Is it intentional that elves look kind of ugly in Skyrim? In most fantasy lore they are supposed to be beautiful, or at least stereotypically beautiful (thin, smooth skin, fine hair etc). In Skyrim they seem kind of rough with ugly facial features, some of the human females look way better. The wood elves are particularly ugly. The males look like shriveled old ladies as well.

Not saying this is necessarily "wrong" or anything, just wondering if this is intentional or just bad model design.

It was intentional. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but I do believe they were going with "Dirty Fantasy" with the Mer designs.
They weren't exactly fair and beautiful in Morrowind, and Oblivion's interpretation is up to personal bias...I hated how Dark Elves went from raspy voiced and rugged to...round faced and no necks...I digress...

TES games have always taken standard fantasy tropes and just did their own thing with them.

Personally, I think they look great. I would say the female elves are still beautiful, but with more alien like features. Bethesda prefered to have elves that other games don't have, which is what makes the elves so unique.

And well, I admit the male elves are not pretty like their Lord Of The Rings cousins, but they do look well if you play with their appearance for some while. Beards do wonders.

Some are, some aren't. Some more than others.

I think all the races were well designed. Even in Oblivion, and in the case of Beast Races in Morrowind, were a little more realistic.

This. I sort of like the fact that Beth didn't go for the stereotypical pretty elves.

no, of course not, they are beautiful, I spent many hours looking at my Altmeri smooth face in Thalmor robes

you can create a beautiful mer but those implemented in the game are rather ugly, especially the altmer and bosmer.

Better than Oblivion.

And they're generally no uglier than the http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RubberForeheadAliens you see on TV and in movies. In fact, some are even *better* looking than the ones on TV!