UNFAMILIAR FACES

Howdy folks, it's your friendly neighborhood DV here with a hot mess of people-shaped protagonists.  In between painting rocks and adding unnecessary filters to perfectly pleasant game visuals, I enjoy a bit of portrait photography.  Much as I love the tiny-person-in-a-vast-expanse school of screenshootery, I like to mix things up every now and again with a little ultra-zoomed-in portraiture.  While I can get away with any old mutt-faced gumby for the landscape shots, getting in close required making a face worth looking at.  Games imagery has come a long way since 2011, and the Skyrim modding scene has, amazingly, kept up with the times.  Some of the faces modded into this gameworld these days are almost the equal of ol' Artie Morgan's soulful mug.  I'm not the most skilled face-sculptor around, but I daresay I at least give that weirdo in the Ratway a run for their money. 

If you like the looks of these folks and also enjoy shooting robots and hoarding wonderglue, check out this collection of faces for Fallout 4.

And always remember: If you like it Endorse it!



WHAT?

Presets!  Racemenu presets.  Check 'em out- 17 different faces and bodies from which to build your own unique and special Dragonborn.  No pinprick noses, alarmingly large eyes, giant hooters, or silicone lips here- that particular "aesthetic" is already plenty well served elsewhere, to nauseating extent.  For this collection expect faces that look reasonably proportioned from a variety of angles.  Some are conventionally attractive, some endearingly homely, all are distinct from each other, and hopefully from other presets available elsewhere.

Most of these are scratch-built from Bethesda's stock set of starter gumbies.  Some may have begun with someone else's preset, but have mutated quite a bit beyond their origins.  If you recognize your handiwork, please let me know so that I can give you proper credit.  Certain characteristics have been patterned on my friends and myself.  Other elements are pure filigree of the imagination.  The names are scientific Latin for various flora and fauna, archaic versions of modern names, and other monikers that seemed of a piece with Skyrim's eclectic fantasy vibe.



HOW DO I MAKE IT WORK?

Plug the files into your mod organizer of choice (I recommend Mod Organizer 2) open up the presets that start with "DV" in Racemenu (start a new game, or type "showracemenu" into the console) and modify these guys, gals, and all around excellent people however you please.

You'll probably want to use the mods listed below to get similar skin textures, haircuts, eye colors, etc.  That being said, these presets are provided as a starting point, not an end point to your own original explorations.  You know those screen-shooters who have, like, one character that they keep shooting from the same three angles over and over and over again?  God that's so boring.  There are 17 wildly different face-and-body assemblages here.  Change their hair, change their height, slap a giant phallus on 'em, cover them in grime and freckles and garish makeup, add tattoos, take away tattoos- do your own thing.  Please, however, don't just change a couple of superficial characteristics and then re-release the same-person-with-a-different-haircut and call it your own original work.  That's lame.

Face Requirements
You're gonna need the following mods to make the face sculpting look right:

Racemenu
High Poly Head
Facewand (load this one early and let other stuff overwrite it)
Expressive Facial Animation Female and Male Editions
Expressive Facegen Morphs

Body Requirements
If you want to use the custom body proportions included in the presets, you'll need these.  (Don't forget to download, install, and build DV Bod in Bodyslide):

Bodyslide
CBBE 3BA
(You could probably get away with the basic CBBE, but some of these presets and the base DV Bod make use of the wider range of anatomical details that can be tweaked on the 3BA body.  I recommend making or finding a less gelatinous physics preset than comes standard.)
SAM Light
XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended

Integument Requirements
If you want the hairstyles, skin textures, eye color, etc. to match, you'll need these:

Bijin Skin
(Many of the female skin textures in the screenshots are at least partially Bijin.  I do a lot of custom texture tinkering, but rxkx22's work should give you a good baseline.)
Skysight Skins for SAM Light

Smile in HD
Dentist for Orsimers

The Eyes of Beauty
Improved Eyes
Kala's Eyes

High Poly Pretty Face Brows
Maevan2 Eyebrows for High Poly Head
Hvergelmir Brows for High Poly Head

Beards of Power Polymorph
SV Beards High Poly

HG Hairstyles (appears to be down from the Nexus, I'm sure it's still available for download elsewhere)
SG Hair Pack (also to be sought elsewhere)
KS Hairdos - HDT SMP
ApachiiSky Hair

Paint Requirements
You'll need these if you want to see the makeup/warpaint featured in the images- and most importantly to avoid the purple body situation (see FAQ for details).

Makeup Overhaul textures from Fair Skin
Xara's Makeup and Warpaint
Female Makeup Suite
Freckle Mania 2 (it's an oldschool mod, but works fine in SE)
Painterly Warpaints (also works fine in SE)
Weathered Nordic Bodypaints
Community Overlays 1 / 2 / 3
Battle Hardened Warpaint
Barbarian Bodypaints
Overlay Compilation
Vallaslin Tattoos

Recommended Mods
These aren't necessary, but might make your character-building more interesting.

Dint 999's Hair Packs (search the wider internet)
HDT SMP Wigs
High Poly Vanilla Hair
CBBE Muscle Solution
Unique Bodies by Race
(This mod is wonderful for supporting different skin types for different humanoids.  I didn't want to mess about with a million Bodyslides, or overwrite all other modded NPCs, so I got rid of all the references to meshes and NPCs in the Unique Bodies ESP, leaving just the different texture paths for each race.  You'll still need to add your own skin textures manually, but I think it's worth the effort.)


It's entirely possible that I've forgotten to list some component that went into the construction of one or more of these faces.  Try to work around it if you can.



BONUS BOX!

In addition to the faces, I've included a couple of other custom odds and ends that helped me make these folks look the way they do.  They are parted out as optional downloads- but you'll probably want them all. 

My baseline CBBE 3BA Bodyslide preset is available as a separate download.  You'll want this if you want your lady-bodied people to look somewhat realistic-ish.  Each character preset contains its own further custom tweaks to the base bodyslide because, well, every body's different.  Both guy dolls and gal dolls look as fine as a sprite can look sans apparel, but the intention with the bodies was more to build on the character of the character than just titillate with hooters into the next zip code.  Your mileage will almost certainly vary.

I use a mess of custom skin textures banged together out of other people's work.  Way too complicated to figure out who originally made what and track them all down for permission to publish.  A couple textures, though, have been so thoroughly mangled by me that they're probably permissible as original work at this point.  So, with apologies to the forgotten artists of the original textures, I've included a custom normal map that makes Orsimer guys look noticeably more weatherbeaten.  Future minor projects, including my ongoing attempts to do something with Argonian skin, will be here so watch this space!



QAF

Awesome!  But, like, who are these people and what ethnicity and pronouns do they prefer (so like what should I pick from the list when building them for the first time)?
Passerina: She/her, Nord
Baldisar: He/him, Orsimer
Caryl: She/her, Dunmer
Ofelia: She/her, Imperial
Luna: She/her/they/them, Nord
Nelwyn: She/her, Altmer
Oxalis: She/her, Bosmer
Phaedra: She/her, Dunmer
Ballard: He/him, Nord
Mardkhora: She/her, Orsimer
Twine: They/them, Dunmer
Meave: She/her, Imperial
Gorse: He/him/they/them, Dunmer
Iolanthe: She/her, Altmer
Greer: She/her, Breton
Quamas: She/her, Bosmer
Waldemar: He/him, Dunmer

*Note that all Human races and all Mer races share pretty similar underlying facial structure, so with a little elbow grease you could get most of the faces to show up with minimal distortion on different related folk.  And, obviously, your own personal character based on any of the above carries with them your/their own personal sense of gender polarity.

My characters look like polygonal monster people, help!
Read the installation instructions for each of the required mods listed above.  Make sure all required mods have their own requirements met.  Make sure that no loose files or other mods are overwriting the required mods.  Beware vast, sweeping NPC high-poly mods!

I've got a purple body/face/hands, help!
Purple parts indicate that a Racemenu overlay is missing.  You can fix it any of three ways: 
1. Download and install the missing overlay mod (hint: it's probably listed in the 'Requirements' section above.)
2. Swap the missing overlay for another overlay you do have installed.
3. Reduce the opacity of the missing overlay to 0/total transparency in the color slider.

Could you help me troubleshoot my load order?
Nope.  Please attempt to puzzle out a solution on your own, ask relevant questions on troubleshooting forums, and read the installation instructions again before requesting assistance.

That seems like a lot of required mods, do I really need them all?
Probably not.*  Read the 'How Do I Make it Work?' section for details.
*Please however do not complain or request assistance if you haven't installed everything on the list.

I like it, but could you change this one thing?
No.

Are these gonna be available as followers?
No, but if you want to make a follower mod go ahead.  Only caveat- and it's a big one- is that it'd need to be custom voiced and include my input in the vocal script.  More interesting NPCs in the style of the aptly named Interesting NPCs are always great, but I'm not interested in merely providing fodder for endless lurid experiments in the Laboratory of Lovers...

Available for consoles?
I don't know how that works.  If you port it yourself, sure.

What clothing/hair/makeup/accoutrements are these characters wearing?
Fashion mods far too diverse and numerous to list.

Not every image looks exactly like their preset!  What's up with that?
So long as the facial architecture and distinguishing flourishes are there, I leave it to you to sort out the haircuts, eyeshadow, etc.  Most of them are pretty close to how they look in the promo image reel.  Like I said, these are designed to inspire further growth and development, not provide a one-size-fits-all 'bestest preset evar'.

Golly gee DV you're just the bestest screen-shootin' modderf&cker there is!  Where can I find more of your work?
Why, thank you imaginary friend!  You can find most of my modding work here on the Nexus.  Images are here and on my Flickr.  I stop in at a couple of screen-shooting and modding Discords every now and again.  If you like a thing, don't forget to click the Endorse button!


Some people call this junk.  Me, I call them treasures.