I've written a tutorial about http://j-u-i-c-e.hubpages.com/_esforum/hub/better-looking-characters and was looking for some feedback from users who consider themselves pretty savvy when it comes to the facegen screen.

I'm not the best face modeler, but I'm fairly decent, and I've poured all of my own insights into this article to help others. If you have any tips or suggestions for improving the article, please let me know.

Edit: Here's a tip for photo-sourcing: Google: " 'nationality' actor" or " 'nationality' actress". Eg. "chinese actress" or "brazilian actor". This can give you a good yield of high-quality photos with a particular anatomical theme.

Edit: I've uploaded a couple of character saves. You can check them out on the http://www.skyrimnexus.com/modules/members/index.php?id=563243. I expect to be adding more. I might also take requests, if you're looking for something specific. No guarantees, though.

If you are serious about creating a good looking character, you shouldn't be afraid to constantly tweak the little things over and over again until you get the appearance just the way you want it.

Really good tutorial btw!

Nice work!

I created a really beautiful High Elven Girl today which excites me much more than my original playthrough character.

Yeah, I spend way too much time hitting 'showracemenu'. Is there a name for that kind of OC behavior?


It's amazing how much of a difference a good character can make for your immersion. It's not enough to create a good-looking character. You have to create a character that tells a story, too, just by their appearance.

Thanks for the replies.

Well,I like my first playthrough character too. A true Roman ( Imperial ) looking like Domitius Corbulo, a famous Roman general from the 1st century AD. I made it after the look of his original statue. Pretty cool either,but it got a bit odd using all the magic and stuff with a Roman general.

Now I created this cute but deadly High Elven girl which makes magic,shouts etc. feel much more natural. She is really fun to watch and play with.

I noticed that the author used warpaint to cover up some of the wrinkles, especially with the dark elf. It's funny because I did the same thing. It made my character look younger.

Very good.

It has some helpful tips, and goes into pretty good detail. Hell, I've made plenty of attractive characters in OB and Skyrim, and this was helpful to a large extent.

ill be happy when i can make a character that looks like sloth from the goonies!!!

Yep: Perfectionist

I don't know what the developers were thinking. I'm all for giving races character, but they must have known that those wrinkles weren't going to have very broad appeal. They should have left them in one of the Complexion sliders and made them optional. Like...all the other races.


It's good to know it's not completely off-base or of limited use. Thanks for the comment.


I hear they're working on it for TESVI.


Ah. That explains a lot. I do tend to tweak my articles, too.

Nah, I'm already beautiful in RL.

I want my char to be something different.

Thank you for this I considered myself able to make great looking characters in Oblivion, I even released a semi popular face pack.

Skyrim's generator isn't as flexible it seems to me. I like "softer" faces with rounder angles instead of them looking gaunt and sharp but I don't want the character's overall body weight to be very much so I end up left with a a face I don't like and still look too bulky in my armor.

Good article. I wish there was a slider for briast size ; )

I wish Altmer had more eye colours..... :sadvaultboy: very dissapointed by that...

ITT: ES V, Barbarian Barbie dressup edition.

My advice? Pick an Argonian male. You have to work extremely hard to make them unappealing.

And we're all very happy for you.


It isn't as flexible as Oblivion's was, but the head mesh has better topology, so your characters will generally look a lot better, though not necessarily as good as they could look with enough tweaking in Oblivion. Fortunately, Skyrim's style matches my preferences, so I find it very easily to create attractive characters. For characters with softer faces you're definitely going to run into more obstacles. They need to provide two head meshes for each race, I think: one angular, one rounder. That would go a long way toward solving these sorts of problems. Or, they could just allow you to unlock more sliders by using an 'advanced' tab.


I have a feeling a lot of people would just leave it at Max Right most of the time. :whistling: At least they give you some control over your weight in this game. That's an improvement over previous games, though tbh even far right is well within the medium build range. Bethesda's inherent No Fatties policy, I guess.

"M'aiq has heard that the people of Skyrim are better looking than the ones in Cyrodiil. He has no opinion on the matter. All people are beautiful to him."

Niiiice thanks

Yes, adding more hair and eye colors would help quite a bit, actually. Some of the eye choices are little sad. Fortunately, mods will more than compensate for this for PC users.


Yup. Anyone who doesn't use a vanilla preset is playing this game. Ken the Barbarian is Barbie's boyfriend, after all.


Interesting thing I discovered about people's perceptions of beauty: once it's outside a certain range of being 'too alien' to be considered human, the shape of the head no longer impacts the viewer's perception of whether or not the character is beautiful. Instead, we seem to judge beast races the way we judge animals and use a different scale. If it's close to being human but the proportions are off, then it's 'ugly'. Orcs being the prime example. No one really seems to have a problem with the way Argonians or Khajiit look, but a lot of people don't like the way Orcs look, even though the differences between Orcs and humans are relatively small.

How did you do it, mine ends up looking like an old red-headed hag

Wow my high elf turned out really pretty. Which is way more than I expect from a high elf.

She has that mischievous look, it's hard to describe. Thanks for the guide man.

I was expecting race-specific tweaks such as how to work around those ridiculously long Bosmer chins.

OP you should add this mod to your list:

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2812

It's the best out of all the face mods imo.

I will try to add more stuff along this line. There really isn't a lot more to say, though. Once you know how the different elements work together, you get a sense of how changing one thing will change another. You can use the chin sliders to make the chin smaller, but that on it's own isn't going to correct the general length of the face, which is also controlled by things like the width of the cheekbones, the shape of the eyes, and the shape of the nose. Thanks for the feedback.


I'll add a link to it. I'm not much of a fan of it myself, as I find it just tends to sandblast the face. The skin doesn't really look like skin to me anymore. Lots of people are fond of the glamor look, though, so thanks for the nudge.