How do you make decent/unique looking characters without the sculpt feature of RaceMenu?

[ZeroListGram]

RaceMenu for SSE doesn't support its most important feature (most important for me, at least), which is sculpting. Sculpting allowed for the creation of highly detailed character faces, and so forth, whoever used it knows what I am talking about (and I'm sure this is not the type of mod that I need to introduce here). My favorite use of sculpting was that I could create not-perfect looking characters: I could make them asymmetrical (which humans are), for one. 

 

My question is, without sculpting, how do you make decent looking characters? As a note, I don't consider Barbie/Ken looking characters decent, so perhaps the question is better phrased like "unique"; not perfect in any way, but the kind of look that gives off a certain vibe or character, even just by looking at him/her. Any suggestions?

[SpyVsPie]

It supports sculpting now, it's just disabled by default because it will cause a crash if you have ENB installed at the same time. 

[spoonsinger]

For standard I suspect it's a matter of getting some good eye models, (big eyes distract) adding subtle makeup to draw attention away from the less than flattering features of the standard misshapen faces and then sticking some nice hair on top.  There used to be mods on the nexus which allowed you to mix standard race profile features. (However I think they generally went tits up when going vampire).

 

Edit

 

Nothing sculpted on her, (because my SSE build hasn't been updated in ages and hence doesn't have bells and wihstles) :-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whether it's attractive is subjective.

[Bulkhead]

I've only ever used sculpting to smooth out rough edges/spikes (granted, that process makes my characters look much better, but I digress). I use the sliders (usually the higher-range ones) for everything else.

 

I go through a lot of iterations. I usually start with the default Breton face and work from there, since it looks much better to me than the other defaults. Sometimes I'll find a few photos on the internet that exhibit the 'feel' I'm going for and replicate some of those characteristics on my character.

 

I tend to determine what exactly I want to do before adjusting the character. It doesn't look right - why? Maybe the jaw is too wide? There's a slider for that here somewhere... and I just do that over and over until it looks the way I want it to.

 

Edit: +1 to the post above mine. Subtle makeup/warpaint/color adjustments can help a lot. I usually put something dark around the eyes, usually it's one of the high elf warpaints (#3 I think?)

[BrimstoneOmega]

As others have said, textures make a big difference. Same goes for ENB, but that doesn't really make or break anything, just helps a lot. I miss the sculpt feature too (honestly didn't even know it was back till I read SpyvsPie's post). I do a lot of character creation, not only in skyrim, but in other 3d applications as well, so I've gotten the hang of certain things about faces I find attractive and what to focus on. Mostly the eyes and the nose, followed by the mouth, cheeks, and then forehead. Jawlines are good to watch for as well, can have a big impact, helping to make a bolder, or softer face.  And the hairstyle will help considerably as well.

 

What everyone has said already is great advice though, and you can end up with some fantastic results. I recently decided to start up a new game in Skyrim after not playing for a few years, and decided to give SSE a shot. Here's my character I'm playing now. I think she ended up looking fairly attractive.

 

Spoiler

 

[QTTAT]

Im old to Skyrim but new to here (loverslab) so my advice may not suit you / too naive / offend someone, please tell me if so.

 

Comparing enb and sculpting, I prefer enb, which is much more important.

 

Normally when you want to create a new character, you dont have explicit idea or plan in mind but wish to create "sexy, decent" face, so my advice is to get some points anchored and work around with existing points.

 

When you say not barbie but unique, you dont want skin texture that is too glossy like pure, choose a realistic skin texture like bijin or fair, mature skin is way too mature for me but you might like it.

 

The requirement of unique actually indicate imperfection in part but great in whole, so you can choose one or several parts as unique part, adjust their value to some noticeable level(big mouth like Anne Hathaway, high face weight as a girl has some fat on her face, etc) , leave them fixed,  and (try your best to) work on rest parts to make the face looks good (or at least humanlike, sometime extreme anchors point are beyond my ability).

 

Also, you may want to choose a mood as theme(mercy, hate, badass, no mood). Once I created a female face with worried eye and brow with smiling mouth make character looks like , em... , kinda poor (a bankrupt hooker tries to please someone after been removed by landlord and nowhere to sleep in winter night and feel despair about her future that may or may not exist). Btw, eye tint color and eye brow have critical affect to this part.

 

Fully agree to BrimstoneOmega, facelight and skin texture makes huge difference, actually you don't need to sculpt the rough edge if the lights makes them not noticeable. Comparing enb and sculpting, I prefer enb, which is much more important.

This is my current character with light mods(enb, facelight, weather) and skin texture on and off. She fulfilled my idea of hunter with concern(which is like my recent mood). You can see her cheekbone is kinda high and her eyes are kinda too spread, although she might still be too "barbie" for you but you can tell the difference(between on and off):

ON:

Spoiler

OFF:

Spoiler

[Geostorm69]

On 1/26/2019 at 4:23 AM, SpyVsPie said:

It supports sculpting now, it's just disabled by default because it will cause a crash if you have ENB installed at the same time. 

how do you enable it??

[Tiress]

1 hour ago, Geostorm69 said:

how do you enable it??

In skee64.ini that comes with RaceMenu. bEnableSculpting=1

[Fredfish]

RaceMenu was updated to v3.2 on the 3rd of Feb, sculpting is now enabled by default

[nufndash]

I was still CTD even after the 3.2 update until I updated ENB to .372 if that helps anyone. I think that is the latest.  The good news is most of my Oldrim CharGen presets work now!!