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Making a good looking character


Anurabis

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Hello everyone I love playing skyrim and I also love the character creation but I do have a common problem I have trouble making good looking characters and wanted to ask if anyone could write me a few tips etc. (If there is already a topic somewhere to recommended mods for that I'd be glad if you could link it to me, no need to mention Racemenu as I do have that mod^^)

I very much appreciate any response :D

 

Edit: General tips on how to avoid common misteps would also be appreciated :D

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Thanks for the recommendation but I think getting used to ECE would take a while and racemenu is a requirement for a bunch of my mods so I think I cannot take on that offer also I would like to be able to use a vanilla race but still thanks :D

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I feel your pain, I too have a horrible time trying to make an attractive character. I finally got one by shear luck. I made a Nord woman using a fresh install of Skyrim with no mods at all. I then starting adding beauty, body and hair mods and tweaked her with Race Menu and she came out very cute. But not drop dead gorgeous as a lot of folks have. Keep trying! and I guess when you find something that works keep her and just try one thing at a time until she's perfect.

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I feel your pain, I too have a horrible time trying to make an attractive character. I finally got one by shear luck. I made a Nord woman using a fresh install of Skyrim with no mods at all. I then starting adding beauty, body and hair mods and tweaked her with Race Menu and she came out very cute. But not drop dead gorgeous as a lot of folks have. Keep trying! and I guess when you find something that works keep her and just try one thing at a time until she's perfect.

Thanks I welcome the sympathy and will keep on trying I dunno how people make their characters so good in skyrim maybe I should just try to imitate a character I've done in a different game. Then again that wouldn't feel right :/

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Guest MonsterFish

I think you can make pretty much any fugly ass character, but the skin, the makeup, the eyes and the hair make the character. Making the face just makes them slightly more attractive.

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I feel your pain, I too have a horrible time trying to make an attractive character. I finally got one by shear luck. I made a Nord woman using a fresh install of Skyrim with no mods at all. I then starting adding beauty, body and hair mods and tweaked her with Race Menu and she came out very cute. But not drop dead gorgeous as a lot of folks have. Keep trying! and I guess when you find something that works keep her and just try one thing at a time until she's perfect.

Thanks I welcome the sympathy and will keep on trying I dunno how people make their characters so good in skyrim maybe I should just try to imitate a character I've done in a different game

 

 

I tried that too, using other peoples presets, I just couldn't get attached to their character, yes they were all so beautiful, but I didn't feel any ownership. My games didn't go past the dragon attack of the western tower. So that's why I decided to make my own. Even though she won't get an up vote for "Show your Skyrim counterpart" I am finally enjoying a play through with her. Keep trying with a good base, once you get that, Try UNP body, demonic textures, true eyes, smile in HD, Apachii hairs for starters. You can try others when you get your base down, and like anything worth keeping, take your time and just try one thing at a time. Too many and you'll get frustrated and give up (personal experience). Good luck and post a picture when you find something that works for you.

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I feel your pain, I too have a horrible time trying to make an attractive character. I finally got one by shear luck. I made a Nord woman using a fresh install of Skyrim with no mods at all. I then starting adding beauty, body and hair mods and tweaked her with Race Menu and she came out very cute. But not drop dead gorgeous as a lot of folks have. Keep trying! and I guess when you find something that works keep her and just try one thing at a time until she's perfect.

Thanks I welcome the sympathy and will keep on trying I dunno how people make their characters so good in skyrim maybe I should just try to imitate a character I've done in a different game

 

 

I tried that too, using other peoples presets, I just couldn't get attached to their character, yes they were all so beautiful, but I didn't feel any ownership. My games didn't go past the dragon attack of the western tower. So that's why I decided to make my own. Even though she won't get an up vote for "Show your Skyrim counterpart" I am finally enjoying a play through with her. Keep trying with a good base, once you get that, Try UNP body, demonic textures, true eyes, smile in HD, Apachii hairs for starters. You can try others when you get your base down, and like anything worth keeping, take your time and just try one thing at a time. Too many and you'll get frustrated and give up (personal experience). Good luck and post a picture when you find something that works for you.

 

I have textures and all but I dunno I just fail at creating a character I find visually really appealing :/

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Making beautiful female characters is simultaneously complicated and simpler than it seems. Having reinstalled on a new PC recently I've found this out the hard way. Since there's a lot of different methods and races and whatnot that can confuse things I'm just going to focus my advice on the basics of human(oid) faces.

 

First, you're using Racemenu, so bravo! That's a big step done already.

 

I'm going to mention body types next simply because it has an effect on what skins and outfits and such you end up using. If you've never used BodySlide, please start now. Even if all you use it for is to create a basic body and mold your outfits to it, it's still worth learning. Heck, now that they add in the hdt pussy and attach the collision info right into the head .nifs, there's no reason NOT to use it. In my previous build I used CBBE but now I'm using UUNP because of the different skins available for it and the extra polys. 

 

The second factor I discovered that has a HUGE effect on how characters and NPCs look is the type of skin you choose. I know, it doesn't seem that big a deal but it is. Since I was creating a new build I figured I'd try out a whole bunch of different ones since there are so many nice looking ones available but I was shocked at how many looked nice initially but made the NPCs look like complete dogs. The ones I liked the most are:

  • SG Female Textures Renewal - I've seen a lot of people bash this texture pack and I'm at a loss to figure out why. It's beautifully done. I used it on my previous build and the only complaint I had about it was that the areolae on the breasts were nearly nonexistent. I wound up replacing them in Photoshop. Other than that, though, it's a gorgeous texture set and makes the NPCs look lovely.
  • SRG Female Textures - Kind of the successor of SG Textures, SRG takes it a good ten steps beyond. It's fantastically detailed and realistic in its skin flaws without making the women look like hags. The textures are BIG, so you might want to stay away if your PC uses a walker. I believe it's UNP only, as well. This is the diffuse maps I use in my current build.
  • Fair Skin Complexion - This skin texture pack is a work of art, seriously. It's amazing. I would use it entirely but I find that it makes women a little too perfect looking. Skyrim's a rough place and it'd be reflected on the women who work there. If you farm all day long in rocky soil in a climate where it snows 9 months out of the year your skin wouldn't glow. Regardless, there is no better normal and glow maps out there. I use them in my current game and transfer them to all my followers and custom races.
  • Fitness Body - This is just a nice little add-on that allows you to add details to your normal maps to make your women look a little more buff. You may need to resize them to fit since they're 2048 but they're extremely easy to use.

 

An easy way to get a good start on creating good looking characters is to have a better starting point. FastestDogInTheDistrict (he has an account on LL but I forget the name) created a series of preset overhauls and new presets for all the existing human races. All he did was take the vanilla presets and tweak them around to be more attractive, so they're kinda the same but not so dog ugly to start with. He did a nice job. 

You can find his mods here.

 

 

Custom Races are another way to kinda cheat. Even if you don't want to use the race you can create a face you like using them, then use RaceMenu's preset loader to save the preset and export the head .nif. Once you have those you can go onto any race you like then load the preset and the facial features will transfer to the vanilla race. The only two races I recommend are:

  • The Ningheim - Does anyone NOT have them? They're gorgeous.
  • Lunari Race - Originally the faces she used were not that impressive and were kinda... samey. After she updated the mod, though, she added a lot more presets with some different looks. They're actually quite nice.
  • You could also try Succubus Race. A lot of people have issues with it creating conflicts and / or being buggy. I never personally had any issues with it but whatever. It also provides some really nice presets that you could use as a starting point.

 

Some other beautifying mods you should use are:

 

Those are basics, really. After that you can get into all sorts of other mods and tweaks that will change but all you need are variations of the above. There's all kinds of stuff for other races and whatnot, CoverKhajits for kitties, Forgotten Argonian Roots for lizards, Ratrace's Orc Race Replacer for orismer, EEO for other mer, etc... No more Sunken Cheeks et al for blood suckers. The list goes on and on.

 

After you put together all those mods, though, it really all comes down to slider fu with Racemenu. Tiny little tweaks to cheek height, eye size and tilt, nose bridge width, and so on can be the difference between a passable female and a beauty queen in Skyrim. 

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I feel your pain, I too have a horrible time trying to make an attractive character. I finally got one by shear luck. I made a Nord woman using a fresh install of Skyrim with no mods at all. I then starting adding beauty, body and hair mods and tweaked her with Race Menu and she came out very cute. But not drop dead gorgeous as a lot of folks have. Keep trying! and I guess when you find something that works keep her and just try one thing at a time until she's perfect.

Thanks I welcome the sympathy and will keep on trying I dunno how people make their characters so good in skyrim maybe I should just try to imitate a character I've done in a different game

 

 

I tried that too, using other peoples presets, I just couldn't get attached to their character, yes they were all so beautiful, but I didn't feel any ownership. My games didn't go past the dragon attack of the western tower. So that's why I decided to make my own. Even though she won't get an up vote for "Show your Skyrim counterpart" I am finally enjoying a play through with her. Keep trying with a good base, once you get that, Try UNP body, demonic textures, true eyes, smile in HD, Apachii hairs for starters. You can try others when you get your base down, and like anything worth keeping, take your time and just try one thing at a time. Too many and you'll get frustrated and give up (personal experience). Good luck and post a picture when you find something that works for you.

 

I have textures and all but I dunno I just fail at creating a character I find visually really appealing :/

 

 

When in Race Menu, pick a face that's not that bad and then make her bald. That way you can concentrate on her face and not the hair.  I suggest the jaw line next, then her chin, nose, eyes, brow then give her a Skyrim hair and see how she looks. Oh, don't use make up or tats for the base.

 

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Also don't be afraid of the sculpt tab in Racemenu and ECE. It looks forboding but it's pretty easy to get used to.

I tried that because sculpting in Fallout 4 was really easy but I have trouble with the sculpting here because it doesn't immediatly visually reflect D:

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Guest MonsterFish

 

Also don't be afraid of the sculpt tab in Racemenu and ECE. It looks forboding but it's pretty easy to get used to.

 

I am absolutely terrified of using the sculpt tab. I tried it once and I ruined my poor girl!

 

 

 

There's a clear sculpt function on Racemenu and even better, on ECE there's the ability to clear the sculpts one by one rather than just whipe the sculpt clean with Racemenu.

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When in Race Menu, pick a face that's not that bad and then make her bald. That way you can concentrate on her face and not the hair.  I suggest the jaw line next, then her chin, nose, eyes, brow then give her a Skyrim hair and see how she looks. Oh, don't use make up or tats for the base.

I will try that thank you :D

Making beautiful female characters is simultaneously complicated and simpler than it seems. Having reinstalled on a new PC recently I've found this out the hard way. Since there's a lot of different methods and races and whatnot that can confuse things I'm just going to focus my advice on the basics of human(oid) faces.

 

First, you're using Racemenu, so bravo! That's a big step done already.

 

I'm going to mention body types next simply because it has an effect on what skins and outfits and such you end up using. If you've never used BodySlide, please start now. Even if all you use it for is to create a basic body and mold your outfits to it, it's still worth learning. Heck, now that they add in the hdt pussy and attach the collision info right into the head .nifs, there's no reason NOT to use it. In my previous build I used CBBE but now I'm using UUNP because of the different skins available for it and the extra polys. 

 

The second factor I discovered that has a HUGE effect on how characters and NPCs look is the type of skin you choose. I know, it doesn't seem that big a deal but it is. Since I was creating a new build I figured I'd try out a whole bunch of different ones since there are so many nice looking ones available but I was shocked at how many looked nice initially but made the NPCs look like complete dogs. The ones I liked the most are:

  • SG Female Textures Renewal - I've seen a lot of people bash this texture pack and I'm at a loss to figure out why. It's beautifully done. I used it on my previous build and the only complaint I had about it was that the areolae on the breasts were nearly nonexistent. I wound up replacing them in Photoshop. Other than that, though, it's a gorgeous texture set and makes the NPCs look lovely.
  • SRG Female Textures - Kind of the successor of SG Textures, SRG takes it a good ten steps beyond. It's fantastically detailed and realistic in its skin flaws without making the women look like hags. The textures are BIG, so you might want to stay away if your PC uses a walker. I believe it's UNP only, as well. This is the diffuse maps I use in my current build.
  • Fair Skin Complexion - This skin texture pack is a work of art, seriously. It's amazing. I would use it entirely but I find that it makes women a little too perfect looking. Skyrim's a rough place and it'd be reflected on the women who work there. If you farm all day long in rocky soil in a climate where it snows 9 months out of the year your skin wouldn't glow. Regardless, there is no better normal and glow maps out there. I use them in my current game and transfer them to all my followers and custom races.
  • Fitness Body - This is just a nice little add-on that allows you to add details to your normal maps to make your women look a little more buff. You may need to resize them to fit since they're 2048 but they're extremely easy to use.

 

An easy way to get a good start on creating good looking characters is to have a better starting point. FastestDogInTheDistrict (he has an account on LL but I forget the name) created a series of preset overhauls and new presets for all the existing human races. All he did was take the vanilla presets and tweak them around to be more attractive, so they're kinda the same but not so dog ugly to start with. He did a nice job. 

You can find his mods here.

 

 

Custom Races are another way to kinda cheat. Even if you don't want to use the race you can create a face you like using them, then use RaceMenu's preset loader to save the preset and export the head .nif. Once you have those you can go onto any race you like then load the preset and the facial features will transfer to the vanilla race. The only two races I recommend are:

  • The Ningheim - Does anyone NOT have them? They're gorgeous.
  • Lunari Race - Originally the faces she used were not that impressive and were kinda... samey. After she updated the mod, though, she added a lot more presets with some different looks. They're actually quite nice.
  • You could also try Succubus Race. A lot of people have issues with it creating conflicts and / or being buggy. I never personally had any issues with it but whatever. It also provides some really nice presets that you could use as a starting point.

 

Some other beautifying mods you should use are:

 

Those are basics, really. After that you can get into all sorts of other mods and tweaks that will change but all you need are variations of the above. There's all kinds of stuff for other races and whatnot, CoverKhajits for kitties, Forgotten Argonian Roots for lizards, Ratrace's Orc Race Replacer for orismer, EEO for other mer, etc... No more Sunken Cheeks et al for blood suckers. The list goes on and on.

 

After you put together all those mods, though, it really all comes down to slider fu with Racemenu. Tiny little tweaks to cheek height, eye size and tilt, nose bridge width, and so on can be the difference between a passable female and a beauty queen in Skyrim. 

Those are also a lot of good tips and a few mods I didn't have thank you very much :D

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Guest MonsterFish

 

Also don't be afraid of the sculpt tab in Racemenu and ECE. It looks forboding but it's pretty easy to get used to.

I tried that because sculpting in Fallout 4 was really easy but I have trouble with the sculpting here because it doesn't immediatly visually reflect D:

Uh.. Yes it does unless something's wrong.

It might be that the sculpting in Skyrim is a little less noticeable, I dno I have not really sculpted using Fallout 4.

ECEs Sculpt menu is a little more precise but unfortunately has less tools than Racemenus

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Also don't be afraid of the sculpt tab in Racemenu and ECE. It looks forboding but it's pretty easy to get used to.

I tried that because sculpting in Fallout 4 was really easy but I have trouble with the sculpting here because it doesn't immediatly visually reflect D:

Uh.. Yes it does unless something's wrong.

It might be that the sculpting in Skyrim is a little less noticeable, I dno I have not really sculpted using Fallout 4.

ECEs Sculpt menu is a little more precise but unfortunately has less tools than Racemenus

 

Maybe you just misunderstood what I meant yes the changes show after the sculpt for me but as long as I'm actively sculpting they don't show for me :/

If that's what you meant then I'll probably need to go and find where the bug comes from xD

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Guest MonsterFish

 

Maybe you just misunderstood what I meant yes the changes show after the sculpt for me but as long as I'm actively sculpting they don't show for me :/

If that's what you meant then I'll probably need to go and find where the bug comes from xD

 

Yeah okay you're right. No it doesn't change as long as the mouse button is pressed down but I don't particularly see that as a problem.

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Maybe you just misunderstood what I meant yes the changes show after the sculpt for me but as long as I'm actively sculpting they don't show for me :/

If that's what you meant then I'll probably need to go and find where the bug comes from xD

 

Yeah okay you're right. No it doesn't change as long as the mouse button is pressed down but I don't particularly see that as a problem.

 

Yeah for you it probably does not pose a problem but I have trouble working with that

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There is also ECE that you can use instead of racemenu if you a want. ECE also comes with the ygnord race which is a pretty nice looking race. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12951/? There is also ECEE Enhanced Character Edit Enhancer to use with it. 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/35713/?

 

no offense, I sure not.

I am European, and use quite Definitely No Asian Faces Style!  :lol:

 

for a more rounded face 

RANs HeadMesh Variants by RAN46

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/7127/?

 

and

 

Coverwomen by mrLenski

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3563/?

https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/3563-1-1323791635.jpg

 

Coverkhajiits by mrLenski

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5941/?

https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/5941-1-1326748258.jpg

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For my character which is ECE's Ygnord race I used a follower who is also Ygnord to make my player.

 

First I had to open the console with the ~ key and type showracemenu I then set it to the Ygnord preset that I thought looked the best then I opened the console while in the showracemenu and typed in the followers name once I found their race name I made sure I had clicked on my player then I used the setplayerrace command to change my character to my followers race. Next I had to save out of the showracemenu and then shut the game down. Once I was ready I restarted skyrim got positioned correctly and then once again opened the console and typed in showracemenu and after that adjusted the eyes nose and what not to what I thought looked good.

 

The reason why I had to save and shut down skyrim and then bring skyrim back up again is because if you don't do it and then try to change any of the sliders to change the face and stuff after changing the race will cause the player to go fugly.

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If you're using RaceMenu, I recommend changing the "Head Shape" slider to, I think it was 1.

That will smooth any sharp edges of the head a bit. I think that slider essentially changes the head to the base shape that ECE uses.

That was pretty nice and I don't know if you can help me with that but I have taken on a general theme with which is was pretty good on other characters but I need very white/silvery hair for that but when I set the hair color to white it shows as blonde do you know a fix for that by any chance?

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Guest MonsterFish

 

If you're using RaceMenu, I recommend changing the "Head Shape" slider to, I think it was 1.

That will smooth any sharp edges of the head a bit. I think that slider essentially changes the head to the base shape that ECE uses.

That was pretty nice and I don't know if you can help me with that but I have taken on a general theme with which is was pretty good on other characters but I need very white/silvery hair for that but when I set the hair color to white it shows as blonde do you know a fix for that by any chance?

What a coincidence. I replied to a topic on this very question just today

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/65362-nooby-question/

 

Essentially, set your H value to a slight blue tint and your S value very low

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