Every search i do says something about nifscope, or blender, are those the only way i can say rip the head off a teddy bear and wear it as a helmet rip the arms off for gloves, and rescale the body to use as my upper body armor? im gonna make a charisma suit.

I think that they say something in one of the bethesda podcasts

lol... teddy bear armor?

Anyway, to mod armor you're going to need a 3D modeling software package like Blender or 3DS Max. And you will also need Nifskope, which is a program lets you work with .NIF files. These .NIF files are the standard file format for the 3D models used in game.

As for the actual specifics of creating custom armor... it's a fairly complicated and involved process from what I understand. At the very least, you will need a decent understanding of how to use a 3D modeling package... and a strong commitment to learning.

Don't let me discourage you... it's certainly possible. If you're still interested, I would recommend searching for "custom armor" topics in these and other Fallout 3 forums to learn more details about the process. You're not the first to ask about this I'm sure... except maybe the teddy bear part.

You'll need a 3D editor to make a new outfit. For rigging, here's the article I used to get familiar with it: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=196. It's a bit tricky to get the hang of in the beginning, but it's not really that hard. Getting it perfect can take some time though.
There are other articles on the nexus sites covering modelling.

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11399