PrinceMason

General concept art added! Stay tuned for more concept art, in particular the differences for females, hair styles, Topalian(or perhaps Topalish would sound better? At least for language, style, culture, etc...) and an idea of what I'll be aiming for for flight animations and such.

@Derok I agree, and was planning on going ahead with this regardless of there being any in pre-existing lore. It just makes the whole thing feel a bit more put together so it could be enjoyed by casual mod users as well as lore buffs. Though it did help with a few ideas like names and their general color palettes. And yes, they have arms as well as wings. Also, concept art will be very soon. My school work has just been taking from my time to study tutorials and such for this project as well as draw. @ghosu That is a bit nicer looking than Hagravens(at least, in my opinion), and for lore ancient avians may have looked like that before they were made a bit more civilized and evolved. (Also, ended up editing this because I derped a bit and didn't notice there was an entire other page... whoops.) Overall - I plan on making the race available without wings after making armors work on the beast body provided by Derok, so there can at least be some testing and feedback before I take the leap for wings and such. Not sure if I should tick the flying option for the race, since I haven't tested what it does yet without the corresponding animations. And I do want it more like realistic birds, the way Argonians are amphibious lizard folk and Khajiit are cat folk.

I plan to kind of mix tweaking and creating. For instance, I'll have to create a new tail and wings if I go down the flying route. Again, thank you greatly for the advice and I will definitely be taking your advice to get a good grasp of things. And I've always been big on references. I don't like to jump into things without any - especially something like this.

I've been doing a little testing for a while, but nothing big yet. Thank you for the advice! I'm hoping to start out with just the tail and shaping the beak before I get into much else.

@gulogulo Actually, I want to do flying last. If I can't manage to work it out well enough, then I think the race would be fine as just a bird-like beast race with tail feathers. It would still be a cool race in my opinion, since there's not a lot of diversity with the beast races as compared to humans and elves. @Derok A Naga race would definitely be cool. I think the biggest trouble would be the slithering animations, since you could just alter the mesh slightly and change texture for a more snake like head, I think. And yeah, for that aspect it would have been easier to just alter the Khajiit's fur to look like feathers. But my plan was to shape the already large mouth into a proper beak, and then add feathers and alter face shapes. And thank you for permissions! As for the armor, I do prefer the idea of no pants + anklets, because it just feels right for a bird race in my opinion. If enough people say otherwise though, I'm not one to deny. (It wouldn't counteract your's of course, I mean them being a race specific thing if possible) Also, that bit of lore is very interesting. From reading it, it might be a better idea to change the sky city to those islands, as well as make the race more primitive rather than what I was planning on going for. Though, they have advanced some since the telling of this. And perhaps make the race call themselves Topalians, in reverence to the one they made their lord. Also, not yet. This project is going to prove to be a learning experience as well, at least for me. @Hallgarth I know a LOT is gonna have to go into this. From what I can tell though, the community seems really good with helping each other out. For example, the post above giving me permissions for the legs! As for sculpting heads and file understanding etc, there seem to be quite a lot of tutorials. If someone came forward and offered help, then I would gladly accept it, but I'd rather not burden people by asking them.

**NEW** Concept art!: This is the right place to post this, yes? It's not a request - it's something I myself plan to make. I have big plans for this race and things implemented to compliment it, but I myself don't have any prior experience. I'm fairly confident in my ability to pick it up quickly, though. But any suggestions, ideas, or even tutorials you think I would benefit from are high appreciated! This post looks lackluster as of now, because I've barely started. But this post will hold all my updates and plans for the mod. The plans will be done from easiest to implement to hardest, but the updates will all be listed in order. Also, Avian is a placeholder name. I hope to have a fitting name for the likes of Skyrim(ie, Catfolk are Khajiit, reptilians are Argonians - even elves are -mers.) If this is the wrong place to be putting this, PLEASE let me know and tell me where it should be posted and I'll move it there. Plans Race: Stats: They will essentially have a balanced mix between Argonians and Wood Elves, with their main bonus being Archery.Meshes: I plan to give them beaks, hopefully by working with the mesh and textures of an Argonian head(any advice on this would be greatly appreciated!) They will also have tail feathers, claw hands and feet(if possible), and possibly wings, if flight can be worked in.Flight: I hope to give them wings and an option of flying. Flying will have the same speed as sprinting, except the benefit of flying over obstacles. The flight will have a height limit, of course, and I want it to slowly drain stamina so it can't be abused.Digitigrade legs: I'm a little unsure about this, because it would take a lot of work with skeletons and armor fittings. If I do add them, the armor will go a simplistic route and opt for no pants(I find that a bit more lore-friendly - if Avians even are lore friendly, another thing I could use some advice on Check updates for Lore-friendliness!). Boots will be edited to anklets that give the same benefits.Beaks: Not sure how this could be implemented at all, but it'd be a nice idea if nothing else. Mouth shape options give you different inspired beaks, ie eagle, parrot, owl, etc etc. This will probably be a difficult concept, unless it's easier than I think - though probably not, since certain beaks would alter the entire face shape at least slightly.NPCs: Like a few race mods I've seen, I want to scatter a few NPCs around. The biggest thing relating to NPCs will be touched upon a little later on in this post, with something else I plan to implement to compliment the race. Any NPCs I do put in will more than likely be non-important NPCs in high mountains and possibly northern holds.Dialogue: This is a very small detail, but I was contemplating making Argonians recognize you as Avian. I heard Scouts-Many-Marshes(in Windhelm, he works at the docks) call me egg brother when I played as an Argonian. If I can, I want to isolate that line so it can also be used if you play an Avian. It could also hint that Avians and Argonians are related somehow, or are just very close races.Avian-Avian dialogue: This will obviously be unvoiced, unless people come forth with voices that don't sound too odd in game. When speaking to other Avians, they will reference thew two of you being of the same flock(ie flock brother, similar to Argonian's marsh brother and egg brother(sister, I assume, if female)) as well as possibly cloud/sky brother.Lore: Possibly an enemy to Dwemers? They live in the deep, while Avians take to the skies. I myself can see them as opposition to each other, if not solely for their ideals. Despite this, they have technologies similar to the Dwemer, but are not used for fighting. You probably won't see Avian constructs on the ground. Avians also are skilled archers, and will almost always prefer light armor with a bow and arrow.City City of the Sky: Yup, I plan on having a City in the clouds. It will be fully inhabited by Avian NPCs. People have made new lands you can visit. New towns, new player homes. People have made flying/floating abodes. Why can't we mix those? I REALLY like the bit of lore involving bird people on islands, so I'm going in that direction instead. It will essentially be an isolated island paradise.Avian constructs: The city will have better technology in it, along with the entire city functioning on one. The most noticeable construct being the latter - as it keeps the city in the sky. Any inventions from them will do the job they're made for, but will seem rough around the edges and unsophisticated, given them being cut off from others.Home: There will be a player home for purchase that I hope to make upgradeable, like any other vanilla player home. Until I think of quests for the City, the home will be able to be bought right away.Quest: At the moment I have only one idea for a quest relating to the City(or, technically two). One can be taken up by any race by talking to a non-sky-dwelling Avian about the City. The other being a Return To Your Roots quest, which will be activated either immediately upon character creation or when you speak to another Avian. I got the idea for the Roots quest when I got a quest upon discovering Nirnroot.Marriage partners: I hope to have at least one of each gender located in the city. Other plans will be added if they pop up. Updates