1. Create your own custom brushes: step by step

In this tutorial, I assume you are comfortable enough with using Sims 4 Studio for creating content, and know how to use DDS export plugins in Photoshop or any other software.

To help you, I have here some sample files you can use to see how the images are made.

Required:

Sims 4 Studio

Photoshop and the Nvidia DDS export plugins. I'm sure you can use other software but that's the one I'm familiar with.

Brushes are really simple to create as they consist of only 3 elements: the Pelt Brush which contains all the informations related to the brush, and two images, which are the brush thumbnail, and the brush texture.

There are two types of brushes: black brushes (1) for which you can edit the color and the opacity in paint mode, and colored brushes (2) for which the color cannot be edited.

1- Prepare your textures

The brush thumbnail: prepare a 64x64 PNG image of your brush with a transparent background

The brush texture: depending on what type of brush you cant to create, the image format is not the same. I recommend starting from the sample files I've provided above to have the right formats.

Black Brush: prepare a 128x128 DDS image of your brush, with a grayscale channel with the alpha of the brush (white is visible, black is transparency), and a fully white alpha channel. When exporting, select the "8 L 8 bpp | luma only" format and check "Generate Minimaps"

Colored Brush: prepare a 64x64 DDS image of your brush, with a RGB channel with the picture of your brush (if you are starting from an existing image, I recommend making it darker and less saturated) and an alpha channel with the alpha of your brush. When exporting, select the "8.8.8.8 RGBA 32 bpp | unsigned" format and uncheck "Generate Minimaps"

2- Create your brush

In Sims4Studio, select Tools and Create Empty Package.

Go in Tools again, and select Hash Generator to generate unique ID for the three elements of your brush (Pelt Brush, Brush Texture, Brush Thumbnail): input a unique name in the Text box for each element, and copy the ID in the FNV64 box for each element.

In your package, click on Add to add each of the three elements: select the Type (DST Image for the brush texture and the brush thumbnail, Pelt Brush for the brush itdelf) and use the ID you generated for each element in the Instance box.

For both the brush texture and thumbnail, right click on the DST Image and select Import, and import the texture you prepared.

For the Pelt Brush, click on it and fill in the different fields displayed on the left (they seem obscure so don't worry, I will help you there, and not everything has to be filled in, I only listed the fields you need to modify 🤭)

B1: brush type, that determine how the brush is sorted. For basic brushes that can also be used on pet, you can put "2" here, for other brush types that are more for tattoing, I put "3"

BrushImageKey: the Instance ID of your brush texture

F1: spacing, if you are making a basic brush for painting, put 0, if you are doing a motif, put 5

F2: default size multiplier, I don't understand how it works, it seems to be a multiplier, so just put 1.5 as most default brushes use

F3: minimum size, for this one, I put 0.15

F4: maximum size, for this one I put 7

F5: the random rotation, this one is mostly useful for basic brushes used for painting to give more variety, in this case put something like 10, in other cases it doesn't matter (i put 10 all the same)

ThumbnailKey: the Instance ID of your brush thumbnail

With all of that filled in, you can Save your package and test in-game to see if your brush works. You can add other brushes to this same package if you want to create a pack of brushes 🤗

2. Ready to download custom brushes & edited existing brushes

New Brushes: Using this method, I created a small sample of new brushes using pictures from the game! The possibilities are kind of endless, so It's just a first small selection to get started (DISL_TattooBrush_NewBrushes)

Edited Brushes: one of the thing that really annoyed me with painting mode is that some brushes were still very big at their minimal size. I edited all the existing brushes to allow using them at a smaller size. Note that the quality of the paint is still limited by the skin texture size in game, so really painting really small won't look that good (DISL_TattooBrush_AdjustedSize_BG for base game brushes - also used for painting pets and werewolves, DISL_TattooBrush_AdjustedSize_BH for Business & Hobbies new brushes)

Download: SimFileShare

3. Create your own custom tattoos using your photo editing software

As for my existing tutorial for editing photos in-game, this method can also be used to edit tattoos in-game directly through a photo editing software. It can make it easier to import your own designs into the game without having to paint them from scratch in paint mode!

Start a new save file, to make sure of not messing up with your own save file - there are potential issues with hollidays when editing a save sile using Sims 4 Studio, and make picures easier to find - as you might already have taken some pictures in your own save.

In this new save file, Create a Sim and while in cas, go in paint mode to mark down where you want to apply your future custom tattoos (it will be helpful later). Validate the Sim creation and save the game.

Open you savefile using the Sims 4 Studio. In the Filter bow, type "Texture" then click on Filter to filter the files in the save file. You can now see your tattoos listed as textures. For each of them, right click on the line and select Export, to export them as PNG images (if you are comfortable working with DDS images, you can also work this way).

Go into your photo editing software and edit your textures. you can use the marking from the texture to know exactly where to place the tattoo. If you are doing colorful tattoos, I recommend making the images darker and less saturated as they appear brighter and more saturated in-game.

When you are done, you can right click on the line and select Import, to import your modified textures. Click on Save at the bottom roght to save your changes.

Go in-game and check out your Sim in CAS: you should see your new tattoos applied. You can now go back and make some changes if required, or save them to your gallery for future use in your regular save-file 🤩

If you are interested, I already shared some designs made this way on the gallery under my EA ID "Down-In-Simsland". If you plan to share yours to other players, make sure to use your own images or stuff from the game, don't steal from other people 🤗