I'm playing as a mage, and I've killed about a dozen dragons I guess and have all these bones and scales in a cupboard in my house. I don't really want to do smithing with this character... want to stick to all things magical. So can I get one of the NPC blacksmiths to make the dragon armour for a fee if I give them the items? I would like to outfit Lydia with dragon armour.

As far as I know, no.
I also would like to outfit my companion with dragon bone armour

im am very certain that you cant, however i cant prove my point... its just logical thinking, since there arent any Blacksmither in the game who makes items by request, atleast not to my knowlegde... anyway the BS talent is quite easy to lvl up, mine is already 100 and all the other are 70 and below... 45 hours game time.

Yeah, just not really sure that I want to spend the perks in Smithing on this char (want to stick to magic).

So I can't get the best armour for my companion at all unless I have lvl 100 smithing?

I don't think you need to. I have read on the forums where people said they have "found" dragon armor.

I haven't figured out how it works yet, but some Followers have Smithing, Enchanting and/or Alchemy as their skills and you can order them to use crafting stations. I haven't tried to get them to craft anything yet.

Adelaisa Vendicci, for example, has the skills Smithing, Enchanting, Alchemy and Speech. Not exactly useful for dungeon crawling.

Sounds cool Sokar, although I doubt they would be lvl 100, would still be nice if they could use the grindstone for some gear.

Cool that you can find dragon armour, I guess these dragon scales and bones are pretty useless to me as I don't intend on lvling my smithing to 100 then? Should I just sell them to a NPC or are they useful for anything else?

I have the same problem.

Would be great to give the bones and scales to some blacksmith, pay a fee and get dragon armour, like we could in Dragon Age.
I'll hold these items for a little while though, as I don't need the money.

It would be nice if dragon scales or bones were useful for mages, in enchantments or potion making, or something. Seems a bit lame that they're only geared towards melee fighters given that dragons are such a central part of the game. But yeah I don't see why I shouldn't be able to give the skyforge blacksmith all the bits he needs for dragon armour, and like 10k gold, and he could create a peice of dragon armour for me to give my companion.

Why would anyone level smithing if you can pay for armor?

Because smithing skill allows gear to be improved to "Legendary" quality, increasing armor value and damage even further.

I know this, but paying for dragon armor would be insane.

You just suggested that paying for armor is reasonable, then immediately said it isn't. Sheogorath, I presume?

That's not what he said at all. What he said is if you can buy armour then there is no incentive to level up Smithing. That's only true if you can craft and buy equivalent items. I think a bigger issue is that we are basically forced to level up Smithing, Enchanting and Alchemy or make do with items that can be hard, if not impossible, to find and aren't as good as what could be crafted. If, however, Followers can craft for us, then that would be a very different story.