exactly - i sometimes spend some usless time deciding which of agent or thief should be the icon for my shadow assassin, and the agent always seems more appropriate.

It all depends on the character. I've had some on which I spent hours. I've got some on which I've already spent hours and they're still parked at the sewer exit because I still haven't gotten them the way I want them. I've had other characters though that were inspired by a face that came up randomly, so you might say that those were instantaneous, and I've had still others with which I was looking for a particular sort of face, but it came together easily and quickly. It depends on the race too-- I'll generally take a lot more time with a humanoid race than with a beast race face, simply because, to me, the differences between one face and another are far more obvious and significant.

I spend a lot of time in facegen, because I actually enjoy it. Sometimes I get lucky, and an intriguing face comes out right away, but that is rare. Usually, it takes me anywhere from forty minutes, to three hours, to make a face that interests me enough to keep. My goal isn't necessarily beauty, but character, and that takes the most time and fine-tuning, for my skills anyway.

Less than 1 minute, the character must just be nonstandard, i don't care (If everythings going wrong, the character just wears a full helm...).

Wow, and I thought my half an hour was a lot.

Anyway, I can vouch for whoever says making male characters are easier. Perhaps this is only for me, as I have made so many that Im experienced, but some of the "random" faces that come out are pretty decent looking. If all I do is making them younger, they look perfectly playable.

But I still go and adjust skin tone, and a few facial features.

I think I take around 10 minutes. It used to take me much longer back when I started playing cause I didn't get the hang of what does what. Honestly though, I tweak the face using showracemenu pretty often (based on the earlier comments, I guess I was pretty fortunate to have learned the trick a long while back).

I tried - I mean, really hard - to come up with something ok, which last for sth like10 minutes. twice.

then I simply WTF'd it and ever since the average 12 seconds has prevailed.

Usually around 45 minutes to an hour, the set procedures I have for creating a decent face take time, and some portions (particularly mouths) take a lot of care to get right.

If the face cooperates, I'll continue it into final stages, and this might take about 45 minutes or so, if you count the extra few times I send him to visit the plastic surgeon in game to correct things don't like about the face. If the face ends up wonky, I'll usually reset the process and try again if I can't correct the problem.

I don't really strive for model-quality faces, but ones that can be easily taken to because of the various imperfections (or rather, human qualities). In short, I try to inject individuality and personality into the faces I make. My avatar (which, coincidentally, is the same guy in 'Rosa's screenie) is what happens when I get it right.

The female nord(ps3) I created actually came out to being actually pretty good looking. It took me around an hour of randomizing the face and then tweaking one I like just enough with age and skin tones. Add eye liner a little lip color and it's good. The male nord took about a half hour trying to find something that didn't look horrid. pc wise, the custom races.. it's hard to change.. slide bards over and just tweak things slowly, it's hard to get a special face on them.

Usually around 20 minutes. Thank god they give you the option to make final alterations..I always need that.

This brings up an interesting point. I have a feeling, reading a few of these posts, that some of us are counting only the chargen in the prison cell. I have a feeling that if we all added time spent at the sewer gate and time spent in enableracemenu later on that some of these very short times might conceivably turn into slightly longer times.

When I said earlier that I can spend hours at this I meant all of it: any planning stages in the construction set before the game, in the prison cell ingame, at the sewer gate, in the console, everything. If I only counted my prison cell time it might be mere minutes for a few of my characters, too.

about 20 minutes, and I'm always satisfied with the results

It takes me a similar amount of time to get my PCs look the way I want, solely in the prison cell. I don't go back into the config menus at the sewer gate.
I know the look I am trying to achieve for my Khajiit PC. Eyebrows furrowed in irritation, and a sneering expression on the muzzle. Setting the eyes and brows is easy. Getting the nose and mouth right takes the time due to individual sliders not being able to be locked.
Change one slider and it alters 4 others, including one you only just got right... GRRRRRR!
And once the shaping of the face is done, then I start working on the colours of the fur...

Jenifur Charne

I don't want to get hung up on it, but I do spend easily 20 minutes fiddling this way and that trying to achieve a certain look -but I find the controls fairly frustrating. Too often moving one slider right, forces 4 or 5 others left, the 4 or 5 others i just set where I wanted them lol.

30 mins atleast. Im always unhappy with my characters face so I end starting over most of the time though

For Severus Snape, Sarrah, and Angel. I spent about 30 minutes apiece. I have an amateur background in art and computer 3D modeling so that's all it took although I had a very specific look in mind for each one.

For the totally random generated character, Anara, I used the random face generator until I got one I liked. After all, if I ever play her, I'll need to look at that face from time to time. Took about a minute.

Usually around 30 min's, sometimes longer. I can never really make a face that I'm completely happy with though. I find it hard to get out of the 'Round and Smooth' face.

Hour or so

I try to perfect the face similar to how people look like in real life.

Snape? Hah, do you have pictures of your success? That sounds hilarious!


Anyway, as a die-hard Argonian lover, I would like to dispute all the people who say the beast races take less time. For me, I can spend 30-40 minutes getting a Dark Elf to look satisfactory. However, the Oblivion Argonians are so far removed from the Morrowind ones, that it takes a lot of work to get them to look the way I want. I try to get back to an elongated, less humanoid face. I imported my main character from Morrowind and it's quite a challenge to recreate him with the sliders. It's just all wrong: the "hair" I used is gone, the skin tones are drastically different (I had to give up on that one, in the end), and then those damn flat faces! I'd say I spent a good 3hrs+ fiddling around until I got close enough to play him.

I still go back occasionally to see if I can get closer to the reptillian look... It can lead to some really strange results if you don't get it just right. :laugh:

I observe that different outfits give the appearance of larger or smaller 'cups'.

For instance, for a larger size, wear a Highwayman's Shirt, or a Blue Velvet Outfit. A Fur Cuirass, Burgundy Linen Shirt or Steel Cuirass (Steel Cuirass in particular, as it does not have a female form) will make them look smaller.

Oh, and about 10-15 mins, usually. The only exception was when I tried to re-create a face I had used in the past; it took me forever to get that right.