That doesn't mean there's never a time or place for bold colors, but they should be reserved for creating striking effects, not used as a way to make your character 'better looking'. Subtle tones tend to provide softer, more natural appearances. When it comes to war paint and makeup, very often, less is more. Once you have a general shape that you like, often all it takes to take a face from average to extraordinary is a large number of small tweaks.

Pay Attention to Little Details: At the same time, beautiful faces are more often created in inches than miles.

With this character, I tried to do both: give her both a 'classic' Dark Elf feel and a unique look. You can play to or play with racial stereotypes. (You can correct this with a mod on the Skyrim Nexus if they bother you. The dark elves, in particular, are hard to make attractive owing to an undesirable emphasis on 'bags under the eyes'. Honestly, these are the hardest races to 'get right' (though see my screenshots for a few examples of 'better' and 'worse'). Elves and orcs present special problems because they are similar enough to humans that their unusual geometry can easily lead to the creation of ugly characters, but not different enough (like the beast races) to be left to whimsy. Elven faces tend to be long and thin with exaggerated features (big eyes, long noses) which account for their unique appearance.

Be Particular With Elves: For elves, widen the face, shorten the chins and pick smaller eyes and noses.

The beast races (Argonians and Khajiit) are different enough from human faces that I can't really offer any good suggestions beyond that whether or not a cat-person or lizard-person is 'beautiful' is highly subjective. Drawing out the nose is usually a good way to make them more animal-like. If you want a more animal-like character, exaggerate features.

If you want a more human-looking character, eliminate exaggerated features. Animal: For beast races, start by deciding whether you want something on the 'human' pole of the spectrum or the 'animal' pole. Orcs and Elves are best handled by minimizing the differences between their given features and human features.

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