I am making my second character tonight. He is a Male Dark Elf Mage. I made him as a contrast to my thief/assassin character which requires extended periods of intense concentration...sneaking around and avoiding getting caught killing people and stealing sutff it is heavy work. I want the mage to be very magey with his factions and skills with some obvious weapon skill as well. Id like suggestions as to what you think would go well

I suggest pursuing alchemy. I've been doing it with my pure mage and it's made things much easier - even with +300% magicka regeneration I need to guzzle a fair number of potions in the larger battles. Then again if you're competent with weapons you can start with an opening barrage and then switch to melee while your magicka regenerates, which would make alchemy less necessary.

Most of the good mage-related armor I've encountered is Heavy, although if you progress through Enchanging this doesn't really matter, and it may just be happenstance that I tend to get more heavy armor drops than light armor drops. I could definitely see myself playing a battlemage with heavy armor and destruction, although since I've currently playing a pure mage and next planning a heavy defense fighter it would be silly to blend the two right afterwards.

The College is fun. I'd just suggest that you don't go into the main quest-line full steam ahead, it's a bit short. However this is balanced by a number of good side-quests. I haven't found a good section faction to follow as a pure mage - but I suppose with your greater focus on weapons you could pursue the Companions with ease. There are some good alchemy related side-quests, although since this isn't the spoiler section I won't go into detail.