxis-match skin with (semi) realistic eyes or (semi) realistic skin with maxis-match eyes?

If you have pictures of the combinations, even better!

It comes very much down to preference, and there's no perfect combo that fits everyone. You just have to search around and maybe try out a few to find your favorites.

I use some of Ephemera's skins (slight modification), some very old eyes by Helaene (slightly edited, I've had them almost since I started playing), eyebrows by Helaene/Serasims/corvidophile, and eyeliners by Bruno(?)/Kirsi. The skins have changed a few times, but I've used the Ephemera ones for a very long while (2008-ish). They're somewhere on the scale of "still a bit cartoonish" to "semi-realistic" category. They look something like this - I think there's only a tiny bit of non-default face details like freckles and a natural lipstick added. I've had most of these replacements since somewhere around 2006-08, so I'm not sure how many of these are still up for download (I've got several backups just in case - I don't want to lose them!).

I've tried other defaults, but always get bored with them. I used to have some of Enayla's skins at first (I loved those, but eventually grew tired of them). Also tried some of Rensim's skins, but a few of the "custom" ones turned out to be geneticized and kept messing with genetics, so I chucked all of them out.

I don't use defaults that radically change looks of hairs or clothes. Just some texture defaults, and a few mesh changes like adding pregmorphs or removing mesh details that ruins recolors. Mostly I prefer using custom versions of CAS items instead of default replacements (they're less bork-inducing).

Personally I don't like the extremely realistic skins/eyes/details. Sometimes they only work in certain angles (happens to be the angles in the creator's photos), are badly made, or just kinda look wrong. I prefer the scale between "not too maxis match" to "semi-realistic".

There is no best, only what you personally like. I hate realistic skin and eyes, but that doesn't mean the next person might not love them. You have to like how your game looks and nobody else.

My game is fairly MM except for hair.
Skin PeachTSpecialNeeds
Eyes Jess_HOPU
Eyebrows IaKoa


Plus tons of others.

I used to have Enayla defaults, but after a while I found them a bit much. The ones I have now were a set of like 50 skins that Pooklet released a long time ago that were the whole skin color spectrum and geneticized, so I curated that batch, adjusted genetic value slightly with the Wardrobe Wrangler to favor darker skins, and turned the four with the appropriate genetic value into defaults. I love this because now my sims have realistic skintone variations instead of just being filed into four boxes (and I no longer get bizarreness like s1 sim + s4 sim = one s1 child and one s4 child). That matters to me a lot more than the actual style of the skins (which is perfectly fine, also).

What one person may like, another person may not.

I have Maxis match default replacement eyes by Opeu: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=254735
and Maxis Match skins (I can't link them because they are anatomically correct (meaning nipples and non-barbie genitals.)

@kestrellyn I went looking for the Pooklet skins you mentioned. Is it the Kids in Technicolor set found here? https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3ki8zc29...-skintones?dl=0

Yes, it's Kids in Technicolor, although I have no idea if that's where they're hosted.

For eyes, I use Queen of France's defaults, which are Maxis-match plus a few of her extra colours as well. I picked the "flatter" colours from the add-on sets (single tone and not very "shiny" looking), and tweaked the genetics on all of them so that I had several layers of dominance rather than them being either dominant or recessive. I also turned one of her grey-brown eyes into the default grey, because I found I never used the normal grey. Full set in "dominance layers" attached.

For skins I use these Maxis-match skins plus most of the add-on set, and ZephyrSteph's matching dark skin.

My go to eyes are Nouk's sharp eyes. Never found better. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=243858

I have changed skins a few times and right now there are 4 different makers as defaults and I'm still willing to find better. It's so subjective, but some of what I look for: to me, the ones that are really beautiful, I feel don't make good defaults, because the shading is so distinctive that I can see it on every sim. The all look like they were made up by the same makeup artist. I like beautiful tone, but generic enough shading that each sim doesn't look the same. I like imperfections like freckles, but again, they can't be too distinctive. I like, overall, my skins to trend much darker than the maxis ones, so my light skin is medium light with freckles, but the next one is probably a 3 set as a 2, the 3 is probably a 4, and the 4 is pretty dark. Right now, ResimPeau_Sable is my darkest.

I use Sleepytabby's Imperfections skins and Natural Elements eyes. There's also a set of eyes called Simply Eyes that come with customizable and layerable highlights (the highlights will also work with other eyes - cool idea).

Sleepytabby calls these "Maxis match", but they don't look much like what most other people call "Maxis match" (that term is much too broad anyway ) I think they look more like a painted texture. The screenshots on the downloads page don't really do them justice - try them out in your game and see if you like them.

http://www.modthesims.info/browse.php?gs=0&u=8793450