Yes I am aware this sounds like a sims type of thread. But bare with me. What touches do you like to add to your followers?

I like having Eola around one of my characters. I tried giving her the ebony mail like I gave to Lydia with another character of mine but it really did not suit.

I found that the forsworn armour of the old gods suited my tastes for Eola down to the ground. Since she is from the reach and has a good body. You don't even notice her bad eye and infact it suits her look even more since the forsworn armour is savage and primitive looking.

The headdress was another must have for Eola. I didn't like the blonde hair on her at all. The brown braids looked much nicer for my taste.
Even when I switched Eola to the dark brotherhood light armour I still couldn't use the shoul or hood. Had to stick with the forsword headdress.

Picture examples:

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r93/Snazzyechoman/IMG_0073.jpg

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r93/Snazzyechoman/IMG_0043.jpg

http://pix.playground.ru/download/gallery/276634/0a42ca3f3b18cf72481cce2354d18f48.jpg...

Eola in Foresworn....that is THE only follower and THE only gear.

That is all....

EDIT : No Headdress.

Enchanted ebony for everyone! Except the helmet, that seriously svcks. Good job there are circlets. With fortify archery, because their bows svck too.

My followers pretty much always get my old armor after I've smithed/enchanted a new set. Minus the helmet though, I usually have them wear a circlet so that they're face stays visible.

I usually give my followers(the few times I use them) armor that compliment their abilities.

I made my follower wear the Emperor's robes. It looked nice actually.

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm196/Mystraven777/ScreenShot19.jpg?t=1323102473

I did some pretty drastic changes to Lydia using the NPC Editor that can be found on Nexus. Here's what I've done:

1. Changed her stance from being a girl who's carrying imaginary boulders to a normal, feminine stance
2. Gave her a set of Cleric Armor (Wolf Armor replacer mod, again on Nexus)
3. Changed her NPC class from 1h Warrior to Spellsword
4. Made her a Pryomancer / Battlemage with a lot of fire-based destruction spells
5. Changed her AI packages so that she no longer excercises with the chair in the bedroom loft (thank God!)
6. Gave her a different hair color and a hair style
7. Changed her aggression rating from Foolhardy to just agressive

She also wears magicka reduction costs for Destruction, not to mention an Ebony mace that absorbs 25pts of Magicka and Soul Traps for 5secs. Now she's a combination of the old Lydia mixed with Illia from Darklight Tower.... so basically she's more of a bad(expletive) than she ever was.

[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/595834936615857186/722806CF0F82984CBC4FD9367E5C2F73E7F86160/[/img]

I liked Eola in scale armour, I liked her bad eye.
http://static.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/5078-1-1325600641.jpg

With my present hero a male High Elf, I have Lydia in Ancient Nord Armour.

It's a little quirk of mine, but whenever I get a new Housecarl I always acquire them a Shield of the Hold they belong to. For Solitude that;'s easy. You get awarded a Shield as Thane. And there's a spare Whiterun Shield in a case in the living quarters of Dragonsreach. But for others it's a case of trapping a guard, and murdering them...

You have to smith them up to a decent quality before the Housecarl will use them, of course, and preferably enchant them. But I always do it like a OCD loon.

But that character looks like neither Lydia nor Eola. Who is she? Looks nice though.
Lydia got a boob job? Was she always so busty under that steel armour?

Iron and steel for everyone! Unless they wear light armor, then studded or scale. I just don't like the high tier armors, they all look meh (except for orcish, I always give orcish to my Orc followers of which I've had a whole one so far, and he was with me only until a certain quest when we... parted ways, so to speak).

Wasn't aware of this Derkeethus dude before now. I suppose I'd better go get him.

Yep boob job + briast physics, a combination of these mods:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=4888

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5661

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6166

...allthough she loves this one too:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6715

I gave them my hand me downs.

I bought wolf armor for my follower. Looks good combined with the other bits I give him (hand-me down legendary helmets / gloves / boots) and I can re-enhnce it very cheap whenever I improve my smithing skill (or the boosts I layer on top). Its not quite as good as the Orc armor I wear, but its MUCH cheaper to keep it smithed up to the max I can achieve. And lighter, too. I enchanted it with the best "Fortify Health" I could manage, but again - its cheap to replace when I find I can do better,

For most of the game I've been working Erandur, mostly for role play reasons. I like generally his dialog, figure he serves as a "spiritual advisor" who's done enough bad things himself not to be TO judgemental. I figure it also nice to see a Dunmer and an Argonina working together. Combat wise, he's a decent spellcaster & swordsman, but will all the magic staffs and armor I give him, a diabetic monkey could do the job

Mods allowed me to have my female Followers wearing clothing of... choice.

Amazing how in games a bikini can have more protection than a full suit of armour!

I've always liked Mjoll in full daedric plate. It just seems to suit her.
However, since she can't die I guess she could wear anything.

My own character has a lot of heavy armor skill tree, so ANY heavy armor
I wear (at level 72 now, xbox without using exploits like that Ogrima whatever thing) is way above
the 570 or so armor cap. I just smithed some "wolf" armor you just buy from the guy in whiterun up to legendary;
It gives me 1357 ac or something. Knowing what I know now, I'd have went light armor instead and worn
dragon scale (which looks COOL, compared to the horribly bulky dragon plate on a female character.)

I wish, on the xbox 360, I could tell mjoll's armor class/level stats. I can't even remember when I originally started
using her (just that I was tired of Lydida always dying.)

Maybe I'll dress Mjoll in dragon scale, though I can't remember if she comes with light armor skill or not (think it
was heavy, I'll have to look.) She can't die though anyway.

My other buddy is my undead Thalmor soldier, who must be level 36 I'd guess (got her from thalmor embassy, in the
default glass armor the higher level ones have.) She looks pretty cool in that and cracks me up saying stuff like "Unhh",
and "please kill me." Its also funny when I unsheath my double enchanted daedric sword sometimes, to hear her say
in that regular default elf voice "Be rather careful with that fire!" or something (bug, that she uses the regular voice
rarely instead of undead thrall stuff.) The dead thrall can only be in that original armor, though I have it smithed
up to legendary and enchants for one hand/bow and some resists where I can't do that.

Playing at master, I've only had the dead thrall thalmor soldier die when she stood on one of those "slamming
door spike traps" in a dungeon. Then its easy to take her gear, drag her corpse out of range of it, then stuff
the gear back in and dead thrall her again (so she uses all that enchanted gear again for sure.)

My cast-offs, if it suits their abilities. If not, they wear the best that I can find/craft. Since I'm running around in Leather (or Thieves or DB or other light armor), anything that can soak up damage and keep them alive so that I don't get pounded is a good thing.

Noticed an odd thing about NPCs, though. The quality of the armor seems to have no effect on whether they'll wear it or not. If I furnish Uthgerd or Lydia, for example, with Steel Armor that has been improved through crafting and bare-bones Dwarven, they'll wear the Dwarven, even though the Steel has a higher armor rating. I tried getting Uthgerd to unequip her Steel Plate, so that I could leave her with no choice of gear, but that was a no-go.

You should be able to choose what gear a follower equips.... I find it absurdly annoying when I pass off a set of dwarven armor to my mage follower and he puts it on... but yet refuses to put on the mage robes I'm desperately wanting him to equip because the armor rating is the same as the apprentice garbage he/she's got by default.

There's a little mod that I used, to make it so I could remove Lydia's default set of armor, and change it to any armor/clothing I want.
It also makes her essential, meaning she won't die.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6321

I guess there are mods for other followers as well.

My follower insists on wearing her Apprentice robes despite the fact I bought her Expert robes... I am not impressed

It only compares armor value, and will only equip items with a higher armor rating (for them)

Which means You can never equip any follower with cloth...

It also means if you pass them any armor/weapons to mule back to town... they might throw it on if the dmg/armor rating is higher then what they have... even if the enchantments on what you want them to have makes it far far far better for them.

It really is absurd IMO. Equip button should make that follower equip the item... not give the item for you to equip