Backup! Backup! Backup! Always remember to backup!

So part of my thing is making covers, and I spend a lot of time setting these up and "photographing" them. Then editing the images to "yellow" them and give them a bit of a painted look.
To do this, I make a non-functional mod that has all the characters. Well around a month ago, Skyrim was starting to run slow. So I decided to essentially remove everything and reinstall it, as I couldn't be bothered to go through the script folders and meshes and textures etc, and do it that way.
Come to a few days ago, when I realised that I had deleted the 'mod' I used to make the covers. Of course by this time it was long gone, and I checked all the storage devices I backup my stories on. Turns out that I hadn't backed it up.
Re-making the characters from scratch wasn't something I was looking forward too. While the first book "Old Wounds" didn't show any faces, the second cover showed Valerie, and the cover for the third book had already been made (And I didn't want to have to remake it)
Anyway, in making new faces, I'm quite satisfied at how close I was able to get. I also "enhanced" the faces using a HD texture from the nexus and a modified custom normal-map, to give them that extra nudge away from that "vanilla" look.
Anyway, here are some pics of a select few characters.

 

Valerie uses elements from the "femaleold" normal map texture and dropped parts in as a new layer, making them almost transparent before merging them into the layer, giving a slight wrinkled look. Val also has elements from the Redguard (Nose and cheeks I think) and Breton (eyes and forehead)

Rontag uses elements from all over the place, including wrinkles from both maleold and femaleold. he has an Altmer nose.

Magoza was the hardest to do. I had to make her young, while having her look both Orcy and Altmery at the same time. her skin colour is custom, and is closer to yellow, than normal Orc skin-tones. Her normal map I found on the nexus (can't remember where now, I think it was from one of those mods that make the women look freakishly young. Took the Normal map and deleted the file :P[sorry to the original maker of the NM]) I then modified that texture adding in an Orc brow and more Altmer-like features around the eyes.

Tam uses dark elf elements for wrinkles as well as the female old map and some Breton.

Meratur uses Altmer, Breton and Redguard normal maps all skillfully crafted together.

Normal maps for anyone reading who doesn't know, is essentially a texture that tells the engine to give fake shadows/lighting/bumps to an object. It enables an object to have more detail and make it look more 3d. The illusion is often shattered though. For example: looking across a stone wall from along it's edge. It's clear that the stones are not "bumpy" but are flat.

What I aimed to do here was to make them look "real" and not like supermodels. (and yes Rontag is supposed to be tanned. He spent five years in Hammerfell. At somepoint I will make a small correction to Old Wounds mentioning his darker skin due to being in the desert for so long.)

I've backed all of this up :)
JG