I understand it have something to with making armor...

At what point will I get to make dragon armor?
Do I just have to start crafting more armor to increase my smithing?
What is the quickest way to get there?

100 smithing is required to craft dragonscale or dragonplate armor.

You currently get the same smithing gains from crafting an iron dagger as you do an ebony chest, so you can skill it up however you wish (obviously the easiest and fastest being iron daggers and leather bracers).

So making hundreds of daggers.... would that be considered cheating?

lvl100 Blacksmithing
6th point in the smithing skill tree.

I mostly leveled smithing by making leather bracers, whenever I had a little coin to spare, I'd buy leather+leather strips from the blasksmith. I don't think this is the most effective way, the materials are more expensive, than what you can sell the crafted item back to the vendors for.


It's not cheating, but from a roleplaying perspective it's not the best gameplay design.

That is entirely up to you. The game was designed this way.

How is using the game mechanics the way they were designed cheating?

They sell for a lot of gold, so you can make awesome armor with them, or sell them for a fortune.

Not cheating but it kind of ruins the game for me. Unless your only concerned about your characters power, I wouldn't do it. Level it up normally. Make cool new armor improve everything, go into mines and get your materials, it's a lot more fun that way.

from a RP point of view, think of it as earning a living with your learned trade, you make a product and sell it, and get better at it in the process, i don't see a conflict in this
as from an efficient way to level, get hides, make them into leather and leather strips and craft HIDE BRACERS they take 2 strips and one leather to make witch makes them the most efficient way to level, as you can make two for 3 leather pieces

Esbern can also make potions out of them.