Best advice in the thread. It is very counter-intuitive. Don't assume you already know what you like. Sit down with a few dozen good pictures of people you consider attractive and compare features.

A lot of people don't actually know what they find attractive. There are all sorts of cultural stereotypes that turn out to be not true for you as an individual. Big lips and big eyes on women, for example, are often exaggerated in cartoons to portray beauty. Just not true for many people. Many very beautiful women have small lips and eyes. Same goes for high/low cheekbones or delicate/strong chins. There are no real rules when it comes to facial anatomy beyond right-more-or-less-equals-left. The secret lies in how different features compliment each other.


Not only extremely cute, but also interesting. Excellent work!

The key to figuring out how to make attractive characters is very simple: experiment; especially with features you "don't like".

Here's one I made today:

http://www.truancyfactory.com/images/misc/rg1.png
http://www.truancyfactory.com/images/misc/rg2.png
http://www.truancyfactory.com/images/misc/rg3.png

The trick for this character was to take a feature I don't typically like (the shape of the eye, which is counter to every other character I make) and to figure out what it's "ideal environment" was. What combination of features make it work? What balance of characteristics pulls it all together? Beauty, of course, is highly subjective, but for me, this works as a character.

The other important thing to remember is that, while physical beauty may be defined by scientists as some ideal balance, or some abstract set of perfect proportions or ratios, what makes a character memorable and lovable is often the imperfections. There are plenty of extremely attractive people who fail to be beautiful because they lack character and plenty of imperfect people that are drop-dead gorgeous.

One thing people don't seem to get about creating attractive characters is that... well.... the lighting in the default character creation screen is sub-standard. I've re-rolled Sarah about a dozen times because once I find something that I don't like in a given set of lighting, I think "Oh, this could be different!" and go to "showracemenu" and tweak it. Sometimes what looks good in the half-light half-dark default lighting doesn't look good after the fact. An unfortunate hindrance in the creation process.

I'm sort of a stickler for appearance... I want her to look perfect. I take lots of screenshots and if I see something that bothers me, I usually end up restarting and tweaking it... lol.

I even jotted down all the slider settings and where they were at for future reference during the creation process. But it's worth it if you keep experimenting and hang in there. For PC users just find different lighting environments and keep going into "showracemenu" and playing around with the sliders. When you finally get exactly what you want, you can jot down the slider settings and restart if you are so inclined or just keep playing with the new changes.

Once the CK is released it will be easier, but I have to say, for me anyway, my Skyrim iteration of Sarah is as perfect as she's going to get and no more tweaks need to be made.

For screenshot purposes too, lighting is pretty important. Video game lighting, while good, isn't as accurate as real life. So in some lighting your character might look awesome, but in other lighting look weird. Just the nature of the beast.

I'll post some screens of my final version of Sarah later... for now though it's pizza time!

Lighting and Camera angles.
Dont just use your regular 3rd person view.
Use TFC 1

This too... camera angles. Exactly. You need to try all different combos of lighting and camera angles if your mission is (like mine was) to create a beautiful proportionate character. Good call.

Anyway time to throw the pizza in the oven, but before I go, here is a pic of my latest (and final) iteration of Sarah. She's a Breton, so the one mod I am using is one that gets rid of the wrinkles from the default subtexture. She's relaxing at the Sleeping Giant in, out of her armor and in her prison pajamas, contemplating the meaning of her existence.... Not the best lighting but gives you an idea.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c203/EdwardNorth/Sarah/SarahContemplation.jpg

Here are a few more I took in various lighting. Really shows how different parts of a characters' overall appearance can stand out or change in different light. Also one important thing to remember is to spend time on the profile view -- really helps flush out your character, so when you create her remember to turn her head side to side (which the creation screen lets you do) and even up and down to get the overall picture.


http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c203/EdwardNorth/Sarah/SarahCampfire.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c203/EdwardNorth/Sarah/SarahCloseup.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c203/EdwardNorth/Sarah/SarahDragonese.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c203/EdwardNorth/Sarah/SarahGirlNextDoor.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c203/EdwardNorth/Sarah/SarahProfile.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c203/EdwardNorth/Sarah/SarahSad.jpg