My rendition of Jordis

About this image

She was a little difficult for me. On the one hand, Bethesda did a very good job on her appearance and her character, and her name is really cool too. On the other hand, she plays like any other Housecarl - sword and board with heavy armor. The truth is, bringing her along was a question of blondes vs. brunettes to me... Lydia being the brunette. But she had so much potential with such a cool name!

What I wanted to do with her was take her attitude and her name and totally run with it. I made her true to her name and focused her entire character on being the best at using swords. Stat-wise, she levels 1h faster than any other follower and her heavy armor skill is right up there with Calden. The trade-off is her archery and block skills are lacking and she has absolutely no business sneaking. I've properly set her up so that if she doesn't have a shield in her inventory she will dual wield her swords. She also comes with the Dual Flurry perk, which together means she swings faster and hits more often.

Her looks are what took me the longest time. I didn't want to change the general feel Bethesda gave to her, but at the same time, I feel they slightly missed the mark. First off, let me say that her facial structure is almost completely unchanged. I did change her hair and mouth to make her look a little younger, and changed her eyes from bright green to light green for realism sake. The reason for the changes was that after running around all over western Skyrim, doing several dungeons, and pretty much getting into fights everywhere in between, her attitude and personality reflected that of an excited and confident, young prodigy. With that in mind, I lowered her from max weight to about 50% and gave her a ponytail, as I thought it made her look a bit younger and sportier. The other thing I did was remove almost all of her make-up. I felt she didn't need it, and it distracted me from the "Natural Beauty" that Bethesda already gave her. I did, however, spend about three hours working on her complexion to give her very natural shades and minor discolorations that would be typical of someone who lives in a cold environment, but also suffers from intense heat (it's a cold/hot effect that produces red marks around the face) from wearing heavy armor. I also changed her mouth as I felt this one not only relayed her confidence, but had a young smile that fit her voice appropriately.

This one was quite a bit of work, and the changes on her are extremely subtle, but I'm really happy with how she came out.

You can see the file and my other characters here:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=16612