Hi Nymph lovers!  I've been hard at work trying to finish the mod by October and I thought I should share some of the progress I've been making.  

 

First thing is I've redone a bunch of the logos and banners with updated profile pictures to replace the pictures that were mostly placeholders  

 

After the results I had building new textures for Yulia and the Desert Nymph race, which I really like, I decided to composite some new textures for Kayellie and Synne.

 

From my tumblr

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I have recently built custom diffuse maps for synne and kayellie

 

Basically I like fairskin complexion but at high rez or close up it looks too fake and doll-like, and it has a featureless buttshape on 7base models, whereas other textures look more realistic but have too many ugly skin details like unsightly nipples

 

None of the existing composite textures have the right balance for the look I wanted (smooth light colored nipples and accentuated buttshape) so I built two new textures by combining existing textures (will give credit to original authors of course) with different kinds of layering in photoshop

 

 

I'm pleased with the results thus far, but it still needs some tweaking in terms of layering the right details and luminance/saturation so is a work in progress.

 

 

As for sculpting, I've had a ton of problems lately while working on Nymph presets since a sculpted face may not always work as a tri morph. Sometimes everything looks great at first! 
But then once I blender the base shape to the racemorph list I find out nearly every set of eyes/mouth has clipping in racemenu (as far as I can tell there are no racemorphs for these parts, just eyebrows). 

Which means there’s no way to build presets or use it for anything other than the sculpted face. As a consequence every Nymph of that race would be clones forced to use the same eyes and mouth, which is no good!  Then I either try and fix it or I have to start over.  In the last 2 weeks I've sculpted 3 faces which were either totally un-salvagable or could only be fixed by making them ugly looking.  Getting a little tired of looking at female faces.  Bleh.  Just be pretty ok!?

 

Enough grumbling though, on to the Night Nymphii!

 

 

From the in-game description

 

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Night Nymphii are a bi-racial subtype of Nymph whose ancestry is of predominantly Cyrodilic and Dunmeric males.  This subtype used to live exclusively in Morrowind, but many have migrated after Red Mountain.  Night Nymphii are unusual in that they strongly prefer to live in the civilized world and most conceal their true nature.  Despite her Dunmer blood, it is common for a Night Nymph to be light skinned, and most more closely resemble ancient Chimer.  
Night Nymphii have a powerful connection to the Arcane forms of magic, with strong bonuses to destruction, conjuration, enchanting, and most of all alteration, and combined with her innate resistance to nearly every type of damage except shock, gives her the makings of a fearsome battlemage.

 

Here are some pictures of the presets, 5 in total

 

 

Some additional pictures of the original preset I spent so much time on

 

 

 

Night Nymphii are a Cyrodilic/Dunmer hybrid Nymph race.  Originally I was going to make them blue/purple/grey like dunmer, but it didn’t really make sense for a Nymph subrace to inherit Azura’s curse, so I styled them more after the Chimer.  You can think of the Night Nymph as a "City Nymph."  Your average Night Nymph will appear more like Chimer or Human than Dunmer, and thus have a range of pale, lightly tinted skin tones, ranging from golden, slightly purple, slightly orange, to more fair skinned human colors.  Hair color like most Nymphii includes a floral palette of many colors, but Night Nymphii typically favor blue or red tones (purple pink etc), almost never blonde.  

 

They also look quite distinct, far more "supernatural" than some types of Nymph, which begs the question as to how they manage to blend in to society.  It is a perceptual trick unique to this subtype and part of what lets them favor urban environments, those who observe her simply do not actively process these unusual characteristics, they see and are aware of them, the odd shaped ears, hair the color of deathbell or lavender, but are compelled to disregard them.  

While this might seem like illusion magic; manipulation of the senses, or mind control, it is a form of alteration magic intrinsic to her magical flesh that causes it her appearance to be processed differently by the brains of sentients.  Think of it like a unique color that is within our visual spectrum which our eyes can see but the mind can't translate.  Don't think for a second this lets her pass unnoticed or unseen!  Indeed, a quirk of this magic, combined with inhuman Nymph beauty, makes her stand out all the more and quite memorable, seen either as a heart-stoppingly beautiful Dunmer or Imperial woman, depending which side her appearance favors.

Synne, who is a Night Nymph herself, may have earned her infamous reputation in no small part thanks to this trait.  It is much easier to offend and upset people when they are compelled to pay attention to you!

For Racial abilities they possess the standard Nymph resistance to mundane damage, and as a hybrid nymph subtype, they have lower powered but wider scope subtype abilities.  Think of it as a dilution of the magical properties of whatever magic essence they integrate from the male parent into the offspring.  The Night Nymph currently has a mild rainbow resistance across the board, approximately 15-20% resistance to poison, disease, heat, cold, and a 10% resistance to magic, with a gap (possibly a penalty, haven't decided) to shock resistance, so watch out for those storm mages!
 
You may notice that so far all the Nymph racial abilities are passives, rather than actives.  This is mostly a design decision on my part, from the powergamer perspective.  In my many playthroughs I've found that I tended not to use many racial abilities more than a few times (other than orc berserking), and that they often become irrelevant lategame.  Passives remain useful the whole way through, and don't require giving up your shout key or switching when you face a boss.  I do, however, have quite a few ideas for active powers, so if enough people would prefer unique actives I'm not opposed to making some.

 

Finally, I have updated a desert nymph and wood nymph preset, giving them more colorful hair.  I have been asked a couple times about the green/pink/purple/blue/red hair (alternatively referred to as anime or punk hair) and there was some question as to how "lore-friendly" that was, especially since I am taking great pains to work within the lore.  My response is that Nymphii are magical creatures who by traditional mythology are the physical embodiment of nature's beauty.  Since Elder Scrolls lore does not specify details, I don't find it at all unnatural or disruptive to the lore for such a creature to have hair the color of a wildflower or a rainbow, rather than blonde or black.

 

Since I'm effectively finished with Desert Nymph presets, I made a video to show them off.  

 

 

I also had one for Wood Nymphii, but youtube decided (somewhat arbitrarily) that it was inappropriate and removed it.  I really do not understand their "community guidelines."  Nudity for a specific purpose (showing off 3D models and skin textures?) is ok with an age restriction, unless the person reviewing the video decides it isn't.  I've had a video containing nudity flagged, reviewed, and declared acceptable, and the wood nymph one declared unacceptable, and as far as I can tell there's no significant difference between them.  Go figure.

 

Last of all, I wanted to give you an idea the scope of the mod up to this point, so I posed all of the girls and presets in a single picture (needless to say, this was not an easy pic to make!)

 

 

Well, that's all for this entry!  Next entry I will go over the Blended or Mixed Nymph, and if all goes well, the Beast Nymph too!