Been a While.

So it's been a while since I last made a posting on here. Well, recently my attention was diverted off of writing my FF, onto modding and I've been struggling to get back into it. Well I decided to flex my modelling skills in Blender, and build the ship that's been hinted at in the story. The deck and main hull is all new. The masts and ropes are all taken off of the Katariah model in Skyrim. the (currently) white windows are also a mesh from skyrim. The rigging ladder-or whatever its called-will have a transparency, to make it look like the rope ladder.

The ship is called "Explorers Joy" and it was what I came up with at the time. Not entirely happy with the name, but whatever. Ship names in the Elder Scrolls universe are going to be difficult.

I went for an Imperial look, or rather I modelled it on old British ships from the 1700's. (perhaps too modern, but the guy who designed it is supposed to be a celebrated ship builder, so eh)

This is how it looks currently, and in a way it's started me writing again.

My plan is to get a few chapters written, then start releasing again. I'm on the final stretch of part 3. and want to get it done by February.

So, I started this with mentioning modding. Well, I've been making an overhaul mod for children, which add in the elven children (sorry, no beast race at this point) The original children in the game, which are all potato headed clones was disappointing, and a lot of other child mods either make them look like small adults with big heads, or just plain creepy. None, I feel actually look like children, and I think the reason is the forehead. Kid's foreheads are larger than an adults forehead, and by using the original mesh, I retain the child-like features. There is also a weight slider for anything that shows the arms. You can actually see it on the Orc kid, which is at weight 1. I did this because the arms looked like sticks in the Iron armour. You can also probably tell by the Orc's stance, that it's female. Though I've made the genders almost indistinguishable, with the exception of slight changes the the morph. (I'm thinking of having both male and female orcs use the male walk like the adults, which contrary to what seems like common opinion, fits the orcs.)

Here's an image on that, which I think demonstrates my goal. (Bosmer, Redguard, Orsimer)

I've also been doing some work for someone on a Shivering Isles mod for Skyrim.

Mushroom mesh. Not as good as I'd have hoped (Not that close to the original from Oblivion) but this mesh is (mostly) original. The initial instruction was to take the epic mushroom from skyrim (Blackreach) and add the spines to it. In the end, I decided to almost completely remodel the mesh into this.

Also, as I have some experience in making races, I'm making the Aureal/Mazken. Right now, I only have a pic of the Mazken. In this pic though I use the Nord normal map, instead of the new one I made.

It's actually based on the Dark elf. I just altered the ears, brow, and made the face rounder. i also made the brow further forwards because I thought I'd messed up the race. I found however that the default elves (female) have an issue that in the CK, if you have the eyes up/forward and the brow down/back to maximum, a good number of the eyes clip through the brow. creepy.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Familiar Scene, Different Faces. AKA: Skyrim Children Overhaul.

Quite possibly the biggest mod project I've ever done.

It started out as an idea to simply add Elven Children, but after realising how far I could go with the morphs, I decided to expand to vanilla kids.

^^^ Initial progress.

The reason I decided to expand it was because I started adding facial morphs. This meant that I could have greater variety in the children's face than the stock face that every single child has.

Now, the pics that inspired the title of this post.

The familiar scene in Whiterun, where Braith is bullying Lars. Except instead of the same face, with different hair, both kids have different faces.

The hardest ones do do is by far the Orc. I'm pretty happy with the current look, but will probably add to the Orcyness, via modifying the normal map.

Link to forum thread on the Skyrim Nexus Linky link link linky.

That's all for now.

Me the Modder

Since getting Skyrim, I've started to learn bits and pieces about modding.
Anyway, looking back at the Mods I've done, I can quite happily see that I've progressed from knowing literally nothing about the CK to knowing quite a bit.

Anyway, here's a little picture showcase.

Firstly Dremora Assets.

I'm happy with the way this turned out. It isn't really a mod, just assets. The horns are vanilla, just moved around. The detail maps are higher resolution, and I've made 3 more based on the original. The eyes I made myself, based on the vanilla texture (the alpha channel is vanilla, the rest isn't)

Second is just a quick Race mod. Velothi Race - The True Chimer.

Basically the Altmer, with altered ears. That's pretty much it. Their racials are purely destruction magic boost. May change it so that one of them is ancestor guardian (Like the Dunmer in Oblivion)

Thirdly is Orc Eyes Alternate

My first purely Aesthetic mod. I really liked the way it came out. The reason I made this was that I use Natural Eyes, but their Orc eyes aren't lore friendly, so I made my own.

Fourth is Female Orc Horns

The males have horns, so why not the females? Honestly, this one's a little wonky. The .tri files that morph them to the brow are for the male, so I had to make some fixes.

Fifth is Deep Elf Race  - The True Dwemer

Really happy with the way this one turned out. need to do some updates for the Racial Compatibility, but that should be a doddle. Their base is the Dunmer, but with altered ears and new eye textures. Their racials involve turning all automatons in an area into allies (perhaps a bit overpowered, but it only works in Dwemer Ruins.)

And Finally Snow Elf Race - The True Falmer

On the left is their standard look. On the right is with Ethereal Elven Overhaul.

This is the one I'm spending the most time on at the moment. I really like the way they look. Their abilities are frost flesh and frost resistance. The player can also smith armour and robes.

Link to my nexus profile is on the top right >

right now, I'm pretty much living and breathing Elder Scrolls, but haven'tactually played it since I ran through the Falskaar DLC sized mod.

Anyhoo, time to get back to editing that chapter for An Elder Scrolls Saga.