Raido is a somewhat complex creation. I wanted more of an agile master swordsman than a head bashing brute. More Bruce Lee than Conan the Barbarian. I was happy with the result because it was fairly successful product of the original vision.
He's a mix of what I envisioned his parents being, a touch more his father than his mother.
I started by making a similar build and appearance to my Redguard character from Oblivion who is basically my mental picture of his father.
I then adjusted his build and appearance to reflect a percentage of his genetic make up coming from his mother whom I envisioned was an Altmer.
As a result, his build is a taller but considerably lighter (more agile) version of his father. His father was above average height but more stout and muscular like a traditional Redguard. His mother was slightly above average height for an Altmer who are naturally a tall race to begin with. Raido's combination is somewhere in between the two.
Skin tone is somewhere in between his father's darker Redguard tone and his mother's lighter, more tradional Altmer tone. As a result, Raido's skin tone is lighter the a typical Redguard but darker than the average human race skin color.
His facial structure is also a mix of the two parents. He has a stong and fairly prominent jaw and nose (particularly the bridge) which are more traits of his father. He has more of his mother's more pointed Altmer chin and prominent, deeper brow. His eyes are a little more elongated and pointed. I liked these features as they also gave him a little bit of a manga/anime look to his appearance
It's hard to see in the pictures where he has the more common, longer, shaggier hair style as it covers them a decent bit, but his ears have a hint of the elven point at the top. This is more visible with the close cropped hair style like what he has in the animated signature pic below.
The choice of warpaint was added following the death of his friend and fellow Companion, Skjor and he's worn it ever since.
As I tend to do with created characters, particularly ones I expect to be a long-term main character type, I try to make a feature or two similar to myself. In Raido's case, his eye color (blue) is similar to my own. The facial hair style is similar to mine as well, a goatee on the lower chin with a thin beard running up along the jaw line.
