I know this exists, because there's a painted self-portrait on one of my Sims' living room wall (they're seen from behind, painting on an easel... I think the idea was to build up to one of those endlessly repeating images: a painter painting a painter painting a painter, etc. But this is in a hood that I'm just now re-populating after more than a year of being empty, so... can't recall which mod I had that let them "paint from life". If it's a picture of himself, it must be something like Targa's camera, where a rectangle pops up on the screen for you to frame your desired subject. I'll post a picture of the painting, but as I dimly recall, the easel just looked like the Maxis one.

Once a sim gains enough creativity points, they get "Still life" and "portrait" options. The still life option has the camera pop-up. No mod needed for that, just sufficient creativity.

The original easel has the option to paint a scene you pick - the sim just needs 5 or more creativity points to unlock the option. With Pets, you can also unlock "Paint custom painting" (painting pictures from the Paintings folder) at 5 creativity points, which helps if you want sims to paint a photo or some such.

Doesn't the "Portrait" option also have the camera pop-up?

(Been a while since I had my sims paint - my previous adventures include the time when I used the vanilla "still life" option to make an art class setup for story purposes - where I dressed up the "measure of man" sculpture in a tutu, for... reasons XD)

Okay, I didn't consider that angle. Makes sense that, since I've been rebuilding these Sims from scratch, that they wouldn't yet be as talented as their previous incarnations once were. Never miiiiind... Thanks!

I think you're right. But for s portrait, the model (or "sitter") has to keep posing to let the artist continue the painting. Mallory Mace stayed in the downtown "Teen Townie Hostel" long after her boyfriend Keith Cormier had moved out, because the hostel's warden, Craig Royce, had started painting her portrait, and he wanted to finish it. (I think Mallory really wanted to see the finished painting too.) It was only quite recently that Craig finally finished the painting, and Mallory was able to go and join Keith in Monopolis, where they live together in the Jones & Moltke site office, and act as Andrew and Julian's permanent on-site reps. (Mallory and Keith started life as Maxis-made Veronaville teen townies.)

To avoid the model (and the player -- me!) getting bored, I usually get my Sims to paint pictures of each other from memory using the "still life" option. I find that most Sims really enjoy painting, so it doesn't take them long to get up to the needed five Creativity Points to be able to paint portraits and still lives. Jack Gill and Ravi Bertino regularly paint pictures of each other, and hang them on the walls of their little downtown house in Mendoza Lane. But I have to be careful when posting pictures here that I've taken inside their house, as most of their paintings of each other are semi-nude!