Change Your Appearance In Skyrim

One of the great things about Skyrim is the game’s character creation system. As far as RPGs go, Skyrim‘s system truly is robust. When I played the game for the first time, I spent hours fine tuning my character’s appearance. Right from the start, I  was given full control over my character’s physical traits via a slew of menu choices.  Looking back, it was lots of fun playing around with the character creation controls and adjusting everything from nose type, eye shape, skin tone and more.

In the end, I really liked how my character turned out. He had a chiseled build and a wicked looking scar across his face that made him look fierce.  After investing hundreds of hours into the game though, I have to admit that I was starting to get a little bored with my character’s appearance. What had been cosmetically fresh and exciting was now tiresome. If only there was some way to change things up…

Change Your Appearance In Skyrim

Plastic Surgery Disasters: Argonian Edition

There are two ways to change up how your character looks in Skyrim. One of these ways requires you to play on PC, and allows you to change your race name and every cosmetic attribute of your character’s face. It also involves using a cheat code. The second way requires you to have the Dawnguard DLC, or any Skyrim version that includes it. This only allows you to mess about with Skyrim‘s Sims-style sliders that to change the following features:

• Weight
• Eye color
• Skin color
• Hair color and hair style, or feathers/horns if you’re an Argonian.
• Tattoos and war paint
• Scars
• Facial hair
• Dirt

How To Change Your Appearance

If you decide to cheat and you’re on PC all you need to do is press “~” to open up the console commands and type showracemenu. This brings up the exact same menu you used to create your character in the first place, and allows you to do everything you could back in Helgen.

Galathil really doesn’t want to be dealing with you ina thief infested sewer.

If you want to change things up the other way and you have Dawnguard all you need to do is head down to the Ragged Flagon tavern in Riften’s sewers. You won’t miss it, and you will probably have heard every guard direct you there as part of idle chatter. They’re you’ll find the Riften Face-Sculptor, Galathil. Galathil is a Wood Elf on the run, and will perform some plastic surgery on you at the cost of 1,000 gold. The Face-Sculptor’s services don’t have any mechanical effect in the game, but it can be a nice change of pace if you want to see your character for the first time since you made them, or your character got a scar or whatever as part of your roleplay.

Final Thoughts

So how about it? Does it make more sense for you to change your character’s appearance with cheats or with the npc in Riften? Share you thoughts in the Speak Your Mind section below. Also, be sure to read about the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online character creation system. At first blush, the system seems very much like Skyrim‘s, but with some enhancements. Until next time!