On my latest character I decided that I wasn't going to buy any metal bars of any kind, or any leather ... this way I'll craft all my own armour from the materials I collect. I consider it a healthy alternative from exploiting the current smithing system and it allows me to gradually progress my skill with my character.

I no longer use fast travel and find myself looking down constantly for ores to smith... particularly those for iron and steel but I won't pass up the other ores... as its nice for cash flow. This allows me also to get attacked by at least 4 wolves every time I walk to a location getting me 4 pelts of leather.

Anyway, I'm curious how many others are out there who take this route over buying ingots in bulk.

Not an incredibly exciting career choice, but it's viable in this game.

No

That's how I worked this character made me getting my extremely good armor and weapons feel more accomplished.

I mine yes, but also buy ore.

Note: You can't mine steel, it is made of Iron and Corgundum. As in real life, it isn't a natural metal.

After maxing smithing on one character using leather pelts, I'm trying and failing to do this on my current character.

Right now I'm doing about half and half, I spend more time hunting for ores, and I sell about half my pelts. This has slowed my smithing down a bit but it's more fun to actually raise smithing by making swords instead of hundreds of iron daggers and hide bracers.

You could go one better and only raise smithing on the current tier your skill is at, like only Dwarven made gear at 30, Orcish at 40 etc.

Btw my advice, don't use pelts for raising, you'll end up with 3/4 of your raises coming from wolf pelts rather than metal.

I do the same. I mine everything, pick every ingredient, hunt deers and bears for leather.

But I'm very RP centric and am in no rush to beat the game. I can spend an entire evening skulking a forest hunting deer.

Yes, I'm a professional miner. I dual wield pickaxes and mine with lightning speed and power combos.

Use elemental fury and really watch it fly.

If I ever own a mine, I'm hiring you guys. :biggrin:

I don't use shouts, but yeah, that should work.

Well it does work, not should

My Nord doesn't wear any armor or swing any weapon that he didn't smith. And he doesn't smith any material that he didn't find/mine/smelt/skin himself.

Yes I was wandering around the southern forests of Skyrim last night thinking to myself if I ever play a character that just hunts and lives off the land this would be the part of Skyrim I would do it in. Mining and hunting off the land and staying out of the big cities. It's cool because that would have never sounded fun in Oblivion.

What evers next i wonder. A Union of mine workers? maybe a brass band to march down the street? . Then if your union anit happy the imperials are sent in to break up ya pickect line?. Just a bad idea imo.

That's pretty much what I'm going for. Its time consuming, but it keeps me from buying ingots and having my smithing over 100 in a single sitting. It also allows me to explore the land much more and gives me a reason to actually check out the mining camps.

I'm going for a full set of fully upgraded dwarven armor so its going to be tedious