Same here. I had to settle for mid-thirties.

I think the women (and men!) are great in this game - a perfect mix of different faces to me.
I'm glad the people aren't all smooth skinned, clean and gorgeous; it would look completely out of place. Especially if only the women in the game got that treatment.
If reducing female NPCs to six objects is your thing and/or if you prefer anime character styles or if you've got no problem with everyone looking like they stepped out of a Calvin Klein ad, then have no fear, there will definitely be mods for that. While I love that Bethesda have gone this way with NPCs, the really great thing is that the community will sort you out with anything else.

I agree that maybe there could be a bit more character customisation (although I think I'll always say that lol), but it's definitely possible to create beautiful male or female characters.

This, a thousand times. I'm perfectly happy with the way everyone looks in Skyrim. Saves me the trouble of later having to go through pages of anime and supermodel mods in an effort to improve how characters look. I'm lookin' at you Oblivion.

The OP is corrrect, especially since Beth (as usual) claimed that we could play any character we want, any way we want. This is untrue, but that's par for the course.

For those who think that all Asian game characters (or other entertainment media) look flawless, young, etc, I'd suggest that you need to expand your experiences and learn how varied the artstyles are in Asian media.

Also, the idea of character art being "realistic" is pretty crazy since reality is subjective to each individual, not to mention we are talking about fictional settings, stories, etc. In the case of Skyrim, the environment art was evidently inspired by sci-fi/fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, one of the greats in the field and an artist who certainly did not bother to attempt to portray someone's idea of "realistic" (because that would be bound to fail for countless others, of course). The same applies for other greats in the field such as Boris Vallejo.

Just as an example of how unrealistic the characters are in Skyrim (vanilla Beth style, mind you) consider the way that males are depicted and compare this with the depiction of most females. Almost al males are depicted as stereotypically ripped, 6-pack abs, etc (and yes, relatively young, even if they are supposed to be much older). Meanwhile, the females are living just as harsh a life, and perhaps harsher in various areas, yet they are all depicted as weathered, to say the least.

If you watch the movie, "The 13th Warrior," you'll see a fairly wide variety of depictions of both males and females in Norse settings. Too bad Beth didn't do this, though.

Thankfully, we can hope that our East Asian fans and mod artists will step up to the plate as they have in prior Beth games. Obviously, the demand is there as mods from artists such as Ren are some of the most heavily downloaded mods for earlier TES games (as well as the ports to the FO games).

So do I, and I cannot do this in vanilla Skyrim.

Yeah me too.

Yes! Thank you! I've been trying to remember his name for ages. I didn't know he did the art for "a Princess of Mars".

I know their schtick is "play how you want", but I don't think that was ever meant to be taken as completely literal. I can't play as a talking dog (without mods) either, but that doesn't mean they really lied, just that I'm being a little unrealistic. This is a western RPG, with a very western feel (the Nords, the accent, quite a bit of the architecture), and having anime characters in the vanilla would be odd to many people.
It's great that you like that art style, and that you are able to create characters like the one in your avatar via mods, but there has to be a line drawn in the vanilla development or it would never get made, and would end up being this weird Frankenstein with lots of different styles and no real cohesion.
And I don't really see your point about male and female characters - the world is harsh yes, and men do end up looking pretty weathered most of the time. They are all quite buff too - but then, most of them are either chopping wood, hunting for their food or fighting in a civil war, so that's not too surprising (although more buff women like this would be quite cool too, seeing as there are women who do these roles too - but then no doubt we'd have a forum complaining that the females have male-looking bodies).

Just saying, theres a difference between playing a skinny Nord male and having a Asian video game character, sure the guys mostly look very strong and ripped in Skyrim, replacing them with what you have in mind is like the worst idea ever, I was extremely surprised at how many people were crazy enough to download those weird appearance mods in Oblivion, really would destroy the story for me.

Anyway, almost all characters in Japanese video games(at least the MMO's) all look weirdly perfect and unrealistic. And I do kinda hate every Asian game, so that might have changed my opinion a little.

Given the choices I'd say 2 - 1 - 2, but really only the 'first # 2' would be closer to what I think.

If you ask me, Skyrim is one of the few games where the male characters are actually done better than the female characters.

I'm inclined to agree, I've never liked a single JRPG and I don't see why you'd want to turn Skyrim into one when you could just go play one. It would completely ruin the feeling of the world.

The females have not looked better in a TES game than they do in Skyrim. Aleia the Huntress...yes please. Claymore AND side-boob Schawing!

I think the women of Skyrim are almost too good looking, but I thank Bethesda daily that they don't look totally airbrushed. Fake = bad.

That i agree with, the default Nord male's looks almost made me play with him. But i did manage to resist the temptation and rolled my traditional female khajiit battlemage instead :hehe:

And i think that those anime-styled character mods don't fit in Skyrim as well as they fitted Oblivion. This coming from a man who doesn't really give a [censored] whether the mods he uses fit the game or not.

Get a grip man. My male Redguard wears the fur armor with no shirt ala Conan and SLAYS DRAGONS JUST FINE. My female nord is rockin that fur armor with the feathers I forget the name ala Red Sonya. I grew up on Frank Frazettas art and Robert E Howard's tales and I've finally got a game where I can make chararacters that look like true Barbarians. Armor is for sissys anyway.

A world where every woman has big bouncing boobs, skimpy clothes , perfect faces and bodies does not seem believable to me.

I like Skyrim the way it is, tyvm.

I absolutelly LOVE manga and manga style (Berserk, hellsing styles especially) but when it comes to video games Manga does not simply fit, especially when we talk about agame like Skyrim.
This game has a gritty realistic look and that is the only way it fits for this particular setting, end of story Manga/anime is great, but dont complain that you cant make characters like that here, let those stay where they belong.. ^^ in anime series/mangabooks and games that are done with manga in mind.

All of the above.

That said, Skyrim's character models are certainly Beth's best job as far as they go. Everyone in Oblivion looked hideous and FO:3 they just looked odd with squished bodies. They aren't particularly pretty, no, but they at least look realistic.

The female character models are better than the female animations. I'd prefer they would pay more attention to that. They have two walking animations, but they are both too extreme (the 'elegant' one and the 'tough' one).

My problem with Skyrim is what Dragon Age 2 did to Dragon Age Origins. It really is just:

Fix this preset

So what next game in the TES series? A premade character for us?

at least the orc females dont look like males like they did in oblivion

1) Two (the lefthand one has some odd proportions going on, plus the yellow face is odd. Also, I like Luis Royo's work. :tongue:)
2) One
3) Hmm. One more than two, but I'd say Both if the second one had a loincloth on instead of just the dangling skull. (That looks like a.... Parkinson picture? He did alot of the D&D artwork in the 80's & 90s. Along with Elmore & Caldwell. Great stuff. But he's done better pics than the one you have there.)

As a male gamer, I'd say: yes, this, everything you just said.

Tired of scantily clad, over-sixualized female characters as the expected norm in games. "Fantasy" doesn't just mean "young male's sixual fantasy."

their look suits the environment in my opinion. i like that they can have scars and messed up hair, it adds to the idea that skyrim is a rugged and unforgiving place.