Welcome to SimThings!

Here are some of the tools I use for creating objects, skins etc...

 

Sims Transmogrifier 2.0 from Lush Creations, for recolouring objects and amending their properties. I now have the On Holiday fishing pier available for residential lots.

Sims Art Studio from the official Sims site, for creating paintings from scans, digital camera photos and stuff I've picked up from the Web. Generally good but a tendency to crash on larger pictures.

Sims HomeCrafter from the official Sims site, for creating wallpaper and carpet designs. Slow to load images at times, but very useful nonetheless.

Skin Doctor, for extracting skins from .far files and using NPC skins in ordinary Sim homes. Go to the Programs section and follow the instructions to download the program. Also a good selection of skins available, plus a tool that lets you convert costumes from the costume trunk into playable skins.

SimShow from the official Sims site, for previewing skins and trying them out on other meshes. It's good fun if you turn off the filter, but be warned that your new skins may not save properly. You'll need to do some tweaking of filenames, or you'll end up with light-skinned bodies or heads in the dark-skinned section.

Paint Shop Pro 7, for creating wallpapers, carpets and roof tiles, recolouring or creating skins, recolouring objects and making nice pictures to hang on the walls. You could use Adobe Photoshop or even MS Paint, it's up to you.

SimPose, for creating poses for different outfits and props etc. Great for catalogue-style poses and ironic gestures on the part of your Sims. Now includes a developing version for The Sims 2.