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I promised (to myself) to make a post detailing all things about Charmers of the Reach, some amateur tips and tricks and I'll throw some of my assets while at it.
Asset Repository for Charmers of the Reach SE, Mediafire (extract it using 7zip)
What to expect: mostly face diffuse adapted from Dragon Age: Inquisition, plus some extras. The face diffuse are made to match Bits and Pieces on the neck, don't ask me to make a patch for other skin mods as it will bloat the file size unnecessarily. Edit the textures yourself! And these are modder's resource anyway; you'll probably want to edit them further after you download them.
Permissions: You are allowed to use the face textures in your NPC overhaul, whether as is or with some modification, with proper credit to me and Bioware. Leave a link to this post, if possible. Don't use it on any monetized mod. There is a read me inside the folder that goes into more detail.
Do not redistribute on any mod sharing website without my consent. You can back it up for personal use, share it with your friends etc (but mind the credits), but don't re-share the contents of the repository on Nexus, Loverslab, etc etc. The exception being if I haven't been active for at least a year on Nexus: shoot me a message, and if I don't respond in a month or so, assume I'm AWOL from the modding community.
That's it! You can leave now. Unless you want to listen to my further rambling, for some reason. Buckle up because this is going to be a long ride.
Preamble: What the Fuck is Charmers of the Reach?
It's this mod.
Why the Fuck Would I Use Charmers of the Reach?
Because it allows me far greater detail than the vanilla head mesh, I'm no longer chained to the one race = one normal map limitation that exists on the vanilla head mesh, it's very easy to convert female textures to male textures and vice versa, and I've played this game for 10+ years and need some variety, dammit.
It's not really a matter of "ooooh this is wayyy prettier than vanilla heads!", no, it's just a matter of more details and more versatility to me. I can, will, and HAVE made some God-awful ugly faces with CotR, believe you me.
Do I ONLY Need Charmers of the Reach to Make Good-Looking Faces?
I mean, if that's your jam, yeah. I personally use a number of other mods to complement it, listed below.
Complexions for CotR is pretty popular mod, though I don't use it myself. Just keep in mind they replace the default textures.
I have my old Facepart Addons, though some people may prefer BnP - CotR instead (I don't think they're compatible, dunno, haven't checked).
I don't know of any overlays/tattoo mods that are made specific for CotR heads--the only ones I know are my own stuff: Vallaslin and Less Blurry Warpaints. It's not that hard to adjust any of the available overlay mods to fit CotR head mapping, FYI. It's just fucking tedious.
How the Fuck Do I Make Faces with Charmers of the Reach?
(Yes, I'm going to continue the fuck theme. It's so stupid.)
Most of the criticisms/complaints I've seen are "it looks too uncanny valley/too anime-ish/too 'pretty' when I just want to make ordinary characters--and yeah I get it, that was my complaint too. But honestly, the default vanilla head preset also looks bad, So... what gives?
Another thing I can add here is you don't have to use Khisartin's Eye Mod--any eye mods will do, I just personally love Khisartin's works.
I usually do most of my Racemenu stuff inside a bland, photoshoot room like this one. I only use the built-in Racemenu lighting.
Oh, and I don't even need to start a new game too. Right from the main menu, open console, type 'coc (insert whatever editor ID of my preferred photoshoot room)', enter. I exit out of the game once I'm done.
I'm done prepping up and ready to go. I open Racemenu, switch the race to one of the CotR races, and be met with the uncanny, soulless stare of the zeroed-slider character right in front of my face. I sigh.
Honestly? I don't have any real, concrete tips on how to make something good. Because I don't know if my stuff is even good in the first place. I am my worst critic and things that I find awesome now will look awful to me five weeks later. The only real thing of substance I can offer is--possibly--how to make the faces less uncanny-looking. Makes it less like the default CotR face straight out of the factory.
TIP: Use Racemenu's search slider function. It'll shave off a good chunk of your character-making time, makes everything less tedious. There are some sliders that can't be searched with this function for some goddamn reason, but most of them should be.
To choose between different normal maps, look for the Complexions slider.
To choose between different diffuse maps, look for the Face Parts slider.
Pick normals first, then diffuse later. Racemenu has a bug where if you do the other way around, your diffuse will revert back to default (until you choose another diffuse then back).
If you're fancy and know how to bake your own normal map, go do that. I, sadly, am not fancy. My normal maps are mostly done through image editing. You see why I call myself amateur? Anyway.
This is also a good moment to pick the brow types you want (and lashes, if it's a female toon. You can pick different lashes from the Facial Hair slider). You'd want to pick the brow type first before doing funky slider stuff to them. Lashes, personal preference, I'm just not a fan of the default mascara look. EyeLashesTrish looks the most normal to me.
But anyway--going back to the 'I know jack shit about baking normal map' thing--you don't need to know a lick about 3D modeling to get a sense of what you're going for. Watch for shading. If the normal map has very strong shading around the nose bridges, you'd want to make your character with a strong, angular nose. If you want to make a character with shallow, button nose, you'd want a normal map with softer shading around the nose bridges. See where I'm going with this?
Diffuse map is a lot versatile to me, mostly because the diffuse I'm using (see: the assets I linked above) are very flat lighting-wise, and they don't have that much painted-on shading. Other CotR retextures like BnP or Complexions for CotR will have very strong painted-on shading. Just keep that in mind.
It's a good thing to try all the sliders and see what they do. No, you don't have to actually end up modifying every single one of them, just try them. You'll find that there are a lot of nifty sliders you haven't used before, like Face Lower Depth or MouthLine Outer.
And yes, that's including the Expressions tab! Use them. Make your character have a little smirk. Hab fun. Some of them are actually useful (BMP will 'tighten' your character's lips, Squint Left/Right can be used to normalize the thousand-yard-stare-eyes, and some brow-specific expression sliders can be used to adjust the brows further.
Self-explanatory. Modern beauty standard is a joke. Every Instagram model you've aspired to be (or wanted to be with) are going to grow old and die eventually. If you're making an NPC replacer, no, that random farmhand who lives a humble life does not need to look like a supermodel with a piercing gaze and luscious locks and perfect makeup.
Make a character with deformities. Scars tell stories. Maybe they have a lazy eye (make them have uneven squint with the Squint Left/Right sliders), maybe they have a slight underbite. Maybe maybe maybe.
And, hey, make your gorgeous characters while at it! Make gorgeous characters with a character. That drop-dead supermodel has a slight bumpy nose, or a mole on her left cheek. Or something.
What I meant by the entire point of this is that--no way in hell I'm saying people should make ugly faces (the title is a joke). It's just that... at this day and age, it seems almost every Nexus user perceives a slight flaw in a character's face as an 'ugliness'. Oh, that woman has deep wrinkles? Ugly! That woman has cleft chin? Ugly! That woman has a jaw that could cut through glass? Oof, too mannish! Ugly!
If your beauty standard is smooth-faced sex dolls or anime characters or supermodels on a catwalk or whatever patriarchy tells you is the 'acceptable' beauty standard, with a clear cut dichotomy between masculine and feminine beauty standards, you're not going to get much out of this stupid tutorial thingy. Every single character you make is going to look same-faced, no matter how many different hair mods you slap on them, how many layers of freckles and makeup you lather on them, how many accessories and fancy armor and clothing you put them on.
And yes, maybe you based them off of 'real people', but if said 'real people' are still photos of a flawless-looking supermodels... it's still not gonna do much. Take a picture of yourself, or your classmates (with permission, of course). Observe the wrinkles on your grandmother's face. See how human faces contort and move when they frown and smile and idle. Hell, you'll probably even see that some women have masculine faces and some men have feminine faces and that's hella okay. That's normal.
Sorry for the rant. I just need to put that out somewhere. I wrote all of that in case yet another person calls me 'gay' for making female characters have wrinkles (such a weird accusation to make in the first place), and I'm tired of repeating the same point over and over again. They're usually the same people who call video game companies 'woke' for making their female main protagonists not wear makeup. If you, person reading this, are one of these people and are going to call me 'woke' or 'gay' as well, feel free to exit out of this page and block me on Nexus or something (don't hound my PM pleaseee get a life), I won't judge.
AND to offset that negative aura for a bit, I just want to say--if your vibe is pretty, flawless characters with nary a wrinkle on their face and boobs the size of watermelons, by all means go for it. You do your thing, I do my thing, you make your Skyrim the way you want (even a sex game prostitute simulator, if that's your jam), and I make my Skyrim the way I want. Just please do not be an ass about it and say that that's what every female character should look like. No, seriously. Don't hound my PM about it. Alright.
on my vitriolic rant above, but it bears repeating. It can give you some insight on what kind of hairstyle would this character has, how little or how much makeup they're wearing, etc.
Is she a farmhand? Is he a traveling noble? Does she lead an easy life in the city, or does she struggle working in the mines? Does he have a hair care routine? Does he NOT have any care routine at all, let alone hair care?
Yeah yeah sure, warriors = scars, that's easy mode. But farmers and innkeepers are often so plain we barely give any thought to them at all. Here's my usual thought process, by the way:
Beitild's a mine boss. Argues with her ex-husband a lot, face probably looks perpetually angry. She has a black eye and you can't tell if it's an accident from working in the mines, or if her ex-husband had hit her.
Eydis' an innkeeper. Leads a fairly easy life, Old Hroldan Inn is not very busy so she has a bit more time to pamper herself. She probably doesn't have enough money to cake herself in immaculate makeup, but she likes to take care of her hair--it's long and wavy and fairly beautiful. Meanwhile, Faida--the innkeeper of Four-Shields Tavern, prefers to keep her hair in a lazy bun. She thinks having her hair down is a bit of a nuisance--Dragon Bridge is a fairly windy town.
Olfina Gray-Mane is from a prosperous, ancient family. She has plenty of time to style her hair in braids, she dolls her face in a way that's both elegant and noticeable yet also humble--the Gray-Manes don't like to show off. She can blend in within the crowds of the Bannered Mare as a tavern wench, yet also stands out in Dragonsreach as a steward.
.... And sometimes I can't think of any story and that's fine. If I can't think of any headcanons, what I usually do is think of the character's profession, what their daily schedule is and how that might affect their appearance. Something like, yeah warriors have scars but don't you think some miners would probably have a few scars from work-related injury? Maybe a noble lady would have intricate braids or curls on their hair because they have more time in the morning, and more servants to help them dress. Things like that.
Perhaps a malnourished beggar would have a gaunt face? Perhaps a dedicated archer would have a tight bun so their hair strands won't get in front of their eyes and obscure their vision? Maybe a proud Nord or Reachfolk would adorn their face with warpaints. Maybe there are some other tidbits you want to include, even if they're completely made up, like priests of Talos wearing a specific tattoo pattern on their face, or something.
Look up Salt and Wind retextures, but if you have the time to spare, I encourage you to try to retexture the hairs yourself.
Another thing related to textures is overlay opacity. Freckles are nice, but if they're too thick they end up looking like a child drawing black dots all over your character's face. Unless that's what you're aiming for, pull down the opacity a notch.
Still on the topic of overlays, moles make a huge difference to give your character a little boost of character. It doesn't even have to represent actual moles---you could also reinterpret them as acne marks, some sort of blemishes, aging spots, or just random weird spots here and there that a real life person tends to have on their face. You can put multiple mole overlays with different opacity values.
Want to get even more advanced? When making an NPC replacer, you can set aside the time to make them custom assets. It doesn't even have to be fancy--it could just be a modified version of a vanilla tattoo with one half erased out, or custom uneven brow textures, or you can layer multiple tattoo overlays for great effect.
This is getting too fucking long (yep, still going with the fucking. It's fun). I need to get some sleep now. As a closing thought, here's my Flickr where I sometimes post screenshots of character faces (though they're mostly self-indulgent OC ones). And circling back to the asset link I included above, here's Ordinary People where those assets are mostly used in if you want to see them in action.
And some actual screenshots because pictures speak louder than a thousand words.
Asset Repository for Charmers of the Reach SE, Mediafire (extract it using 7zip)
What to expect: mostly face diffuse adapted from Dragon Age: Inquisition, plus some extras. The face diffuse are made to match Bits and Pieces on the neck, don't ask me to make a patch for other skin mods as it will bloat the file size unnecessarily. Edit the textures yourself! And these are modder's resource anyway; you'll probably want to edit them further after you download them.
Permissions: You are allowed to use the face textures in your NPC overhaul, whether as is or with some modification, with proper credit to me and Bioware. Leave a link to this post, if possible. Don't use it on any monetized mod. There is a read me inside the folder that goes into more detail.
Do not redistribute on any mod sharing website without my consent. You can back it up for personal use, share it with your friends etc (but mind the credits), but don't re-share the contents of the repository on Nexus, Loverslab, etc etc. The exception being if I haven't been active for at least a year on Nexus: shoot me a message, and if I don't respond in a month or so, assume I'm AWOL from the modding community.
That's it! You can leave now. Unless you want to listen to my further rambling, for some reason. Buckle up because this is going to be a long ride.
Preamble: What the Fuck is Charmers of the Reach?
It's this mod.
Why the Fuck Would I Use Charmers of the Reach?
Because it allows me far greater detail than the vanilla head mesh, I'm no longer chained to the one race = one normal map limitation that exists on the vanilla head mesh, it's very easy to convert female textures to male textures and vice versa, and I've played this game for 10+ years and need some variety, dammit.
It's not really a matter of "ooooh this is wayyy prettier than vanilla heads!", no, it's just a matter of more details and more versatility to me. I can, will, and HAVE made some God-awful ugly faces with CotR, believe you me.
Do I ONLY Need Charmers of the Reach to Make Good-Looking Faces?
I mean, if that's your jam, yeah. I personally use a number of other mods to complement it, listed below.
- CotR Overhaul by DamiLovesSunflowers, provides a plethora of much-needed fixes and tweaks, MOAR sliders, heck I'd recommend it solely for the ear and Orc tusk sliders.
- High Poly CotR, also by DamiLovesSunflowers. If you're not bothered by normal CotR heads, and/or playing on a baked potato and you think you can't handle more polygons, feel free to skip this one.
- Human Hairstyles for CotR Elves. by moi. Simply unlocks human hairstyles for CotR elves in a workaround way using Formlist Manipulator, because you'll find that CotR head mesh doesn't differ much between elves and not elves.
- Koralina Face Details and Makeup for CotR by CoralineKoralina. There aren't really enough overlays/facetints/whathaveyou that fits CotR's head mapping.... trying to find more.
- Skin Feature Overlays by DomainWolf. I know it's not really made for CotR, but some of the freckles and birthmark options still look good with some opacity adjustments.
- And on the same vein, Lamenthia's Marks of Beauty by Lamenthia.
- Otherwise, search Nexus for 'CotR' and some nifty things should pop up. BnP Teeth overhaul, expression replacers, etc.
Complexions for CotR is pretty popular mod, though I don't use it myself. Just keep in mind they replace the default textures.
I have my old Facepart Addons, though some people may prefer BnP - CotR instead (I don't think they're compatible, dunno, haven't checked).
I don't know of any overlays/tattoo mods that are made specific for CotR heads--the only ones I know are my own stuff: Vallaslin and Less Blurry Warpaints. It's not that hard to adjust any of the available overlay mods to fit CotR head mapping, FYI. It's just fucking tedious.
How the Fuck Do I Make Faces with Charmers of the Reach?
(Yes, I'm going to continue the fuck theme. It's so stupid.)
Most of the criticisms/complaints I've seen are "it looks too uncanny valley/too anime-ish/too 'pretty' when I just want to make ordinary characters--and yeah I get it, that was my complaint too. But honestly, the default vanilla head preset also looks bad, So... what gives?
- PREP WORK NO. 1: Make the eye textures/reflections/normal map/cubemap less Bad.
Another thing I can add here is you don't have to use Khisartin's Eye Mod--any eye mods will do, I just personally love Khisartin's works.
- PREP WORK NO. 2: Install your texture replacers, prerequisite mods above, etc etc.
- PREP WORK NO. 3: Put on a nice playlist, get your comfy clothes on, download and install a nice photoshoot room to make all your character presets in.
I usually do most of my Racemenu stuff inside a bland, photoshoot room like this one. I only use the built-in Racemenu lighting.
Oh, and I don't even need to start a new game too. Right from the main menu, open console, type 'coc (insert whatever editor ID of my preferred photoshoot room)', enter. I exit out of the game once I'm done.
I'm done prepping up and ready to go. I open Racemenu, switch the race to one of the CotR races, and be met with the uncanny, soulless stare of the zeroed-slider character right in front of my face. I sigh.
Honestly? I don't have any real, concrete tips on how to make something good. Because I don't know if my stuff is even good in the first place. I am my worst critic and things that I find awesome now will look awful to me five weeks later. The only real thing of substance I can offer is--possibly--how to make the faces less uncanny-looking. Makes it less like the default CotR face straight out of the factory.
- ACTUAL WORK NO. 1: Normalize the face
TIP: Use Racemenu's search slider function. It'll shave off a good chunk of your character-making time, makes everything less tedious. There are some sliders that can't be searched with this function for some goddamn reason, but most of them should be.
- To reduce the ginormous eye size, you can reduce Eyes Size (Eyes), increase Squint Left and Squint Right (Expressions), or some combination of both. You can also play with Eyelids Lower and/or Eyelids Upper.
- To reduce the awkward perma-smile, you can increase Mouth Frown (Mouth).
- You might want to reduce the Face Length a bit (note: I think the slider is misspelled as 'Face Lenght' in-game), but it really depends on what kind of face you're making.
- Sometimes I want to make a character with a wider nose, but the default preset has such small, dainty nose. I'd increase the Nose Bridge Wide or Nose Center Wide, or any combination thereof. If the brows ended up being pushed too far apart, I'd compensate it by reducing Nose Sellion Wide.
- For female toons on heavier build, consider enlarging the Neck Width--it makes the neck more true to healthy human proportions and not like an anime character with dainty, snappable neck.
- ACTUAL WORK NO. 2: Pick the diffuse and normal textures you're gonna be working with!
To choose between different normal maps, look for the Complexions slider.
To choose between different diffuse maps, look for the Face Parts slider.
Pick normals first, then diffuse later. Racemenu has a bug where if you do the other way around, your diffuse will revert back to default (until you choose another diffuse then back).
If you're fancy and know how to bake your own normal map, go do that. I, sadly, am not fancy. My normal maps are mostly done through image editing. You see why I call myself amateur? Anyway.
This is also a good moment to pick the brow types you want (and lashes, if it's a female toon. You can pick different lashes from the Facial Hair slider). You'd want to pick the brow type first before doing funky slider stuff to them. Lashes, personal preference, I'm just not a fan of the default mascara look. EyeLashesTrish looks the most normal to me.
But anyway--going back to the 'I know jack shit about baking normal map' thing--you don't need to know a lick about 3D modeling to get a sense of what you're going for. Watch for shading. If the normal map has very strong shading around the nose bridges, you'd want to make your character with a strong, angular nose. If you want to make a character with shallow, button nose, you'd want a normal map with softer shading around the nose bridges. See where I'm going with this?
Diffuse map is a lot versatile to me, mostly because the diffuse I'm using (see: the assets I linked above) are very flat lighting-wise, and they don't have that much painted-on shading. Other CotR retextures like BnP or Complexions for CotR will have very strong painted-on shading. Just keep that in mind.
- ACTUAL WORK NO. 3: Do the work!
- ACTUAL WORK NO. 4: You don't need to use all the sliders... but yes, you DO need to use all the sliders.
It's a good thing to try all the sliders and see what they do. No, you don't have to actually end up modifying every single one of them, just try them. You'll find that there are a lot of nifty sliders you haven't used before, like Face Lower Depth or MouthLine Outer.
And yes, that's including the Expressions tab! Use them. Make your character have a little smirk. Hab fun. Some of them are actually useful (BMP will 'tighten' your character's lips, Squint Left/Right can be used to normalize the thousand-yard-stare-eyes, and some brow-specific expression sliders can be used to adjust the brows further.
- ACTUAL WORK NO. 5: Don't be afraid to make God-awful ugly faces, for God's sake.
Self-explanatory. Modern beauty standard is a joke. Every Instagram model you've aspired to be (or wanted to be with) are going to grow old and die eventually. If you're making an NPC replacer, no, that random farmhand who lives a humble life does not need to look like a supermodel with a piercing gaze and luscious locks and perfect makeup.
Make a character with deformities. Scars tell stories. Maybe they have a lazy eye (make them have uneven squint with the Squint Left/Right sliders), maybe they have a slight underbite. Maybe maybe maybe.
And, hey, make your gorgeous characters while at it! Make gorgeous characters with a character. That drop-dead supermodel has a slight bumpy nose, or a mole on her left cheek. Or something.
What I meant by the entire point of this is that--no way in hell I'm saying people should make ugly faces (the title is a joke). It's just that... at this day and age, it seems almost every Nexus user perceives a slight flaw in a character's face as an 'ugliness'. Oh, that woman has deep wrinkles? Ugly! That woman has cleft chin? Ugly! That woman has a jaw that could cut through glass? Oof, too mannish! Ugly!
If your beauty standard is smooth-faced sex dolls or anime characters or supermodels on a catwalk or whatever patriarchy tells you is the 'acceptable' beauty standard, with a clear cut dichotomy between masculine and feminine beauty standards, you're not going to get much out of this stupid tutorial thingy. Every single character you make is going to look same-faced, no matter how many different hair mods you slap on them, how many layers of freckles and makeup you lather on them, how many accessories and fancy armor and clothing you put them on.
And yes, maybe you based them off of 'real people', but if said 'real people' are still photos of a flawless-looking supermodels... it's still not gonna do much. Take a picture of yourself, or your classmates (with permission, of course). Observe the wrinkles on your grandmother's face. See how human faces contort and move when they frown and smile and idle. Hell, you'll probably even see that some women have masculine faces and some men have feminine faces and that's hella okay. That's normal.
Sorry for the rant. I just need to put that out somewhere. I wrote all of that in case yet another person calls me 'gay' for making female characters have wrinkles (such a weird accusation to make in the first place), and I'm tired of repeating the same point over and over again. They're usually the same people who call video game companies 'woke' for making their female main protagonists not wear makeup. If you, person reading this, are one of these people and are going to call me 'woke' or 'gay' as well, feel free to exit out of this page and block me on Nexus or something (don't hound my PM pleaseee get a life), I won't judge.
AND to offset that negative aura for a bit, I just want to say--if your vibe is pretty, flawless characters with nary a wrinkle on their face and boobs the size of watermelons, by all means go for it. You do your thing, I do my thing, you make your Skyrim the way you want (even a sex game prostitute simulator, if that's your jam), and I make my Skyrim the way I want. Just please do not be an ass about it and say that that's what every female character should look like. No, seriously. Don't hound my PM about it. Alright.
- ACTUAL WORK NO. 6: Use shortcuts!
- To tweak the cheeks, go to the Face tab, type 'cheek' on the search bar, then use the resulting sliders.
- To tweak the shape and 'strength' of the nose, I type 'ridge'. It'll produce both Nose Ridge sliders and Nose Bridge sliders.
- To tweak the width of the nose, I type 'wid' (yes, like that), because some width-related sliders are titled with 'Wide' and some with 'Width'.
- To tweak the nostrils (technically, the nose 'wings'), I type 'wing'.
- On the Head AND Face tabs, I type 'ear' to find any ear-related sliders--they're spread out in both tabs.
- FINAL THOUGHTS NO. 1: What kind of character are they?
Is she a farmhand? Is he a traveling noble? Does she lead an easy life in the city, or does she struggle working in the mines? Does he have a hair care routine? Does he NOT have any care routine at all, let alone hair care?
Yeah yeah sure, warriors = scars, that's easy mode. But farmers and innkeepers are often so plain we barely give any thought to them at all. Here's my usual thought process, by the way:
Beitild's a mine boss. Argues with her ex-husband a lot, face probably looks perpetually angry. She has a black eye and you can't tell if it's an accident from working in the mines, or if her ex-husband had hit her.
Eydis' an innkeeper. Leads a fairly easy life, Old Hroldan Inn is not very busy so she has a bit more time to pamper herself. She probably doesn't have enough money to cake herself in immaculate makeup, but she likes to take care of her hair--it's long and wavy and fairly beautiful. Meanwhile, Faida--the innkeeper of Four-Shields Tavern, prefers to keep her hair in a lazy bun. She thinks having her hair down is a bit of a nuisance--Dragon Bridge is a fairly windy town.
Olfina Gray-Mane is from a prosperous, ancient family. She has plenty of time to style her hair in braids, she dolls her face in a way that's both elegant and noticeable yet also humble--the Gray-Manes don't like to show off. She can blend in within the crowds of the Bannered Mare as a tavern wench, yet also stands out in Dragonsreach as a steward.
.... And sometimes I can't think of any story and that's fine. If I can't think of any headcanons, what I usually do is think of the character's profession, what their daily schedule is and how that might affect their appearance. Something like, yeah warriors have scars but don't you think some miners would probably have a few scars from work-related injury? Maybe a noble lady would have intricate braids or curls on their hair because they have more time in the morning, and more servants to help them dress. Things like that.
Perhaps a malnourished beggar would have a gaunt face? Perhaps a dedicated archer would have a tight bun so their hair strands won't get in front of their eyes and obscure their vision? Maybe a proud Nord or Reachfolk would adorn their face with warpaints. Maybe there are some other tidbits you want to include, even if they're completely made up, like priests of Talos wearing a specific tattoo pattern on their face, or something.
- FINAL THOUGHTS NO. 2: Advanced Mode -- Editing textures (when necessary)
Look up Salt and Wind retextures, but if you have the time to spare, I encourage you to try to retexture the hairs yourself.
Another thing related to textures is overlay opacity. Freckles are nice, but if they're too thick they end up looking like a child drawing black dots all over your character's face. Unless that's what you're aiming for, pull down the opacity a notch.
Still on the topic of overlays, moles make a huge difference to give your character a little boost of character. It doesn't even have to represent actual moles---you could also reinterpret them as acne marks, some sort of blemishes, aging spots, or just random weird spots here and there that a real life person tends to have on their face. You can put multiple mole overlays with different opacity values.
Want to get even more advanced? When making an NPC replacer, you can set aside the time to make them custom assets. It doesn't even have to be fancy--it could just be a modified version of a vanilla tattoo with one half erased out, or custom uneven brow textures, or you can layer multiple tattoo overlays for great effect.
This is getting too fucking long (yep, still going with the fucking. It's fun). I need to get some sleep now. As a closing thought, here's my Flickr where I sometimes post screenshots of character faces (though they're mostly self-indulgent OC ones). And circling back to the asset link I included above, here's Ordinary People where those assets are mostly used in if you want to see them in action.
And some actual screenshots because pictures speak louder than a thousand words.
