I help myself by doing certain locations on the Sims 2. Especially if I want it to look extremely personal to the characters instead of just going for a CSP asset or free to use 3D models. Depending on how the scene looks I may retouch the background to fit the scene better, be it by painting and drawing over it. There are times the only thing I do is the linearts and that's it.
Sometimes I just draw the backgrounds myself depending on the situation and the amount of time available. If the backgrounds are too natural, I like to use only some photoshop brushes. After all these are great and work in CSP just fine.
Originally, I started by tracing the Sims 2 background and then drawing and painting it completely again even if at the end it ended up looking almost identical. But then as I read a few webcomics where 3D is used, there are times that they just copy paste the asset and done, no lineart, no repaint, no filters and it just goes like that. So I began to relax a little after understanding I don't have to draw everything completely.
