Painting Gameplay Rebalanced
First of all, I haven’t had time to look into the pack that released yesterday yet. I’ll go through it over the next few days and update the mods that still need adjustments. I already had this one ready, so I thought I might as well post it.
A little background on this project, because this is only the first in a series of related mods I’ll be collecting in this same collection. Skip it if you're not interested:
Back in December, I decided to try playing the game again. That experiment typically ends with me dropping it two days in to follow some random burst of inspiration and start a new mod instead. This time, I forced myself to show some restraint and actually play the unmodded game.
It was painful.
About a week later, I installed The Sims 3 and played it seriously in Live Mode for the first time in my life. I kept playing Sims 3 until I decided to rebuild a house... and then I went back to The Sims 4 because the build mode is just so much better. I went on a full building streak in The Sims 4… but I was still frustrated by how lackluster the gameplay felt. All the cabins I was building in Granite Falls were just going to sit in my library unused, alongside dozens of other builds.
So I decided to return to Live Mode again, this time with a clear mission: fine-tune the core systems that make the game feel uninteresting.
Things like:
Every Sim ending up with the same playstyle
Universal moodlets that flatten personality
Overpowered buffs from food, decor, laundry
And other mechanics that remove friction instead of creating it
Most of those packages aren’t ready to be shared yet. They touch core systems that have been in place since launch (things like restricting powerful food buffs to Gluttons or Foodies only) and every patch forces me to recheck everything, which slows the process down considerably.
The first system I’m ready to share focuses on Painting.
UPDATES
18/03/2026
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Requires LOT51 Core Library
Painting is one of the biggest money exploits in the game. Sims can buy a cheap easel immediately, start a painting for §100, sell it for profit, gain skill at the same time, and keep scaling up in value, all without ever leaving the house.
The result is predictable: sooner or later, every household becomes a painting household. It’s simply the easiest way to make money, unless the player deliberately restrains themselves. And humans are famously bad at self-imposed restraint.
My rework addresses this in a few ways:
Painting now takes longer.
Duration is randomised, but small canvases no longer take just an hour. Creating art should feel like time investment, not instant cash conversion.“Sell to Collector” is locked behind the Painter career.
If you join the career, you regain the ability to sell directly from the easel. No career, no instant collector sales.Paintings can no longer be sold directly from inventory.
If you want to make money from art, you’ll need to use one of the more involved selling systems.
Most of those systems are tied to DLC (Plopsy, City Living street sales, Retail, Small Businesses, etc.). That’s where PlumbArt comes in.
I built an entire online art community accessible through the computer under “Social Network.”
Through PlumbArt, Sims can share their work, gain Fame, browse other artists, chat with the community, and, most importantly, take commissions.
The chance of receiving commission requests increases with your Sim’s follower count. In other words, you’ll need to build an online presence by consistently uploading artwork before you have a real chance of selling through commissions.
Higher-quality paintings attract more Followers and Fame, while lower-quality ones won’t grow your audience as effectively. Reputation matters.
The mod also introduces a “Scrap Painting” interaction, available on completed paintings. It includes a confirmation prompt and allows you to discard practice pieces your Sims create while levelling up the skill, without cluttering the house or relying on selling them for profit.
Comments (31)
Thank you for this mod. I enjoy how it works.
youre saving the game...thank you so much ❤️❤️❤️❤️ this game is too easy with EVERYTHING
Dude, you already had me sold before you created an entire new system for art trading lol. You're a god. Gardening and flower arranging are another easy money hack that I'm banning from my saves going forward for the same reason as painting. It takes a bit longer to get going but once you do you can easily make over 10k a day making orchid arrangements and it becomes trivial (seriously how does it make sense that an orchid bouquet sells for thousands of simoleans wtf). I would LOVE to get rid of all these easy money hacks and make the game an actual challenge.
Hello Zer0 Thank you for this mod, great idea ! Now that painting takes longer, sims use to be interrupted and dont finish in one go. Could it be possible to allow some kind of "autonomous continue paint" ? I noticed with mccc the action is supposed to be autonomous, but if i see npc resume their paints, active sims never do... :(
Hi Zero, I'm not sure why this mod isn't working for me, I took out simkatu's animation override mod because of the comment saying the weren't compatible, and I still can't join the Plumbart community on the PC, I get a BE that says animation error, the sim get out of the chair and starts T posing when I click on any of the options. I do use painting overrides so I'm not sure if that's what's causing the problem. Sorry if there's an answer to this somewhere else!
2 mini things: the simkatu painting anim override conflicts i believe with only 1 line of code with this mod, and the file is named paintig :>
Hi Zero, I'm enjoying this mod thank you! I have a query though - after I've uploaded the paintings to share on PlumbArt can I sell them on Plopsy or do buyers eventually come along to buy them in PlumbArt? It's just I have quite a few sitting in the inventory now so wondering what to do with them.
You can upload them on plumbart then sell them on plopsy.
Oh, no, my Sim has already reached level 10 in the artist career...
It's a good incentive to play another Sim with a different approach to painting. A problem this game has is "zero re-playability"
This is awesome!
OMG, I cannot wait to play with this! The painting career has always annoyed me because it's stupid easy in terms of money and fame. Awesome improvement - thank you so much!!!
This is such a good idea! How many times I feel the same, the same exact words going through my head almost everytime I'm playing this game. Too easy, I would say.. but what else, still stick with it life goes on. Now, my Question is: I still have the problem with white paintings in every save. As a modder, can you explain why this is happening or do you have a better understanding of this (is a core) problem? Thank you in Advance.
I'm playing basically vanilla and paintings are working without problem. Your problem might be related to something that overrides the object tuning of the canvas or the recipes, or both, those are the things that set the painting's style.
oooh, I'll be downing this! My current sim wants to become a painter so the timings perfect! Thanks!
Nice!
OMGGGGGGGGGG
Oh no! my lazy brain hates this, i hate this thought so much I LOVE IT!!!! The challenge of it!! finally!! If no one has said it today, you are awesome and brilliant. Exactly what I never knew I truly wanted.
wow this is brilliant!
Thank you
Thank you! Again, you anticipate my playing wants/needs before I can figure out what I want/need in my game! I look forward to the rest of the mods in this series!
Lov It!!! I have a Fine Arts Uni Prof. in my game. Gonna put him through the paces. Thanks for adding more dynamics to our gameplay.
So impressive and wow! Thank you for your hard work and attention to detail and what's needed at its core for the game 🫶🏾
Thank you for this, it's going into my game asap. Hopefully writing will get the same treatment, even music/song lyrics all the nerfs for all the money-making sounds good.
This is amazing. I love your tweaks because gameplay definitely gets interesting
Downloaded it, now we need a personality overhaul to make the current personality traits much more in-depth, emotions to work more realistically, lifetime aspirations, more sentiments, lifestyles to affect personality more, more in-depth attraction system, less repetitive wants, more likes and dislikes and more drama and consequences! This is what the Sims 4 needs!
Traits aren't the problem, emotions are. The game already improves by fine tuning some universal emotional buffs sims get from mundane stuff like drinking or eating, but I'm not ready with that package yet, it needs more testing.
why am I soooooo excited about this? Thank you, sincerely, thank you
As someone who loves making my sims struggle, I never using painting bc of all the reasons you listed. You've made the skill and/or career so much more interesting now!! Is it safe to assume these changes are applicable to the digital sketchpad? Are gigs limited in the same way for the freelancer career?
Freelancer career is not touched (yet), the sketchpad is included (slower than vanilla, but still faster than the easel)
This is a fascinating idea for gameplay! Thank you.