Question: what mod for a better variety of female faces?

[Alcaparre]

Hello! I'm looking for recommendations on mods that provide a diverse range of faces for female characters. I've tried a few, but they seem to make all the women look almost identical. Could you please suggest some mods that offer a better variety of female faces? Thank you!

[anjenthedog]

hmm... Seems to me you have three basic options

 

1) vanilla with racemenu

2) ECE

3) highpoly head

 

Each produces a distinct "type" ime.

 

Pick your poison?

 

I do not use it, because I missed the boat when it first came out - couldn't figure out how to get signed onto their site, never got confirmation emails- and then invested a large amount of time on customizing using #1, so killing off my work to start from scratch just doesn't suit my attitude. I'm tired of burning down houses just to do something slightly different. Bbbbbut, were it me, even with the type issue, if I were to start over totally fresh, I'd choose highpoly, along with Racemenu tweaking to try to mitigate the cloned taste of stock output, just as I already do with vanilla resources and Racemenu. I like the doll faces ECE produces, but it's not all that compatible with Racemenu (IMO). and Highpoly is just that. has a far higher poly count for the face/head mesh. vanilla can be quite blocky once you get in close.

 

The face in my avatar is my modification work on a vanilla asset Racemenu preset I found along the way (I think it was originally a "Buffy the vampire slayer" preset, fwiw...

 

my two cents, not "authoritas", just opinion.

 

best wishes

 

edit: post edited, I re read and it was disconnected and perhaps confusing... heh might still be idk.

[7531Leonidas]

I use Eradicate This Face ( https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/17535 ) - it replaces female bandit faces. Also, Default Face NPCs Fixed ( https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54515 ) changes many generic NPCs and a few named NPCs.

 

There are quite a few full makeovers for named NPCs, like the Bijin series, Pandorables, Charmers of the Reach (this one is its own race - can cause compatibility problems w/other mods), and several others. Just search out Bijin, look at the mod category, and click on the category to see more choices.

[Alcaparre]

@anjenthedog

 

hmm... Seems to me you have three basic options

 

1) vanilla with racemenu

2) ECE

3) highpoly head

 

I'm using the first option, vanilla with Racemenu, but I'm still finding it difficult to distinguish most of the female characters because they look too similar. All women have the same nose, jawline, eyes, cheekbones, age, etc. The only thing that changes is the hairstyle and eye color. It feels like someone has recreated the woman of their dreams in some kind of parallel universe with different wigs. I think I'm going to go back to vanilla, even if the female characters are less attractive. Thank you very much :)

 

I use Eradicate This Face ( https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/17535 ) - it replaces female bandit faces. Also, Default Face NPCs Fixed ( https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54515 ) changes many generic NPCs and a few named NPCs.

 

There are quite a few full makeovers for named NPCs, like the Bijin series, Pandorables, Charmers of the Reach (this one is its own race - can cause compatibility problems w/other mods), and several others. Just search out Bijin, look at the mod category, and click on the category to see more choices.

Pandorables gives me an error and doesn't load the game. I'm going to try Bijin, it looks promising. At least it seems like there are female characters of different ages. Thank you very much.

[scorrp10]

No one single mod is gingg to give you the variety you are looking for. What you need is a mix.

 

I like Botox for Skyrim as my base, cause frankly vanilla faces are ugly. Not a fan of Pandorable's either.

I do mix in a lot of faces from Bijin collection: Warmaidens, Wives, NPCs .

Then I mix others in: Women of Skyrim by LamaKreis, MBWS Housecarl replacer, Hearthfire Songbirds,

About all of the GLAM replacers: Karliah, Haelga, Astrid, Rayya etc.

A number of LamaKreis replacers: Serana, Delphine, Taarie, etc.

 

Finally, I got my own mod, any NPC I want 'special treatment' for and could not find a replacer I liked, I find a suitable preset and cook something up.

 

 

 

Care needs to be taken with load orders and priorities. Quite easy to get a black face, body seams and even crashes. Gets easier after a while...

[blitzen]

You should try "The Ordinary Women". There is also another mod available for LE that I converted for SE years ago. It changes many female NPC's. I was using it in combination with The Ordinary Women. I don't remember the mod name, but the .esp plugin was named NPS_female. Those two mods were easily the best for changing a large number of NPCs and having some variety. I can try to find that second one, but it would probably need to be processed with the cathedral tool to use safely in SSE.

 

Update: The LE mod is called "Women's Faces". It's much better than the screenshots would lead you to believe, depending on what textures you have installed.

Edited May 23, 2023 by blitzen

[anjenthedog]

scrorrp's post is why we need an upvote button, dern it..