yeah i do agree with kendra here - public postings of products in the testing queue is a no-no. itll cut down the time that the 'legally acceptable' idea thiefs have to create a knockoff. i generally do not post any WIPses. i upload the product to the testing queue, with a quick promo, and while it is in testing i finish up my final promos. a day before its released, or right AS its released, ill post my product in the product showcase forum. posting product renders in the queue, ESPECIALLY if for some reason they get held up for weeks, is a bad idea. wed have idea vultures scouring that forum to scavenge ideas for their own products. thered even be a small possibility, in the case of a delay, that quick idea-thieving merchants could release their knockoff and get it out in the MP before the item theyve ripped off passes testing. as for the cake1's realeyes thing - i disagree on that specific product, although i see where youre coming from. i dont think that cake can hold any claim on eye geometries for the millennium characters. i created my blackeyes, another replacement eye geometry product, over a year after realeyes -- beqcause when i was creating my elowen texture i ran into problems matching eye realism to the texture realism. i created a very realistic texture, and no matter what i did with vicky's default eyes i couldnt get them to match the realism - they stuck out like a sore thumb because of their very simple flat geometry. so i modelled new eyes for the elowen pack only, eyes that matched the realism of the texture. the geometry isnt even remotely similar to realeyes (which i dont have), since realeyes has conical irises and mine more closely resemble the human iris physiology with conmcave ones with rounded edges. afterwards, customers praised the eye element of the elowen pack and clamoured for support for the other millennium characters, so i released a standalone eye for all the milennium characters and other models as well. cake cant hold the rights to all eye geometries any more than daz can hold the rights to all female figure geometries. its rediculous. its simply a part of the human anatomy. and, if i remember correctly, someone beat her to it anyway -- i remember a member named gsalas having some alternate eye geometries for posette available at least two years before cake thought of her realeyes. however, out of respect for another merchant, you shouldnt release a similar product in the marketplace in a short time after theyve released theirs, especially a niche product like that. but it goes on constantly - in far worse ways. people copy makeups (even daz, and several other merchants, have created textures within weeks of my/rios/kieras texture releases with makeups that are clearly and alarmingly similar, and even promo text that is near identical), character bodies, package layouts/concepts, clothing styles and configurations, and the general 'look and feel' of a product. i look through the store and not only do i see products, and product packages, that are clearly influenced by my own (and i KNOW its by my own since many times ive been the first to release such a product), but even promos, promo text, etc. again, the 'look and feel'. while you cant copyright a style, its depressing that a lot of merchants just cant seem to develop a style of their own and constantly feed off of the styles other successful merchants. people have told me that i should be 'flattered' by this - that imitation is the highest form of flattery. im not flattered, not at all - im disgusted. but theres no way its going to change unless the entire human race gets an ethical overhaul, and thats not going to happen in my lifetime or in any of yours. for every case of direct product ripoffs - like this one - there are a hundred cases of style/idea ripoffs which may not go unnoticed, but certainly cant be stopped. cheers, -gabriel