I'm currently working on a mod that will provide skin-textured mannequins of all races--but I have to say, I don''t like the way gamesas implemented darker skin textures, at all. Last night I spent the better part of 2 hours in the CS just trying to create male and female Redguard NPC reference records with faces that, at the end, still didn't please me. And I want to present all the mannequins in a way that covers a broad range of hair and skin colors, as well as hair styles. I've gotten some pretty good ones locked down on the others, but...

Since this primarily affects Redguards, I'm curious about the opinions of others. I really do prefer the way http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18247' texturing looks. Yes, I know the appearance lends itself to sleaze by a few players, but that's not the fault of the mod or the modder, who's provided a really nice way of creating varied and darker skin textures without odd lumpiness and bizarre spots of color.

What's the opinion of those familiar with Redguards? Anybody figured out to create decent, darker-toned faces?

I really like the Chocolate Elves' looks as well. I still have yet to make a character with that mod...Hopefully, I will get around to it at some point. That is my favorite dark skin texture race mod.

Edit: I think Enayla's http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14805 make the Red Guards (and all other vanilla races) look much better. I use that with IFT's age textures of course.

Enalya's latest: good choice. I use Mab's Natural Faces, but both are excellent. You make me almost wish to release this for Chocolate Elves instead of Redguards, but that would mean dependencies that a lot of people wouldn't accept. So Redguards stay--along with the inherent nastiness of the textures as you try to darken them in the CS, unfortunately.

Better Redguards works ok for me. http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10753
I also like the chocolate skin textures by Navetsea for the f-inev Oblivion skinset for HGEC, but I can't find the download URL anymore.

I think http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19021 is the link to the skinset you refer to. I'll have to give it a try, for that, provided it doesn't create any parent requirements for the mod I'm working on. That's the problem with Better Redguards. It's great, and Luchaire's point (about gamesas doing a quick kludge for Redguard textures by using those formulated for Imperials) is spot on. But if I use it, what I send out to others will require it's use. I'm planning on releasing a mod that can be played with vanilla Oblivion in one version, and with COBL Races in the other (just for the hair and eyes).