Editing the Temple of Elemental Evil pre-provided characters

CashDiver

Greetings, I'm new to the Temple of Elemental Evil and already learned that it is recomended to play with some additional patches like Circle of Eight, Temple Plus, etc. At first I've found unpatched version where two of suggested companions for beginners have portraits and names of each other, and the models-skins of some of all these companions where awful, that is not comparing to their portraits at all, but it's not the question. Later patched versions have these two characters and others models corrected, but I stucked at first impression and want to play in modern Temple of Elemental Evil with those two initially named.
I'm not into modding, but I've found that Temple of Elemental Evil characters characteristics can be modified through Dungeon Master editor, it's not about names or skins. The portraits of characters are in Toee.dat file that can be extracted or packed by some of these tools:
https://co8.org/community/threads/other-modding-tools.1887/
So the plan is simply to change the portraits and model files names and pack them back, and edit characters through Dungeon Master later, but I still don't know where models files are, and as far as I understood the characters armor, clothes, skin and haircuts files may be decentrilized, so it may not work.
Does someone know where characters models files are or maybe this editing can be done by some other way?

kaiiak

take a look at temple plus (https://github.com/GrognardsFromHell/TemplePlus) it has a built in wat to modify char as well as spawn monsters

CashDiver

Great, but can you please describe how exactly it works for pre-provided characters? I'm not very good at this, for example I installed GOG version of the game, upgraded it with last Co8 & Temple+, gathered a team and than what should I do? If this is about DM I didn't found rename and models options. Or should I install something directly from that link? I'm using these upgrades in versions aren't much fresh cause these are at least fan-translated, but maybe this way shall fit for them. My question is solved at pack example above btw, the names match characters models.
I also found a way simplier, any of pre-provided characters can just be rebuilded from scratch with a little patience, but not completely - game doesn't allow to choose color of skin.