Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Argantaelle]

A new lengthy post is on the horizon, so be prepared.

It all started when I was going through Dawntrail, and all of a sudden, in one of the cutscenes, I saw this NPC and his lovely smile.

The spiritual animal of SE animation artists:

Fortunately, not all NPCs smile like this. For example, this nice fellow has a very natural-looking, genuine smile, which is pleasant to look at.

When I compared these two pictures, I was curious: how many faces were affected by the cartoonish creepiness? I have no illusion this feedback will ever be interesting to SE; I'm doing this for my own enjoyment (and a little bit out of spite, haha). Fortunately, I'm a veteran player, so I get a free bottle of Fantasia with every new character. Thus I could change the appearance of my test subject freely for 60 minutes, significantly reducing the time required to collect all the examples.

All character faces have the same traits: jaw 1, eyes 1, nose 1, mouth 1, no facial features, light skin tone, and no character paint. All characters are male, because during my MSQ playthrough, female NPC smiles looked better in general. I also didn't test any Hrothgars or Lalafells, because their character models are unique. All screenshots were made in gpose; the emote was "simper," lip movement 2.