I didn't want to grind smithing, I think it's boring. If I was near a smith and had leather or ingots, I would smith something and sell it, but to level smithing, I opted to use a lot of my training levels on it, rather than other skills I was using regularly. So... that felt sort of natural to me - studying and learning and randomly doing some smithing. I did tend to concentrate on making jewelry rather than armor. And I leveled smithing strictly to get the arcane Perk only, beyond that I ignored it. I have haphazardly leveled enchanting strictly from using soul gems I think, and doing the occasional enchant attempt, more to check out the efficacy of my Fortify Enchanting potion. I smithed jewelry and enchanted it and sold it for money I need to buy my house and stuff... so that felt kind of normal to me.

I have too much fun exploring in this game to want to grind crafting stuff. I do use alchemy a lot though - I like mixing the ingredients to try and open up all four effects, and i use poisons on my bow, since I am doing an archer character and having a lot of fun with it.

The game is designed so that if you just play it, most skills will increase as you need them for the game. The issue is, some people focus on developing their character. Which is part of the game, but is not the point of the game. The story, exploring and just being in the world is why we play. Since the game is designed such that playing it brings your skills along, grinding it is easy if that is your focus. And that is where all the problems come in for those who focus on character leveling.

So

Level 42 Alchemy 38, Enchant 71, Smith 100

Here is what I did. I did not Smith until I was in the Teens. The game was giving me what I needed to face the enemies that I was facing as I played. Once I started smithing, I only made and improved a set of armor for me, and one for my follower. That usually gave me about 7 to 10 levels of smithing, enough for a Perk. Maybe a couple dagger sessions were done if I was close to getting a perk I wanted. Then, I would ignore smithing until I started finding better materials as loot or to purchase, not as ore I mined. That told me I should learn how to smith that material. So, I would practice smithing as I gathered enough ingredients to make a couple sets so that a few character levels later, I could make the next level of armor. By doing this, by the time I was in my late 30's Smithing was in the 60's. I was making armor and weapons that matched what the game was throwing at me. It was not the best, but I did not need the best.

Why is my smithing at 100? Well, about level 38 I wanted to see what Dragon Armor was all about, so I grinded it up. I now know that Dragon is good, but not that good so my next character will not do this. I expect their smithing to max out at around 50 to 60 by just playing the game.

My enchanting is at 71 because I only use enchanted weapons, and I go through soul gems. However, I made my glass armor quite a while ago and it only has level 40 Enchantments on it, so I am not taking advantage of my Enchanting by constantly upgrade my armor. Once I get up to 100 by recharging, I am going to make an uber set, but by then I will be at uber levels.

Alchemy is where it is at because I am using looted ingredients to make potions. I don't really use Alchemy, I am just playing around with it learning what ingredients do, but I make a lot of potions. I am not cleaning out merchants of inventory and spamming potions, I just use my looted ingredients.

Smithing for me took long enough as it was... I would not want to repeat it through RPing, except if I was really bored. It's enough of a hassle to grind it already.