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Yes, 2000.
But I just deleted him. Decided that I didn't like his appearance after all. Besides, I also just went through and deleted several more mods. Some that had many scripts attached to them.

And I've got even more to get rid of, once I merge them with my larger tweak mod. May as well be a personal overhaul now.

Edit:
I'm down to 55 mods total, with the three official HD DLC files inactive. So I guess I'm really using 52. If I can merge several of my own mods, I can bring it back down into the 40's. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.

Your game should be running better now, eh? I downloaded 2 mods last night thus bringing the total to 9 mods in our game. And I freaked out. Think I will delete the "get drunk" mod now since the complex needs takes care of that and replace it with "Followers relax too" which I deleted a bit ago on accident.

Oh...topic ; : I'm having lots of fun with my mage, considering I didn't really play her for well over a month. She took J'zargo with her to Solstheim and that was a complete failure. He did all right for the most part until they made it to a certain word wall that has a ton of draugr, trolls and a dragon. The wyrm must have scared the living crap out of the kitty because he hid the entire fight. Sylmirie decked him out in good gear with resistances, but it was a waste of her time. After the Elder dragon breathed fire on J'zargo, he screamed in fear and ran off...never to return to battle even though his health was barely touched. Sylmirie had to kill all the draugr, trolls and the dragon by herself. Although she managed, she was rather irritated that her follower hid the whole time.

So she sent his furry butt back to the college and hired Brelyna on instead. Brelyna annoys her quite a bit but at least she's good as a servant--err non-runaway apprentice. After some time spent at home gearing up her new follower, Sylmirie made it back to Solstheim to pay Neloth a visit. Perhaps bringing her own apprentice along will show him she's an important mage, too. More so than he.

Ahem. Neloth's apprentice doesn't like Sylmirie since she snitched on him about the Ash Guardian. At least she learned the spell from him though. I'm still waiting for Frostfall to kick in but so far the complex needs mods has heightened the gameplay. Apparently Sylmirie gets thirsty quite a bit. She spent pretty much her entire time at home inebriated since she ran out of water (she has to build a cannister but currently lacks the items needed). I suppose being drunk at home isn't so bad...but she started getting hungry and thirsty during a battle which affectedbher magicka...but because she was in battle she couldn't eat. Ahh...fun.

Today I did very little. . . except my most recent DiD is dead. Poor old Nord. She died when Necromancers attacked her and Anise. RIP Agata. Now I'm starting my next one, hooray.

Removing over half of my mods didn't help performance any, but it has helped extend the life of my saves a bit. Early tests have shown they are remaining smaller for longer. Good.

Anyway, I tried to create to Altmer characters, but they both failed. I was satisfied with the appearance of the male Altmer, but in the end, I decided I'd rather go Dunmer.
I wasn't even close to satisfied with the female Altmer I created. No matter what I do, every female Altmer I try to create comes out ugly. Same with Bosmer women.
Dunmer? I'd say I'm pretty good with Dunmer. At least, better than the other Elves. And I can create a decent looking Orc, too. Actually, I can't seem to make one that's ugly. Which is... A little odd.

So after that little battle with character creation, I settled on recreating an old DiD character named Nerani Vyr. Still haven't got a story for her, but so far, I'm satisfied. Definitely going for a more stealthy approach with this one. It's something I don't usually do. I would have done a mage, but I know from past experience that I find mages terribly boring; I've tried to create four or five in the past, and not one of them lasted more than 50 hours. Usually just get tired of them and delete them before I'm even finished the dungeon diving.

Elves have super sharp features, the key to making a good looking Altmer or Bosmer is to soften the sharpness. Balance them out. I keep their high cheekbones but then try to make their mouths and noses a bit more bubblier. Their eyes should have a certain mysterious look to them, so I keep them rather large. When I think elf, I think of a slightly alien looking face that radiates beauty. And lots of attitude, cannot forget that. Most of the facial structure markers on all my characters are set to the middle and I have noticed I consistently get happy results from that.



Goodness yes, pure mages are absolutely boring. This is why Sylmirie uses a sword (no bound weapons for some reason I hate those) and she made her own elven bow she pulls out for those special occasions. She'll bring enemies health down with her magic then she gets close enough to pull out the blade. Its so much funner that way. But stealth characters are my very favorite. There's just something about sneaking around that makes me giggle internally every time. Its like my characters are ultra snoopy and in everyone's shiznit.

The bold bit for certain.

The first female preset for altmer is the best starting point in my carefully considered opinion, the others I just don't find... attractive. I usually only change jaw width and cheekbone width to being thinner, and the eye colour to being green. And then hair colour to black, but I have had a blonde Jennifere once.

I don't remember what preset Sylmirie is on, I think maybe the 3rd or 4th one. I changed just a bit on it. And although she will someday go back to blonde, her brunette look fits her personality better. But dye wears off eventually, right?

I don't know, I'm turning grey me self...

I don't remember Alarra's preset, either. I've considered changing her hair, but no other color seems "right" for her. There's another style I might consider changing it to, though. I agree, too, about softening the sharpness - I was pleased to see the face sculptor woman in Dawnguard, because after playing a while I had started to feel that Alarra's face was too sharp and angular, so I was able to make some minor changes that made her look a bit better.

Nothing yet today but yesterday I did grab those unenchanted black hooded robes for Mr. LaChance.

The thing about that being I tend to think of the elves as having sharp features. I usually try and come up with a face that's angled, but not too freakish. There's a certain balance to be maintained. I definitely do agree that around the middle of the sliders is best for that, but certain facial morphs will require more extreme positioning of the sliders to balance things out.

I think a lot of it has to do with the selection of facial features themselves. Looking through the selection of nose and mouth shapes for Elves, there's very few that I actually like. Some of the hair styles get me, too. When I'm making an elf, I usually want to go for a hair that shows the pointed ears. Apparently I don't like it when their ears are covered. Problem with that is that I try to find a style that compliments the shape of the face. There isn't many hair styles to choose from, so I usually wind up getting stuck on the hair or choosing the same ones over and over again. Mods like ApachiiSkyHair add more hairs, but most of them don't look like they would fit in Skyrim at all.

The face texture itself has a lot to do with it, too. I find myself preferring face textures that are very rough. A lot of the mods on the Nexus have faces that are totally smoothed out and whenever I see an elf like that, I shudder a little inside. It just looks so... Unnatural. I even do that for mods like Ethereal Elven Overhaul; it just doesn't look right (and apparently a lot of people would disagree with me on that).

All in all, I think I'm just far too picky. I'm not surprised that most of the characters I've made have been deleted because I didn't like how they looked.
I also just had the weirdest deja vu moment.


Anyway, here are some random Elves I just came up with:
Altmer
Dunmer
Orc
Bosmer
And the only ones I like are the Dunmer and the Orc... Oh, this is going to take a while. I want to do an Altmer character. I just have to find the right appearance.

Edit:
And I forgot to mention eye color. That's a huge part of it, too. I'm not overly fond of the limited selection of vanilla eyes, so I tend to rely upon mods to give more. The Eyes of Beauty adds some nice eye textures, but I haven't really found one to suit Altmer. There are a few for Dunmer, Orcs, and Bosmer, but not really any that suit Altmer. I actually like the Snow Elf eyes on Altmer, but they bright white eye lashes tends to look a little off. If there was a black eye lash version of them, then I would definitely use the Snow Elf eyes.

It would be interesting to see how Jennifere looks with graphics like that...

With EEO or what I'm running?
Vanilla face textures are rather poor. It's mostly the blockiness around the lips that gets me.

Anyway, I just deleted Nerani. Go figure.
Apparently I can't get a character I'm interested in, either. Hooray restartitis.

Whatever you were running for the four elf pics.

CBR, Jennifere is beautiful, leave her be!

Mauin, I agree that Elven overhaul and some other elven mods out there take away from Skyrim elves. Personally, I like the vanilla elves a lot, which is why I have two of them. When I created the Bosmer, I had no idea what I was going for in the face. She just came to me and she's lovely. I also like the pointy ears to show, its the point of having an elf! I like my characters to have edge to their looks, their faces should set in their personalities. So I usually have a good idea of what they will be like as an individual when I create their face. Felina is pouty, somewhat immature with a quietly dark nature so her face is rather girlish. Lieth is a woodland tomboy with a sweet interior, so her war paint is rather soft like her personality. And Sylmirie...she's just a stuck up meanie. Haughty is what came to mind.

Speaking of Sylmirie...she got herself into some hefty trouble in Raven Rock. Mogrul pushed her buttons by threatening her, something she highly dislikes. Sylmirie may consider herself better than most others, but she generally leaves people be. So who exactly did that Orc think he was, going on about her owing him money and all? Its not the first time this elf has allowed her power to show through her fury. Plus, she had to show apprentice Brelyna how to handle a crowd. Sylmirie summoned away, casting ice storms spells and killing Mogrul, his pansy buddy, 6 guards, and Rins Llervu. Honestly, Mogrul was the only target but of course the guards turned on her and so she had to defend herself and her apprentice.

Its pretty safe to say no one will be messing with Sylmirie in Raven Rock anymore. After paying her $2100 fine, she got on the barge back to Skyrim for a much needed chill pill. Arriving at Lakeview Manor, she and Brelyna were attacked by bandits with the housecarl and steward no where to be found. Of course. She now has one chicken left and can't seem to buy any more. Sigh. Poor Sylmirie, she is so stressed. The kids were awake at 2am when she arrived home but Onmund was solid asleep. They fought her on going to bed, so she let them be and went to sleep. The screen was all fuzzy because she was hungry, thirsty and apparently very sleepy. I'm really liking this complex needs mod. Hopefully Frostfall will kick in soon. I've had these Steam mods show up in my game days after I subscribe to them so I'm assuming everything is ok so far.

I also think Sylmirie will spend the next several days smithing new gear for her husband and playing with the kids. She's been gone from home for ages so family time is needed.

I've got no choice, she's on Xbox...

You have to activate it by reading a book in any inn. If you haven't done that it probabley wont activate.

Really? Thanks for letting me know!

Ears also have to show so my characters can wear earrings. Nothing wrong with a little bit more jewelry. Especially when it provides more enchanting slots.

Personality is definitely an influence on a character's appearance. I was thinking "evil" when I made the original Vulom and, well, you can see where that went.

Speaking of which... I just created Vulom Staadnau III. It's the only way I'm going to get anything done. Of course, my computer started lagging the moment I stepped out of Helgen, so that's where I had to stop. I swear the thing is having problems today. Made a few odd noises when I turned it on this morning, and it's been freezing on me every once and a while. Bah. Better not be something else failing on it.

Downloaded hearthfire, build most of lakeview manor, & adopted a couple kids.

I finally figured out how to trigger Frostfall. It has changed my gaming life. This mod combined with the complex needs one has added a unique challenge to Skyrim. I adjusted it to the hardcore setting which also turns off fast travel. My first guinea pig was Sylmirie. She's in Solstheim currently with only a cloak and firewood. No tent, no supplies. She and apprentice Brelyna ended up fighting a lurker on the coast next to Tel Mithryn cold, hungry, thirsty, and sleepy. The screen got all blurry and her magicka regeneration was penalized. She was even moving slower. She thought briefly of Onmund and the kids...and felt rather cut off from the world when the snow set in and she was freezing. Whoa.

Soooo...I just left her there for the moment and moved on to guinea pig #2.

By the graces of Sithis, Felina was already at Windstad Manor. It took me 2 hrs of real time to set her and Serana up with their wilderness survival kit. They had to collect pelts during the day and make it home by sundown before it got super cold. On the way to see the Night Mother, Felina almost froze. She ended up having to battle a few saber cats and bandits so it took longer for her to get to a warm shelter. Then she got hungry. She made it to Dawnstar in about 2 hrs Tamriel time and drank some strong ales at the inn before heading to the DB sanctuary. After chopping firewood and getting the backpack set up, Felina and Serana traveled from Windstad Manor to Solitude, and took a carriage to Windhelm to do some work there. I really like these mods. Although I already fed my characters and used common sense with them, I'm being forced to now or else they get penalties. Felina accidentally fell in water and almost got hypothermia. Also, it seems that planning ahead of time is more essential now. She and Serana left Windhelm at 6am for Forsaken Cave and didn't return until 8pm; cold, hungry, exhausted. But staying true to Felina's personality, she overate and could then barely move. Think that will be happening often.

I wish I would have downloaded these mods sooner. The game is more intense now but in a different way, as opposed to slamming quest after quest out. I like it much better this way.

I seem to have irritated the native people of the Reach. Krieg is on a mace-to-the-face marathon and loving every minute of it. The down side is the cold. Krieg no like cold. But the dragon he found and the Word Wall next to the lizard were a nice bonus for his efforts.

I switched to the UNP body earlier. It took me a couple of hours to download everything, clear out my old files, and install the new ones. Wound up freeing somewhere around 1GB of space on my disk. Huh. Didn't think I had that much devoted to textures and meshes. Apparently I did.

Other than that, I worked on leveling Vulom's stealth skills. Got lockpicking to the 50's, pickpocket to 85, and sneak to 100. One-handed and archery also went up to around 50. She's now level 70... And it only took me 7 hours to get there.