Wowie! Speaking for me, I'm not mad at anyone about any of this, I just wanted to make things clear by showing what I was up to so there wouldn't be a big battle over skin colors, or have people think that I was saying there's just one kind of "black." I just got a little irritated because when the discussion turned to vanessa williams and whether she's a representative black woman, I envisioned a giant firestorm being kicked off and me in the middle. (I'm irish-american, by the way, so I range from milky to red, depending on sun exposure ;-) Allerleirauh, I actually was planning my next texture to have very dark skin (I won't say a WORD about what race she might be, although folks will be welcome to guess from the render), and everyone, I think I am going to learn from this experience and just give my textures character names, like Bast naming hers Ayesha, and let people figure out the rest for themselves. My problem with doing specific textures is that I'm limited by my photo collection, and unfortunately some "looks" are easier to find pix of than others. Problem number 2 is that I really don't have a whole lot of naked body pictures of women, of any color, (although I have a few in my erotica collection that might do the trick), so I haven't done a body text yet because I'm probably going to have to paint that from scratch. But I will work on it because I want my (nameless lady) head texture to have a matching body texture before I post. I think there's a fine line we all have to walk--and I really don't have any complaints about this, although Bast clearly didn't feel good about her experience--that in ANY creative venture, we're asking people to help us realize our vision, but as inarticulate mortals our art is the only way we can truly communicate that vision. So we show something--a piece of writing, a picture, a recipe, whatever--to our peers and say "what do I need to do to make this more like what's in my head?" and our peers can only answer based on their guesses as to what we're trying to achieve. Which, of course, will be at least 50% what they would try to achieve in our shoes. So I think we all (including me) can cut each other some slack when it comes to creative input. I learned in writing classes that workshopping is really hard, emotionally, and it's not for everyone because some people can be crushed by even well-intentioned criticism, but it also has real rewards because people point things out to you that you're too blind to see. An example in this case is that while folks generally compliment my lighting in my finished renders, I habitually let the application choose the color of the lighting for me. I never noticed that until it was pointed out as a response to my WIP. So to me it's worth the risk of someone guessing wrong about what I'm trying to do...so even if I don't like something I hear, I won't ever change my mind about sharing a texture or whatever. So ya'll can expect my pretty lady to show up sometime this week, once I fix her dang eyebrows and make the seam on her head go away, and pick a name for her! And Bast, please keep sharing your work as well...Ayesha's a beautiful character. Mary