Complete newbie here. I want to change the position of bows in 1st person, because it has always bugged me that the arrow seems to be protruding from the PC's chest. I want it to look something like http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZhazdpxK-H8/0.jpg. Trouble is, I don't even know where to get started. I assume there is an animation file common to all bows that I could edit.

I'm eager to learn, so please point me in the right direction . Thank you.

Take a look at the first person animations in meshes\actors\character\_1stperson

Can't help you any more than that, as I have very little knowledge and skill at editing animations =P

Well it's a start . I've already looked at those but before I delve into the esoteric world of .hkx files I want to make sure that's what I need to edit.

Yeah, they're defiantly the ones you need to look at as they only affect first person view.
Sorry I can shed more light on the animations... I'm a bit of a jack of all trades, master of one. (art is my mastery =P )

Well I've made some progress. Converted .hkx files into .hk files, opened the 1st person skeleton.nif in nifskope and attached an animation to it, and now I can see the skeleton drawing the bow. Thing is, I don't have 3dsmax and I don't think blender can open .hk files so I don't know where to go from here.

More progress. Got 3dsmax student version, imported first person skeleton and respective meshes, but can't attach a bow to it so it's difficult making accurate adjustments. Could someone please help me out a little here?

edit: with the bow_drawlight animation I can see a bone which represents the arrow, but nothing for the bow.