In the end it was a consultation with my ever-thoughtful and considerate wife that resolved the Aela problem. Her suggestions were:

 

• Don't convert Aela to Futanari but implement intersex content in the game at some point in the future
• Clean up the Bodyslide overlays to remove the remaining legacy overlays
• Don't add more new overlays until I set up the distribution rules, which I should do soon

 

I started out by removing the remaining legacy presets from the main BHUNP slider xml file and then I restored the Zero Sliders option so I don't have to activate an external file (and then remember to deactivate it afterwards) when I build new meshes.

 

Next, I used the lessons I'd learned about squish to compress the bust on her armor; then I deleted the breast bones from this mesh.

 

 

After that, we need to move our focus a little further down to the loincloth piece. This doesn't strictly fit the guidelines for berzerker armor, and in a lot of ways the Companions are the exemplars of this style so I don't want to stray too far. The hip plate on the left side should be sufficient for attaching weapons, but lets go into the game and make sure the right hip isn't getting used for anything. Note that the screen shots that follow show the original armor mesh and not the updated one.

 

 

Here you can see that her blade goes on the left hip, as planned. Let's give her another weapon just to make sure it doesn't get put on the right side. 

 

 

OK, so going on the right side is exactly what happens with a secondary one handed weapon. This means that just removing her belt for "the full Kofman" won't work. Leaving the belt and loincloth certainly is an option, but let's see what other resources we have to work with in the Wolf set and also in the Ancient Nord set.

 

 

Wolf Armor has a harness that might work and the hide set has a belt. The Ancient Nord set does have alternate tassets that cover both sides, but I like the one she already has so that's a non-starter. Let's see how these two options look on her model.

 

 

Neither piece is completely perfect. The belt sits too high for the weapon attachment point, and the harness doesn't match textures. However, let's see if we can do something about that.

 

 

A straight-up texture swap looks OK at a distance but is kind of funny up front. The alternative is to just remove the tasset strap, but that feels kind of counterproductive since the whole reason I picked that piece was that I liked the way that strap looked. I think in this case the loincloth will get a "pass" - it's just the best match of the available options. So I think we can mark down Aela's armor mesh are complete. 

 

But I don't think we're quite done yet. Aela uses the same ARIS custom body texture as Ria, and I'd like to get a little bit of variety here. There's an old LE mod called BI Phenotypes that has some good options. Let's see if we can port this over to SSE and lean on its resources.

 

This mod was packed in an unconventional way, so first I had to set it up in a playable folder structure. Next, I ran the mod folder through Cathedral Asset Optimizer. With that done, let's hop into xEdit and create a custom skin for Aela.

 

 

Before we go further, we also need to patch Aela's facegen, since now she'll use the textures from the mod instead of the ones from ARIS. I made a quick backup of the original, then switched the skin textures. Note that BI Phenotypes didn't ship with subsurface (_sk) textures, and so we left the ARIS ones in place.

 

 

 

Let's see if the LE to SSE port worked on this mod.

 

 

She mostly looks OK, though there's something slightly off about her face tint. However, I want to put her under natural lighting before I assume it doesn't look right; the problem may be more related to this particular image space rather than a defect with her textures. Before we do that, I also need to rig up her SOS pubic hair. We'll want to choose a style that doesn't rise up about her loincloth, so let's do some measuring in Bodyslide. 

 

 

Natural will definitely fit, and Wild is such a tight fit that with some very minimal adjustments to the loincloth it might give a cut "peek-a-boo" effect. Let's actually go with that solution. We'll go in with a very fine expand brush and just increase the bulk of the loincloth a teensy bit so the stray hairs in the corners don't poke out but the ones that rise up just above the waistband are visible.

 

 

Next we'll apply the revealing keyword to the armor and add Aela to the appropriate SOS faction. Let's find a less darkly-lit place to test things out.

 

 

Her face looks better under normal lighting, but there do seem to be some signs of a possible neck seam now. 

 

 

With her undressed, there's no doubt about it. I went back and checked the texture paths and it looks like a stray _5 made its way into the normal map, probably left over from the ARIS path. 

 

 

After correcting that error (fun fact, it only actually gets corrected if you save the file after making the edit!), we can see that things are almost perfect. We need to pull the loincloth out just a little further to account for how it flexes as she walks, but the neck seam is gone and in general both the outfit and her new skin texture are looking good.

 

 

That final tug on the front of the loincloth seems to have done the trick, and now we're getting the effect I was going for with this setup. I think we can officially declare victory with the Aela overhaul.

 

 

Since Farkas' outfit was in good shape and didn't require any further customization, that just leaves 7 more members (and one pseudo-member) to overhaul. Of those, Kodlak will use the full Wolf armor and so doesn't require a refit. There's also the Companions servants, who may or may not get further customization; I still need to think about that for a bit. Still, we're making good progress!

 

One final thought, I noticed this while I was repositioning the camera... looks like I need to confirm the BHUNP bodyslides for the female pubic hair are actually built, as it seems the game is currently using the standard meshes.