what's the fastest way to level up armor lol, and can you make light dragon armor or it only comes in heavy

you can make scale armor.. which is light

mm cause right now i have 30 smithing which i unlocked up to elven, but obviously elven requires some pricey metals early on and i doubt i can afford it.

does anyone know when or how often the vendors reset their stock?
i'm sure it happens, just curious as to how long it takes

Yep pretty sure it's 48 hours.

I've been leveling it up via leather. You can buy like 40 leather and 40 strips at the blacksmith shop near the entrance to whiterun per restock (both the dude inside and the woman outside sell leather).

Costs about 500g, usually get about 3-5 levels out of it.

Not sure if there is a better way than leather, but seems pretty quick so far (am up to 72 atm).

oh haha i meant light armor, not smithing armor.
is it just getting hit over and over that levels armor?

would getting hit by a rock crab = getting hit by a big character, or it doesn't matter cause you're getting hit regardless.

ive been doing so many caves, forts, towers, and other dungeon type places but i havent really gotten anything good from them, feeling like its just a waste of time

Not sure myself. Seems to level up pretty quickly to me. Am at 70 and haven't really trained that either

Probably because I run into combat like a moron instead of sneaking and end up getting hit a lot. Eh, it works.