Thanks for all your lovely comments! I appreciate those of you with game dev experience weighing in! Just an FYI: I am aware of why concept art exists. I'm only questioning the need for it in the case of remaking the playable Sims. If it's necessary for us to get our beloved Sims back, then I'm all for it!

i’m convinced that the sims 4 developers have never played a sims game in their entire life lmfao

Imagining Cindy waking up in the middle of the night because of the Caliente sisters has me rolling bahahahah 😅💙

‪They could’ve done this *concept* stuff from within the game itself!‬ When it comes to the Caliente sisters, I have no clue why their appearances were botched… and their PERSONALITIES WERE SWAPPED!

I think Mortimer looks PHENOMENAL! Bella, Nina and Dina ... YIKES! The Sims 4 team continues to do an excellent job at showing how much they *don't* care for the Sims franchise, and how disconnected they really are, smh.

This is a side note, but I'm not even excited for the Sims 5. Even if the gameplay and personality is fixed (which I doubt it will be) I already know the base game is going to be so lackluster just so they can shove 90% of the actual content into expansion packs, stuff packs, game packs, kits and a 5th game add on that I'm sure they will inevitably create by the time it comes out. I also think game elements that EVERYONE experiences in real life, like seasons, laundry, and pets should be free, while paid DLC should only be add ons that aren't essential to life in the real world. But knowing EA, that will NEVER happen. As I believe pets and seasons are their highest selling DLC packs. Maybe this is all an unpopular opinion, but I've had those thoughts in my head for a while.

As someone who is really interested in concept art as a whole and learns to become a character designer here are some things I have to say: Why we need concept art for Sims changing: Concept art is a communication tool. The art director describes what they want, the concept artist visualized these in a sketch (In this case, these are painted over screenshots), it goes back and forth with feedback. When approved, it goes to the modelers or illustrators. It would take 30 minutes or less for a single person that does all this procedure for themselves. A player is art director, concept artist, and modeler at once. But in a team no one is or should be able to make decissions on their own because that could leed to a mess. Also as a note because I think many people just get an uncanny vibe from the concept art: Its purely functional. no colors, no lighting, everything is also perfectly symmetrical. its not even a neutral mood, the eyelids are on "zero" think of it like a tpose of the face. It comes of as very unnatural but this is the readability designers need.

My feelings are that they're trying to get rid of stuff like the iconic green eyes that evidence their alien heritage because, unlike The Sims 2, aliens aren't base game while the Caliente household is :/

Another question this brings: Will they fix Cassandra too? Bc how they did her is an injustice I have to fix immediately when I enter a new save.

Wouldn’t it have been cool if they just ran a competition for players to recreate them and the winners got to be included in an update?

You should reach out to EA, they are consulting people in the community (Plumbella & Spring Sims) about this. You are an expert on Sims lore & appearance from previous games and your input would be valued.

I think it was confirmed that these were actually drawings, and it leaves this (for me) uncanny valley feeling, I’m assuming why some of them look lifeless, it’s because it’s a drawing rather than the in-game CAS. Though it does make me wonder why they’d draw it if they have a great tool right in front of them that would give them a more accurate picture of their ideas. Another reason I think the pictures look off is because it’s trying to put more accurate facial features in the drawings that aren’t possible in CAS, obviously trying to make the faces themselves more accurate to the structure of their ethnicity, Like Hispanic/middle-eastern for the Calientes and for Bella (I’m not sure what her original ethnicity is so I’d have to look into that) Also I think it’s worth mentioning that these are all without makeup, which Bella and the Calientes are covered with, so that might be another reason it looks worse than before

I don’t even play the sims 4 anymore (Sims 2 & 3 all the way), but I still love watching your sims 4 videos to see what I’m totally NOT missing lol.

I always thought of the Caliente sisters from sims 2 to be scheming, conniving trouble makers but were ultra attractive. We have Dina who is a professional gold digger (she has married twice for wealth) and Nina who is ready to seduce the entire neighbourhood but is in love with Don. They are nice at their core, but I could always imagine Dina being a bit materialistic and shallow, and Nina to be looking for love in the wrong places. Sims 4 Caliente sisters are just a mess and look and feel nothing like the original! That said, the Caliente sisters are my favourite pre made sims

EA is kinda dramatic for this like concept art is pretty overkill lmao. However, I’m a huge fan of the facial reconstructs. Especially for Bella. She looks so much more like her sims 2 version. Dina really just needs different hair and they very well may change her hair.

I think they're putting out the concept art to gauge public reaction before they do something permanent. What's weird to me is to put out concept art that's not finished? Like, why didn't they change their hair- that was very jarring to see on the concept art. They could've released art both with and without makeup. I'm glad they look more distinctly middle eastern but they did them a disservice by not changing hairstyles, eye colours and makeup.

I agree. This is so disappointing so far. Mortimer looks better but he never looked that bad anyway. But again, I don’t understand why they’re making this such a big deal and all about looks (it was never all about looks anyway). It was literally a matter of fixing their skintones and adding actual Lore. And I think they’re forgetting about the second part and focusing too much on the “looks” part which was never an issue except for the skintones. I think this is a classic the sims 4 move: they start a fire by half assing a feature (or in this case, premades) and then want a medal for putting it out 7 years later…and what’s worse on this case they’re not even putting it out properly

Cindy remade the calientes and it looks great. FakeGamerGirl remade the calientes and it looks great. Plumbella remade the calientes and it looks great. I think EA should just copy what others instead of trying to overcomplicate things by doing everything "unique" stop it.

It's just too little, too late. If they care about retaining the lore and stories of the older games, then just show us in the next game (or remaster/rerelease the old ones). The Sims 4 developers seem to be obsessed with giving simmers little tidbits of fanservice to "show they care" despite not actually doing much.

The amount of time and overcomplication that has gone into them overhauling a handful of sims has made me understand how the Sims 4 is still so lacking all these years later. They can't get anything done without it being a huge timesink, and I have no idea why. They have the reference sims, they have a game that has powerful character creation tools, and a huge company full of staff who could each spend half an hour remaking one of the sims and have it done in a day or two. With the amount of hype and time they're putting into this I'd at least expect the sims to be near perfect replicas of their reference sims, but yet they changed basic facial features like eye color and eyebrow color when the whole point of this "refresh" was to fix the lore. And I have a funny sims 4 feeling that despite all the excessive time and resources going into this simple task, when they release the update Nina and Dina's personalities will still be backwards since all the sims 4 team seems to care about is aesthetics and not gameplay. I'm honestly exhausted with the sims 4 as a whole.

Seven years later and there are still no playable cars, create-a-style or the ability to add/install custom worlds. I mean no disrespect to those involved in making these face redesign concepts, but this feels like so much hype for such a small change.

The Caliente sisters and Bella Goth’s concepts look old, raggedy and washed up

Without someone telling me who these sims were or who they look like. I would never think Dina and Nina Caliente, even with the new concept art.

I really don’t understand why they didn’t change Nina and Dina facial structures. Bruh, they are the descendants of an *alien* , you can VERY clearly see that in the sims 2, because their facial structures are unique and can even be a little funky at times (it’s better not to watch Nina kissing someone when she’s an elder, her teeth stick out of her cheek), but in the sims 4…they just look like regular people.

I love some ugly Sims but the Calientes are supposed to be the hot ones. Don't make them look like randomised townies, EA!

The concept art is just awful. I already deleted all the classic sims and remade them on my own. Plus adding other classic sims from 1,2,and 3 to my sims game.

i burst out laughing at the concept art reveal of the Caliente sisters. Sweet Jesus that's awful

Whyyyyyy. There are hundreds of videos of people recreating the Calientes and the Goths. Watch, listen and DO WHATTHE PLAYERS WANT!

One thing I think should be pointed out is that they do need to concept. Like you said Cindy, there are hundreds of different interpretations of the Calientes in the Sims 4, based on their original appearances. 2 desiners could create two totally different interpretations. They need to make sure they know what look they actually are going to go for before they make the characters. That said it was a mistake to show these publically. They should have been internal only and used the new completed characters in a future livestream. These are the tidbits you put in an artbook after the finished product is released.

I feel like an artist from The Sims Mobile may have had a hand at Nina and Dina's concept art, the sims just look so similar! especially in the eyes

Agreed with everything. The only reason I can think of them doing concept art instead of implementing the changes directly is that maybe they want to add some new CAS assets for them so they're doing concepts to avoid doing too much work but still...why?!

Concept art is 100% necessary, because they need a plan to finalize a full idea. They can't just send one person in to change things, because they have a chain of command to answer to, and everyone has their own different interpretation of how the characters look. They have to plan things beforehand, get approval from the higherups, and have a general consensus about how the original characters will be translated into the Sims 4. Treating things casually wouldn't be appropriate in dealing with how bad they messed up, and it wouldn't work in a studio environment where everyone has a boss to answer to, and something like a concept art is a physical manifestation of work completed. It's also good for them and us to release a concept art to the public, so they can test out our reaction to the changes they think will fix the designs. If we all hate the concept art, then they know it's time to go back to the drawing board. As an individual you have the freedom and ability to do whatever you want however you wish. You ultimately only answer to yourself. You wouldn't need to make something like a concept art generally, unless you were really invested in creating the exact perfect designs for sims, because you can just stop fiddling when you're satisfied. They have to answer to someone else, so stopping when they thing something is perfect may result in them getting told it's actually horrible and to redo it. Concept art should save time, so they can get approval and only do it once.

I DO like that the faces are narrower - and the faces are fine! It's just the skin tone that's really ... souless and lifeless. It needs to be warmer. They look like me when I wake up in the morning. LMAO!

All of the new concepts were drawn over the CAS assets, I'm not sure what program they used

These are drawings, indeed, not pictures from the game - I think they've mentioned it on the stream.

They are actually working with Simmers to overhaul the Calientes and Goths, so they are not only changing their appearences but also lore, i.e. personalities! I think that's quite cool and admirable. I don't mind we are getting this overhaul this late, it was probably very low on the priority list and now they seem to be listening a lot more to the community and fixing a lot of things ... or at least trying. I do however agree, the concept art gives me the creeps ...

Why concept art seems pretty intuitive to me it's useful for internal communication. The better question imo is Why are they sharing/advertising the concept art

If I had to guess WHY they put out concept art instead of just going ahead and doing the changes in game, it would be to build excitement for the updates and to potentially earn some brownie points in the process. Plus it keeps us talking about the game in the interim period until the next pack. This is all in addition to the whole bureaucratic process of communicating ideas between design teams and management yadda yadda

I overall really like this, remember this is without real lighting and CC. I like that the faces are less wide- I feel like that was an issue base game. I also just am so glad at the fix of whitewashing. I love the Calientes’ personally, wish Nina and Dina’s faces were a little longer and kept eye colors, but I like the strong features. So much better.

I’m really upset with the concept of the sisters. Like, they’re part alien and they got rid of their iconic bright green eyes. Maybe because TS4 an alternate “universe”?

I always thought Dina and Nina had green eyes as a little nod to their alien ancestors.

You're such a respectful and nice person. Also, you are looking awesome and healthy and your hair is becoming more and more beautiful. I'm proud and I hope you are feeling as good as it seems❤

I might be late to the party, but I can try to explain some things that you probably don't know yet. These are literal paintings, they are drawing over their faces, you can even see that Nina's face doesn't even line up. I think that they are doing these way and creating concept arts because they are going to redo the Lore, so it might explain why they look a bit off (more than it should considering the first thing I've said. (I might be wrong and there's nothing to do with the new Lore) Also, they are using the help of some simmers to recreate them, Plumbella did a video talking about how she's helping recreating the Goths and she said that they didn't even had hair, they probably just put the old hair just because nobody was gonna recognize them, also shevconfirmed that it was weird because it wasn't CAS. So, TLDR: these are just paintings, and they look off probably because it's going to match somehow with their lore, and the hair was just because originally they didn't even had hairs, was just their face, it's just place holders . Edit: Unpopular Opinion... The only Caliente I like is Katrina. Because she's new, she didn't existed before, I like her e.e

Since they asked Plumbella to help with the design and she already made a video on it so I have some faith

Concept art is not unusual. It's easier to pass around, mark up, and exhibit during a meeting. They were also involving game changers in the process so made more sense to just email them them the concept art.

Finally a KZfaqr with an honest opinion on this abomination they call “overhaul”

From an artist standpoint, I create concept art to try and get my idea out of my head and onto paper to sort of bring life to my idea/character. With that being said, I agree that it makes no sense for them to create concept art when they can just go in and change them to how they're supposed to look. They're just wasting time by creating concept art for characters that already exist.

make no sense making concepts in photoshop when they can easily change they in game.... looks like the are trying to complicate something that should be simple.

Well if they did a 30 makeover then those refreshed sims would only go to the gallery. I saw plumbella's video about her experience in this and sounds like they are trying to fix the lore too. so that means they need to basically fix all the files of the preset sims in the neighborhoods involved(the ones that create the sims when you start a new game). And also I don't think their goal is to just copy the sims 2 version of the characters. This seems to be a test to see how the community reacts. And I totally understand that. I hope they make good changes. And one last thing .. when simmers refresh townies we do it to please ourselves. They have to go through concept art and all that because they have to aim to please most people.

This thumbnail makes me laugh so damn much. Love your videos 😭

Honestly I feel like the core issue is that the team of people on ts4 is not the team that worked on ts2. That in and of itself is not an issue, but when players are looking for continuity, and you have a team of people who don’t know the intricate details of the previous games, you won’t have that continuity. These two games are basically entirely separate. The games cater towards different audiences and they seem to have different goals. I also agree that the idea of concept art for something that already exists is silly.

your hair looks so nice

100% agree with you! Love the video and thank you.

It's neat seeing the progression of me and Cindy's hairstyles. I'm rocking a very similar hair to yours right now and I feel like a lil baby Cindy :)

One thing about Nina and Dina that I miss is that they had a long faces, green eyes, somewhat smaller noises because they originated from aliens. But that interesting bonus went into the bin like so many good concepts from previous games did.

They obviously need to leave the eyes alone. The sisters have an eye color that matches and they need to leave that alone. They did talk, on the livestream about potentially changing the hair styles for them. I don’t recall if they mentioned the hair color or not, but they did mention maybe changing the hair styles.

I know this isn't related but your hair looks so beautiful!!

Oh noooooo Sims team!

you are glowing in this video very gorg! Thanks for being the realest simmer and not holding back on those mofos

I definitely understand where you’re coming from with the concept art issue, though as someone who is currently doing a whole lot of research for animation, illustrations, 3d models, etc. for future colleges, I feel like I can understand it more! There’s a lot of things that go into these and while I’m definitely not the best person to explain this (I honestly don’t completely know how to), I think because of planning and how big the game is, concept art is more necessary; just how for most professional projects (even projects based on something else) concept art is important. These take a lot of work and you really need to plan out the models; not just to make everyone happy, but to also test how they’ll interact with the world around them. It may not seem like it would affect much, but it does. Though like I said, I can definitely see where you’re coming from and I somewhat agree; it’s just a more internal thing that people in the industry can understand and explain better than me, if that makes sense? John Smith under Cindy’s comment definitely explains it better than me and in less words lol

Oh wow, thanks for the video! Perfect timing after working for 14 hours and still not being able to sleep, lol

one of the huge problems here is because the dark skintones in the Sims 4 all look SOOOOO GREY....

They need to not use the cheese hair it looks ridiculous when there are so many better blondes in the game when I play i alwys change that

EA just needs to let Sims 4 die and start again 😩. Thankfully The Sims 2 exists!

OMG I love the way you made the Calientes, it's like the sims 2 graphics came to life 😍

For Dina and Nina they definitely look more Arabic, they didn’t look like that in sims 2. To me they look good I like the change doesn’t bother me that the looks don’t match previous games. I care more about personality and relationships and the drama.

Also it's like they forgot Dina and Nina are TWINS. Like the twins that look very alike but aren't identical. Not understanding why they're changing their eye colour when they've always had the eye colour they've had? I mean it's whatever but if doing their eyes over they should have tired to make them look slightly alien as their alien heritage is why their sims 2 counterparts had the slight shape to their eyes that they did?

Plumbella made a video saying she and another simmer worked on the revamp with the sims team, I'm guessing they're trying to get a feel from the rest of the community and make sure everyone else likes their idea's for them so far?

To me it seems like the Sims team is trying to analyse the reactions from the community, otherwise they wouldn't reveal unfinished concept art. Also as others have already pointed out: Concept art is a communication tool that makes it easier to toss little bits of work between different parts of the team to get feedback. Imagine spending like an hour in CAS just to have your boss tell you that it sucks and you need to start over lol. Doing it like that would be a waste of time, so they show sketches instead and ask for feedback before they proceed into the next design phase. They also had briefings with youtubers like Plumbella for additional feedback. I think they are trying to find out what exactly the community would be most happy with, which is the reason for this sneak peek. At least a good design team would evaluate community reactions lol. Seems like they don't want to make a redesign of Nina and Dina from TS2 but instead they might be aiming for improved versions which take the heritage and stuff into account.

I also wish they’d get rid of Katrina. The caliente’s mother is Nighat!!!

4:42 its concept art, they are taking the apereance that would look good as a model, as you can see thats not even the lip texture they use, its just a base. And i think she looks very attractive regardless the very 3d uncanniness

I adore your background ❤❤❤❤❤ I love the Sims 2 poster but I could be biased

I find this overhaul a little confusing. I like Mortimer and Bella, but the Caliente sisters are just a bit confusing. I agree that the whitewashing (and the cheese hair!) needed to be fixed, but the skintone they have in the concept art is...grey? Like it looks like one of the really dodgy cool toned sims 4 skins that I only use on vampires. Maybe it is just because it is a concept art and not in game though.

Haha Cindy I do love your ruthless sincerity, and I feel your pain! I felt frustrated with the concept arts too… for the calientes and for Bella. I think EA doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to understand. I mean there must be things that we don’t know but it’s really astonishing. Let’s see what we get in the end. I guess we can always makeover them again 😅😂😘

Great video Cindy! I do find it strange that they’ve drawn over the original Sims when they could have just made them in cas, but oh well I guess 😂 also did you get a new camera? The quality looks great!

i really like how your remakes are a little alien-like 😁

Others have already explained the concept art thing but It's also because they spoke with a few simmers like plumbella and showed that art to them and included that feedback as well. Plumbella mentioned giving a lot of feedback on lore changes they should add and stuff about their personalities ect as well and I think they're showing the concept art to see what feedback the community as a whole has as well beofre it gets finalised. Also concept art means if they need to they can create new items if they need to even though I don't think they will.

i don't even like to play sims 4 anymore, but everytime i remember how the caliente twins look like i want to download the game again just to fix that lmao

Nothing to do with the videos but omg your hair is looking sooo good!!!

Seems like a long process but I'm glad that they're putting in effort. Sims2 did not have the CAS tools available in Sims4 so I'm glad their are taking the opportunity to showcase their ethnicity more. The sims2 seemed to have a very narrow barbiesque view of beauty when you look at the premade women

I can wait to hear about ur thoughts on story progression..

Thanks for weighing in, Cindy. You speak the truths.

They couldn’t even be bothered to cover up the rest of Dina’s shirt strap in the “new concept” lol

Omg girl look at that hair growth 😍

I loved seeing a Sims 4 opinion video from you again and love to hear your thoughts on the new story progression update, to me I get it biu it doesnt make sense at the same time.

I remember they talked about considering adding new cas item for the sims like new mustache for Mortimer or new hairstyles for the Caliente sisters (which they didn't show or have in the concept...)

I would’ve understood concept art if they were giving them completely new hair styles eyebrows and other things not in the game already. But they could’ve just made them look like their old sims 2 selves in game or whatever lol.

I think it's good that they're fixing these sims and I am hopeful that the finished product will be better than the concept art, BUT I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't at least do the entire households of the sims they selected. Alexander Goth is alright but I think Cassandra could've used a makeover too, and DAMN do I wish they would've taken the big step of changing "Katrina Caliente" into the ACTUAL CANONICAL MOTHER OF THE SISTERS! What was the purpose of giving them a completely different mother???

This is unrelated, but I think the short hair with the bangs haircut (on your website) looks super cute on you.

Nina and Dina look like Sims 1 characters in the concept art

Oo they're adding zombies 😻 purrr

completely agree with all what u said!!! 👍👍

I think that they needed the concept art because they were probably going back and forth with making them exactly like sims 2, like their sims 2 verisons but better, or a more accurate look to their heritage. I think direct translations from sims 2 to sims 4 look super weird, like with your version of them where their eyes are on their forehead and their faces are super super long

Honestly, I think that some people just do not have a task in the team and try to show that they are working on something. I think that would they release the concept of the SIMS 5 there would be less negative comments. Hey, EA, give this team a task to do concept of stories for the SIMS 5! Or, if do not know what to do-find people who make mods and give them cart Blanche for ideas and brainstorming. Sorry, I decided to write that here cause it is such a pain.

I've fixed the entire caliente household and added some new characters

I always thought the caliente sister where some black fishing women. This would explain their facial features in the Sims 2 and 3. They're supposed to be brown but look like white women but tan? That would also explain why they're suddenly white. As if they've grown out of their tan phase. But hearing their backstory with the name and heritage, this make over makes more sense. They look latina. With features i saw on my Colombian (south America) neighbours. And that their hair is obv coloured, therefore having dark eyebrows.

I never thought of it this way. Now that you mention it, it's kind of true haha I got the idea that they're trying to change the style of all Sims (kind of like sim art revamp) and that they're testing the waters with Goths and Calientes. If that's not what they're doing, they're seriously waisting their time and new a new business strategy 😂

I quite like the Bella Goth concept art - I can see it as incorporating how she looked in the Sims 1 into the mix, with a bit more of a severe look.

Love your videos!! Here are my thoughts: The sims 4 team seems to crave for validation for the smallest things... Like doing the bare minimum (fixing premade Sims) and expecting applause and cheers for it. I think that's why they released consept art and are dragging it out, they want to create "hype". What I love about these remakes however, is that they've somewhat included simmers in designing these! You should check out Plumbella's video on this, she was included in the designs! If I understood correctly, the hair and make up will also change, like someone said, the faces are most likely just "markers" for what the faces could be? I'm happy for the remakes, but this should have been done years ago. Doing all this now seems so attention seeking and like they think this will make up for a lot of other stuff that the sims 4 is lacking...

I think everything you’re saying is true lol we shall see when everything rolls out. BUT I want to know your opinion on them fixing the core things themes of gameplay like story progression and old packs? I hope you’re doing amazing! ❤️