this is certainly a matter of taste, I tend to find a 'look' that fits my character's story. I actually like the ebony and Orcish is not too bad.

I was absolutely disappointed in the dragon armor, I find dwarven the second most offensive.

Almost all the light armors are wearable imo. I'm still not a fan of glass armors.

I have one character, an Argonian 2H warhammer who wears only the 'fur skirt' armor cause it looks bad ass.

IMO the best thing about smithing + enchanting in this game is you can keep whatever gear you want and wear it forever. Its not like you absolutely gotta have the glass or dragon armor at level 40 to survive. You can instead upgrade to legendary and maybe add some enchants to help out.

well imo Heavy armor will always make you stick out like a sore thumb :/
I mean just by the way it looks now if you want the adventure feeling and lower level armor in terms of states than I would say go for Light Armor.

Hell I have a mage/archer/axe type character and at first I would use NOTHING but Light Armor but after staring at that damn Scale Armor that I got alittle bit into the game and nothing else and seeing how Heavy Armor offerd more states I switched over to that to use, thankfuly I did not put ANY points yet into my Light Armor skill tree so I can still start fresh, might go into smithing after I 100 both One Handed and Archery skill trees (already got Illusion to 100)

Anyone know how many skill trees you can 100 till you reach level 81???
Just wondering cuz I know I want to 100
One Handed
Illusion
Archery
Heavy Armor
Smithing

Oh and just my personal opinion but I tend to love embony weapons and armor, sadly I only have steal armor except for a embony helmit.

Ebony is nice, but the boob-plate kind of ruins it for me. Otherwise it would be good.

I agree about the dragon armor. I can't stand either the dragon plate or the dragon scale.

I just noticed that yesterday with my steel armor XD I was like O__O ummm this isnt conventional since I swore I heard it before that when weapon would go into battle or have armor it was just a touch more pushed out for the briast cavity, but it surely not boob shaped....Beth are pervs I see lol

Oh, you know, it's probably just a bunch of male developers trying to appeal to a male fanbase.

I actually thought orcish armor looked good on one of my argonian characters.

This is why i like guild master armor set more that nightingale or ancient shrouded armor

Steel plate is cool too

XD seems like it, I mean I enjoy it sometimes as well cuz I guess it makes my female characters look more...female? XD but sometimes I am like O__O err that really isn't needed

I believe you're correct, there really isn't too much of a difference between male and female armors in the real world. I swear I heard somewhere that if there were armor created to accentuate female anatomy, it wouldn't practical, and that it would actually be flawed and weak based on the shape. Maybe someone could confirm if that's true or not, it's just what I heard.

Thieves guild master armor is all I need. Standard and very effective.

There have been entire threads on that subject that reached post limit.

The short of it is, part of armor design is to use angles to deflect blows away. An indent in the middle of the briastplate would direct blows into the center of the chest, causing more damage and probably cracking the sternum.

Never saw the appeal of boobplate. It honestly looks really uncomfortable.

I think I heard it on tv before something about a medievil show or something not sure though
Yet agreed cuz it was dented and thinner plates around the brests specially in the middle
XD I KINDA like it, sometimes lmao since females in TES look like men almost anyways lol

well i think thats just what we call 'artistic license' right?

if there weren't any boobies in the briastplates people would be pissed that male & female characters looked the same.

For me, at least, it's about the level of definition. Compare iron armor to ebony or steel plate. They're there on iron armor, but not real well defined. For ebony and steel plate, they're incredibly well defined. For me, it's a fine balance.

Uhhh..... All of them!

My level 37 character (Nord single handed with shield & a little magic use) is now decked in ebony armour with enchanted steel/ leather boots and an ebony dragon priest mask.
A mean look for the slayer of Alduin.

But I have recently started a new (Nord) character who wears scaled amour and prefers to wield 2 handed. I like the more barbaric look for this character which has joined the Companions.

More variety with armour and clothes would be good. As I have mentioned on a different thread a hooded cloak to wear over armour would be cool. They could be cloth or heavy furred cloaks, suitable for different weather such as rain or snow.

I do recognise that there is already reasonable variety. But some garment types are missing.

Also as my first character indicates I am happy to mix light and heavy armour. Also using a hood when travelling in the rain ( in the absence of a cloak).

I like "boob plate" in the sense that it makes it clear thast my heavily armored character is female without her having to run around scantily clad. (part of the reason I hate Dwarven armor)

Otherwise you get this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s2SHpxPdlA&feature=related

And while that can be appealing sometimes, I don't want all my female characters running around half-nvde just to indicate that they are female.

Totally agree. I think banded armor is one of the best looking armors in the game, particularly the shield. My Nord Warrior wears wolf armor, but once his smithing gets a little higher, I may take him back to banded iron. I have no plans on wearing none of that fancy stuff. Gritty adventuring is where it's at!

What is missing from this picture? : light armour, heavy gloves, boots and helm, just because I like the look. Steel horned helmet, Nordic gauntlets (of major smithing, no less), shin boots, and studded, eventually to be replaced with scaled. I found an ebony shield, at a much lower level than I thought it was available at, but I prefer the look of the steel one, nice and round.

Chain mail, that's what.

i too prefer reliable looking armor over the statistically better but fancy and impractical looking higher leveled armors but i do like dwarven armor

Chain mail would be excellent for a Norse look.
A lot of light amour in Oblivion was chainmail and I liked the look.
Chain mail would also fit with the Empire look.

For my "rough and tumble adventurer" necromancer, I have "black robes", black "gloves", and black "fine boots". All enchanted. I also have a bit of mods thrown in such as fur packs and fur hoods.

Early on:
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596969082088070221/40351D890D28BC098640A2D0D9914DCB83992F67/

Later on:
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596969657715395522/6630F7BEC99D77029C7E2058110D8D7557D72925/

Agreed, chainmail would be sweet. Never even though about it till you mentioned it.

I liked Linwe's armor when I first saw it, more useful to my gamestye and it looks so much cooler .