What was your inspiration for creating this mod?
When I played Skyrim for the first time, I was overwhelmed of the atmosphere, but after some hours playing I noticed that the textures had a good style but they were definitely too low-res. I don’t necessarily need HD textures, but this 512px disasters just ruined the atmosphere for me. Right on the first day I tried around with replacing textures, and showed them to a friend. First of all I didn’t even planned to release anything to public or replace many more textures, but then after some days my friend told me to upload it here and within a few days the clicks were exploding! My inspiration is pushed by the amount of good feedback from people who love the game even more with my textures.

What did you find most enjoyable about the creation process of this mod?
It is hard to say. I think I just have fun when working on this. I also really love the “before and after”- effect.

What were some of the challenges you came across making this mod?
Since I got so many clicks I try to listen to the users to create a better experience for everybody. The hardest part there is to find the “average-opinion” which most of the users have. There are many users which have another taste in style, but it is hard to fit with the taste of everybody at once. Technically, the hardest part for me was matching the textures to seem realistic, but without exceeding the engine limits. I have had the experience that almost all of my texture replacements cannot be just “photographed and integrated” without editing them, because if the textures are too photorealistic without a bit of artistic style in it, they just look extremely flat. It is actually just normal mapping which makes the textures more 3-dimensional. I hope the Creation Kit or future updates will bring up more possibilities.

What was your favorite and least favorite parts of the tools you used to create Skyrim HD?
I mostly use Photoshop for everything that has to do with creating and editing of textures. My least favorite part of Photoshop was definitely the Price, everything else was fine. My favorite part of Photoshop is its possibilities, which helped me creating good textures.

Roughly, what was the total time it took for you to put this mod together so far?
Wow, that is a hard question. I do not write down the hours I put into this mod, but now with the working time for 1.2, it is definitely in the three-digit area. For three weeks I worked several hours a day on the 1.2 Update, based on how much free-time I got.

Do you plan on any more new features in your mod? Specifically anything not listed on your mods page on the Nexus?
My main goal is to recreate the overall atmosphere, so I try to work on everything that bothers me in the vanilla version. Even if there is already a mod for something it doesn’t mean I will not work on this. I love to give the things my own style.
If I figured out certain things I’ll possibly mod other things than textures.

Do you have other mods you are working on or do you plan to create other mods in a team? If so, what might those be?
Every other mod-part I’m working on will be integrated into my “Skyrim HD” Project.
Currently I also do not plan to work in a team with others. It is not because I don’t like teamwork, but because of the fact, that I try to create a complete mod with my style. If I would connect my work with other modders, I would need to give up a part of my style.

Tell us a little about yourself. Where you are from, what are some of your other hobbies outside of games?
I’m from Germany. This is why my english is not that good sometimes.
I spend a lot of free time into music, video production, and design. Besides doing things on the computer I regularly go to the gym, cinema, club and other pretty average things. I’m not that nerdy however it may look ;)

What are some of your other favorite games if Skyrim isn't the only game you play? Any other game genres besides the RPG style games that Bethesda publishes?
To be honest, I don’t spend that much time in playing games. Skyrim was the first game that totally impressed me. Besides Skyrim I also sometimes play Call of Duty, Anno, Crysis 2 or some other retro games, but not regularly and mostly not for very long.

Do you have any advice for aspiring mod authors?
Don’t do it just for clicks! If you upload a mod and just having in mind that you want to have many clicks you will not get happy with your work. Of course everyone wants appreciation for his work, but don’t try to force it.
And don’t forget: There will be always haters (at least a few): Just ignore them. It’s simple: If you get angry, you loose ;)

And finally, do you have anything you would like to say to our readers out there?
I want to thank everybody who likes my mod and supports me!
Also a special thanks to “brandon2u” for his support and the help in the forums. Without him I definitely would have had much less time for the 1.2 Update.