PAGE IS PRETTY MUCH COMPLETED. Let me know if you have any recommendations or suggestions.

Let’s face it. You’re here for this.

So you want to create a qt waif and you need help. Well we’re here for that! This guide will have the important mods for you to make that good looking character. As always, Guardly has no affiliations with this guide. -Hedgehog

To make a good character, you’ll need a good tool other than default character creation screen (aka showracemenu). Let’s get that done.

The current king. RaceMenu is basically a redesign of the original showracemenu. Using the power of SKSE, SkyUI and NIOverride, it adds many features: saving your characters as presets, precise sliders, search bar, change your face parts (which is important for High Poly Head), BodySlide morph editing, vertex editing, exporting your face sculpt for further editing in 3D editing etc. A notable good feature of it is that it has an “overlay” system which lets you apply modded tattoos, warpaints to body. Make sure to get v0.4.16 for SE and the latest one for AE.

It is the most preferred mod due to way greater support, easier NPC editing and follower making. However, if you somehow want to go with the old way, it’s still there.

The old king. ECE does not change UI much, but it comes with very good features by default: new sliders (all precise), a better face mesh than vanilla (but still not better than HPH), saving your characters as presets and vertex editing.

It is superseded by RaceMenu with important reasons that will be mentioned, but it will stay here because there are people who uses it to good extents.

Click to the images for modpages!

This tools are important if you’re down to details.

Expressive Facegen Morphs	This mod will make RaceMenu’s default presets more smoothened and editable. Back then, there was a big need of direct 3D editing of faces which we call “sculpting”. This mod eliminates that issue (unless you want a very specific facial feature). It also adds many neat sliders that extends RaceMenu’s character customizability!
High Poly Head	As a wise mid-aged mercenary once said, “it’s the future old man”. You are not plagued with those low poly cheeks and triangle chin anymore! It has an Expressive Facegen Morphs patch too. It doesn’t work with ECE, however.
Another Race Menu Rotation Mod	What it actually says, it lets you rotate your character with right click in RaceMenu. Great for checking hair styles.
RaceMenu 0.4.16 Memory Leak Hotfix	Very important for v1.5.97 users. Fixes some crashes that happens due to SE RaceMenu.

Let the NPC bodies hit the floor - you monster. After years, we still have two main bodies that is used by almost everyone.

If you come from LE days you should be thinking, “why does this clunky af old body mod more popular than UUNP now?” Well as it turns out, Ousnius made the mesh and sliders way better than before and it was on SE before any UNP variants. And with the release of 3BA it became popular as heck. With good reasons.

Pros:

• Better support on armors: you’ll find a BodySlide conversion for almost everything.
• Better butt shape by default and easier to make small breast shapes.
• More presets to be found to your tastes in Nexus.
• Sliders are consistent and newer updates (both on 3BA and CBBE) don’t break old presets.

Cons:

• Making a good breast shape (actually a thicker shape that's looking natural) is kinda challenging if it is your first time.
• You won’t be able to use some good UNP textures from LE days (can be fixed with Robton’s Blender mod).

AKA new UUNP. Coming from the depths of lewd lairs, a based sicko named Bakafactory took the action and made a body mod from scratch, fully imitating UUNP. It came out greatly- but not without some limitations and changes.

Pros:

• Natural shapes are easier to be made. Especially breast shapes. Except flat breasts, it's easier to sculpt.
• You can get your old texture mixes right in the game.
• CONTROVERSIAL: Baka made a radical change to make the conversions lighter and deleted many full body sliders in v3.0. As a positive, making conversions is way easier now compared to UUNP.
• Some will take this as a con, but genitalia shape is detailed. Something to note about.

Cons:

• Less armor support. It is growing nicely though.
• The negative effect of less sliders is that if you’re coming before v3.0, or straight from UUNP, there’s a fair chance that your BodySlide preset won't come out as intended. Very bummer, I know.

If you’re planning to download /tesg/ followers along the way, remember that almost all the LE followers use UUNP which will go well with BHUNP. SE followers may vary, but they're mostly 3BA.

inb4 ube

I KNOW, I KNOW, BUT IT’S STILL AN OPTION.

Pros:

• Probably the highest customizability on a Skyrim body mod.
• Uses object normal mapping, which eliminates specific normal map use for different characters. It may be a con for some, for heavy lighting edit is required.

Cons:

• Uses an entirely different body and race system. Even the heads are different.
• Very limited armor support, and all armors need patching before use - otherwise they simply won't work.
• Typical DAZ uncanny valley faces (unless you exactly know what you are doing).
• >ube

Not a popular one, but it’s an option for those who want buffed waifus.

• TheMilkDrinker made some good conversions, but aside from that armor support is very limited.
• Can be considered too unrealistic by some.
• TBD waifus?

Having a custom body will not be enough by itself - if you don't have custom textures for them (and the face), they'll still look horrendous. Here are some good textures you can use and even mix n' match!

Bijin Skin	From the creator of Bijin Warmaidens. It has been used by literally everyone but it still is good as a base, or even as itself. If you’re totally clueless or unsure about which to choose, this will do.
BnP	To those who want more, and I mean more details. This texture pack has almost everything: different textures for different races (which can be distributed to races via RSV optionally), realistic touches, diverse normalmaps and so on. It is not everyone’s cup of a tea though. Still good if you need a normalmap mix.
Fair Skin Complexion	Anime skin returned in its full glory in Fishing Edition. Smooth af, pretty clean.
Diamond Skin	K-pop skin. Jokes aside, for people who want soft textures but not as FSC. Comes with its normal options which are pretty good, but faces still will be really smooth unless you use a different face normal.
Real Girls	You want realism? Well you WANT realism? THEN GO FOR IT! Be sure to get some normalmaps, speculars and subsurfaces though; these are only diffuses.
Reverie Skin	For those who want to create a character looking close to vanilla but still having more defined faces. If you're looking something like BnP but not liking some of the texture choices of it this may be for you.
Tempered Skins for Females	For the most incorrigible purists out there. This is what you'd call “vanilla plus” for a body texture. Better details, cleaner than vanilla but still maintaining that vanilla roughness.
Lovergirl	Bijin, but detailed - more defined bone structure and skin complexion.
Pride of Valhalla	A nice mix of Mature Skin and Real Girls, this will go nicely with battle-hardened women. Can be too rough to some though.

Because every waifu must be l’oreal. Here’s some hair mods - some lore-friendly, some modern.

KS Hairdos	You must be living in a cavern if you still don’t know it. There are many patches for it to your tastes, like Salt and Wind for a rougher look and SC textures for something in between.
KS Hairdos SMP	Same mod, but hairs have physics! Includes less hairstyles but it’s still worth it. There's also another SMP mod including other hairstyles, too.
Modular SMP Hairstyles	A very high quality hair mod staying loyal to vanilla style. Be sure to get Chooey’s hairline patch for it.
Valkyr Hair Pack (and all the other of Fuse00's hair mods)	A big array of rough looking SMP hair. And by rough I mean it.
HG Hairdos 2	Many ported hairs you'll find here. Most of them are very high quality, many of them are lore friendly - but noting that MANY are not. Still very good.
SG Hair Pack 350	An old but still nice hair pack, including many ported hairs. AND YES, YOU STILL AREN'T TELLING WE HAVE THIS. I'M LOOKING AT YOU REDDIT.
Apachii Sky Hair	One of the oldest hair mods out there. It really shows its age, but it also has some additional packs which include some lore-friendly hairstyles, both for men and women. Has Salt and Wind patches, too.
Vanilla Hair Remake	You're that kind of a purist? I get ya. This mod mainly improves vanilla hair meshes and has two versions: SMP and static.

Having a nice body shape, a nice textureset and a cute face can't make your waifu the mostest specialest cutie snowflake unique every time. Here's some mods to fill the blanks that wasn't mentioned above, improve your character's looks and sometimes give them a defined, different look. Noting that the perception of difference may vary. >looks to the thread

They work across all Skyrim versions provided you save their plugins again in your version of Creation Kit.

Freckle Mania 2	BI Phenotypes	Vanilla Makeup HD	Vanilla Warpaints Absolution	Wounds Overlays for RaceMenu
Skin Feature Overlays (shows its age tbh)	Yevmods Makeup Pack (YMMP)	Obi's Warpaints

Meows and hisses.