What kind of artistic background, if any, have people had before getting into Poser? In my case, I used to do a lot of pencil sketches as a kid and sort of lost my artistic direction as I got out of college into a non-art field. I've been interested in using computers for art, but it's been a long and difficult adjustment to using different tools. More and more, I'm finding a desire to get back into art and I like the options that computer art provides. One of the interesting developments in the last dozen years is that there are probably many artists who have bypassed the old artistic media to the new digital media. That's not a good or bad thing because it's how the tools are used, not what tools they are. I'm old enough that there were no computers when I was growing up. I wish there were because it would have been nice to have had access to Poser and Painter and other programs for creating art. I'm playing catch-up in digital media. Digital art truly represents the future. Here's the first render of my third full Poser drawing. I'll probably have to redo the Freak's left arm pose because it doesn't look natural enough. The global lighting isn't interesting enough. I'll probably try a different texture on the Freak. A reflection map on the Emerald Knight's armor might make it look more metallic than plastic. Overall, I kind of like where it's going.

I used to be a plumber.
Before Poser the best I could do was draw a bath.

Comics for me,
I've been drawing about as long as I can walk. Had some of my comics printed in a small time underground mag about 15 years ago. Always been a pen & paper guy.

Kinda got sitetracked in the early 90s got into gaming big time, played in a band etc.

I got to digital art step by step, starting actually by doing "skins" for Quake, then later 2 & 3 and The Sims.
I got my copy of Poser used from a friend who was getting a divorce and didn't want his wife to get everything since she officialy owned the PC.So he gave me a shoe box of CDs with games and programs he'd bought, among them poser. He never had done much with the program, but after tinkering around with it I found it a rather usefull program and decieded to breath some life in my old story ideas.

So now, almost 2 years on, (and quite a bit less money in my pockets, damn you DAZ!) I'm preparing for publishing an online graphic novell, using Poser 4PP.

My artistic life in a nutshell ;)

Cheers,
Axe.

Attached Link: http://www.cyclopsstudio.com

Well I had many years of traditional art background and training. But I also have been using computers to make digital art since I was eight. I don't have many of my traditional media images here, but you can see them on my website if you're bored :) The tools are different but the language of art remains constant. Colour, balance, composition, light and action. Irregardless of media those are the issues that any artist keeps coming back to. I work in many different media, from clay to pixels and no matter the technical issues those are the things I always work on. So my 6 years of traditional art training have been a huge boon to me as an artist ... I may have hated the restrictions at the time, but now I think nice thoughts about my teacher Mr Young every time I'm critiquing one of my pieces.

I, too, have been an artist for as long as I can remember. Pen and ink, pencil and charcoal, oils, acrylics, polymer clay sculpting and a lot of portrait work, which seems to have carried over into my Poser work. I love the digital media. No mess. Heheh. I still do polymer clay sculpting and crafts when I am forced to sit in front of the tv, I seem to need to keep my hands occupied or else I feel I am wasting my time.

I finger painted in grade school, does that count? Oh, and my mom once told me "Don't let me catch you drawing your Michal Angelo's on the wall again or I'll take those crayons away for good!" (I think I was 3yr old...sheeesh, been at it along time now)

Attached Link: http://www.mythospheres.com/grey.html

Having majored at one time in art, I suppose I sorta have what's called a little "formal" training -- but I was such a rebel at the time, I'm not sure I really learned all that much ... I've been doing the "conventional" stuff, off and on, for more than 30 years -- mostly pencils, inks, oils and airbrush, as well as the more mundane paste up (anybody old enough to know what rubylith was or what we used wax and PMT machines for?) -- and I've worked professionally much of my life in jobs that involved doing one sort of design/graphics or another -- becoming increasingly digital as the years have gone by. In the last several years, though, I'd moved on to other things -- technical writing in particular. Well, semi-technical. Somewhere along the way I came across Poser, Bryce, etc., and am beginning to do a little art again -- this time 100% digital. Frankly, the transition is kind of tough. It's a whole different way of thinking and doing. And I hate the fact that many of my skills, developed with an ungodly investment of my time, energy and labor, are now largely obsolete. But the potential of digital, if I ever get any good at it, is rather exciting. As for digital being the future, I'm not so sure. Certainly in the commercial arena it is a given, but there's still some resistance, and in the so-called finer arts, it may be that the old skills, i.e., the ability to draw, paint, etc., i.e., the craftsmanship, will become even more valued than before. But maybe not. What do I know?

Studied in college some, dropped out. Digital artist on gov't contracts about 10 years, art director, side jobs, logos, photo restorations etc. After having to draw, scan, ink, color and taking classes to learn more about drawing and design, poser has actually been harder for me to use. I know the results I want, but getting there sometimes is a hurtle.

Illustrator with an art degree and all that .. Picked up Poser 1 to help with drawing weird poses and angles, got a little sidetracked and started doing more stuff with it .. Now use it more for drawing again but with other stuff in the mix.

Being sort of an old-timer I started with pencil, pastel and oil and continue with it up to the present. I do figures in landscapes or just landscapes. I started using Painter & Poser and then Vue also to set up the scene and pose the figures. I find these programs really helpful with the mental preparation for a picture though I would never go all digital as there's too much to learn; I'd rather spend the time painting. Also, I love the textural qualities of paint and pastel and as good as Painter is, it's a far cry from 'real' media unless you do photo realism which I don't. My work looks nothing at all like digital but I'm very happy to be able to use digital in its development.

Fine art background College trained classical animator and 15 years graphic design (I still do alot of work in oil paints) Rawn

Started with charcoal and pencils, then moved on to CG in the '90s when I discovered it'd be easier to do animation that way, as the computer can generate all the in-betweens.

No formal art background at all. I administer a multi-million dollar Federal and State funded bureaucracy for 9 counties in southern Minnesota. It probably shows in my art work :) Mainly I do this for a hobby.....and to keep from going crazy with budget cuts and all :)

made my first image at 43- no training- just got hooked got to love that undo button-lol

I've always been torn between an interest in science/math and interest in art. I was so odd that when I took a high-priced aptitude test back in college, I didn't match any careers. (The closest were "concrete sculptor" and "theater lighting technician.") I was always considered "artistic" as a child, and was selected for various "art for the gifted" programs when I was in school. My parents and teachers expected me to become an illustrator, interior decorator, or fashion designer. Instead, I went for the steady paycheck and became an engineer. But I maintained my interest in art, taking classes when I could, and studying on my own. I've had stuff published in the underground press, but never pursued a career in art. I feel like I've found my home with digital art - that blend of art and technology that I've been looking for all my life. The only other thing that's come close is digital video editing. I have mixed feelings about possibly pursuing a career in art. Part of me thinks it would be really cool, part of me wonders if that would take all the fun out of it.

Interesting question! I have two fine arts degrees. Am academically trained. I paint and illustrate. Not that you'd know that from the Poser work I do. (I post at the other "r" site). Most of what I do in my real life is thrown out the window when I get involved with Poser! Not sure why that is. I keep meaning to merge the two different ways of thinking... but I'm drawn (pun) into 3D space and get lost in the fascination! Obviously one doesn't need fine art training to create beautiful works... so many of you have such creative minds that Poser, etc, allows the means to express! BTW rdf I thought I was the only one left who knew what rubylith is :-)

I come from a traditional art background and only got into CG to test out ideas I had for paintings and to show clients how a scene might look before I started painting. Now I do most of my work on computer and make limited posters for sale, although I will still use oil on canvas if I get a commision to do so. Using digital media for art is fantastic and you get results much quicker than using traditional mediums, but I think that a good understanding of traditional artistic techniques is required to be able to create good CG works. 8) Catlin

I'm a writer first, everything else second. Drawing people is near impossible, but I can sort of do architectural stuff. I'm all digital, regardless.

Started as a commercial artist using pencil and art markers for Ad copy. Got into using computers with Corel Photopaint 3 and Caligari Truespace 2 back in 1994. Never looked back, never regretted it. -SMT

As a boy, I loved drawing cartoons, loved science fiction, and fantasized about the day that there would be computer-aided art tools. As a teenager I published a "Dada" fanzine-thingy, which led to many years of doing collages roughly after the style of Max Ernst, Jess, and Bruce Connor. Later, I spent two years at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco studying both "classical" foundations and Graphic Design. At art school, I learned that I could draw better than I'd realized, and discovered just what a treasure chest a good understanding of color can be. Then I stopped doing visually creative things in favor of writing for a while. Too long, probably. It's not so good to fall out of practice. A few years ago, I learned about Poser via some Japanese websites, and finally bought the proggie (and Vue 4) about 1&1/2 years ago. While I don't feel that I'm all that great as a Poser artist, I'm positive that all the past experiences "inform" whatever's happening now with the digital apps. But enough about me. :-) Cool thread, by the way.

I always liked to draw as a kid but I was also good in match and stuff. I became a fashion designer and one day started to play with Coreldraw. When we computerized the designing room I forced my boss to get me Illustrator and Photoshop and so it began....now I design clothes in real life and in 3d.

At school in the 40s I could not even draw a recognisable flask in my science notebook. Just before I retired I found Imagine for the Amiga on a computer magazine graduated in due course to the PC version and could create pictures. Then I discovered Poser and got hooked. So I'm all digital and thoroughly enjoy my hobby.

Although I was a pretty fair pencil artist (mostly buildings and landscapes) I really came into 3d art through AutoCAD and then 3dsmax. I've always wondered how many others got into making 3d art from a CAD background rather than from a digital painting/illustration background ?

I use a CAD program called Microstation every day, aand have for years, but I don't consider it related to Poser at all. It's just coincidence, I think. Though I do wonder if my familiarity with Microstation is why I find Anim8or so user-friendly, while a lot of other people don't. Modeling in Anim8or reminds me a bit of modeling in Microstation.

I've heard of Microstation but I've never used it. Can you make 3D models with it or is it just for 2D drafting. The ability to make 3D models was my ultimate tie in to 3D art because I just wanted to make more realistic 3D models :)

My use of Poser was just to 'people' my 3D scenes. But Poser is an addictive software - easy to get into but hard to get out. I've tried to leave Poser behind but those gorgeous Poser babes keep pulling me back in :)

Came in through Intellicad, after a long trip through a few earlier 2D cads. Then to Povray for more realism, poser to furnish figures when I need them. Just nice doing it for myself now, instead of some engineer.

In 2d art I'm piss poor at drawing things, can do decent color but that's about it. As you can see I'm alot better in Poser :-)

You can make 3D models with Microstation. You can even model and render animations with it, though I don't generally use it for anything that interesting. (As I recall, the animation that shipped with Microstation, many years ago, featured bouncing pots. I think you were supposed to be impressed with the shiny raytraced metallic materials.) My training was in mechanical engineering, but I'm currently working as a civil engineer. So I'm using Microstation to model highways and bridges and such. A lot of modeling is terrain modeling and the like. Create a template of the road cross section and push it along an alignment to generate a surface. Merge surfaces, add and subtract them to get volumes. Some fun stuff gets done in the "visualization" area, where you show people what the project is going to look like when it's built. (It's a lot like Poser, actually. Generate the surfaces - models - then apply textures and render. Then Photoshop the heck out of it.) But we engineers don't do that. They have Weeds and Seeds (Landscaping) do that. And they don't use Poser. They just use Photoshop to put people in.

Creating blueprints for constuction from hands on experience. Never touched a computer till 2 years ago, bought poser then too. Still don't know much about the computer, but I have fun with all the software.

Microstation sounds like a pretty full featured app then!

I find that you can model most objects more easily in MAX rather than in a CAD application but admittedly at a loss of precision. I think the texturing options are more comprehensive as well.

Although there is much you can do in MAX to create some stunning renders I find that I do more rendering right in Poser and import the 3D elements as needed rather than the reverse. The availability of good lighting presets makes this more doable now than ever before.

No matter what the application is everything does seem to end up in Photoshop though for finishing :)

Well, I wouldn't call Microstation a full featured app. It tries to be. Has a lot of different modules (sold separately, of course!). And they'll write things to spec for you. The problem their 3D files aren't compatible with anyone else's. Well, it's very easy to get GPS data imported, but as far as things like OBJ -- forget it!

I majored in Fine and Applied Art and Design. I went into Graphic Design, and very, VERY early on I started making websites (first graphical site was designed in Netscape 1.1, more than ten years ago). I've been working with Poser since about 1998 (version 3). bonni

I have a traditional fine art background that started with drawing and went to airbrushing and eventually painting seascapes and still lifes on stretched canvas. I got my first copy of bryce 2 eight years ago and started using photoshop 3 while working at kinkos. I have never looked back to traditional media. I am primarily an 3d animator these days but I have decorated my bachelor apartment with huge 6x6 ft canvas prints of my 3D Cinema4D and Poser art (Im still very partial to canvas).

Been drawing ever since I can remember (my mom says I drew "anatomically correct" stick figures when I was two ... LOL). No real "formal" training other than a summer class at an art museum when I was a kid. I've worked with oils, charcoals, pastels, watercolors, clay, porcelain, and probably other stuff I can't remember. But once I saw that you could do all kinds of stuff on computer, I haven't looked back since. I've been into digital art since 1991 (remember ZSoft PC Paintbrush for DOS and Fractal Design Painter running on Windows 3.1? Boy have we come a long way! Once I got my hands on Autodesk Animator and 3D Studio Release 2 (before the Max days) that was all she wrote. My art took on a whole new dimension, no pun intended. 8-)

Hmm..Art Classes in 7th,10th, and Sophmore college..have the desire, but couldn't even draw a conclusion if I had to..;) Started with computer drawing back in the late 80's with (I think, it's been awhile) PC Draw by IBM, for EGA (4 colors, blue black, red, and magenta..;). Was looking for wallpaper in late 2000, found 'The Ultimate Collection of Fantasy and Sci-fi links', which kept showing cool pics in Bryce, which led here, which led to Poser, which led (apparently) nowhere..;) nah..finally got my art machine home from work, so now I have both Poser 3 and 4 on (don't see that very often..;) it.

No formal training, but I still do oils and acrylics from time to time.

I'm a little surprised that the majority of replies come from people who have had some formal art training. I fall into the other category where I'm mostly self-taught with a little influence from teachers in regular school art classes. Most of my early artistic influences came from comics. That helped me draw human figures, but left me somewhat out of touch with the finer arts. I did expect more people to have mostly had digital art in their background because art programs have been around long enough that a child could have grown up creating art on a computer as their primary means of expression. Most children still start drawing with pencils and crayons and wouldn't be introduced to computer art till they were 3-4 years or older. The average parent probably wouldn't buy computer art programs unless their child had developed some prior interest in drawing. The mix will probably lean more to digital in the future. Part of the slowdown to a more digital approach to art is that schools still tend to be somewhat behind the times with computers because of the costs involved and the difficulty in finding teachers that have a strong computer background. The best graphics programs are still priced for a commercial market. Poser has come down in price, but software that's over $100 still tends to scare away casual customers. It would probably be difficult to find an art teacher that's as well versed in various computer programs as today's art teachers are in different artistic media. A safe bet I could make is that most of the people on this board are self-taught in using these programs.

Attached Link: My R'osity Gallery

Digital. I've worked with music, video, graphics design and interactivity for 15 years now, all of it digital. Not that I have anything against doing things analog - but digital gives you such powerful tools, it's easy to get spoiled :o) My dad was a professional artist in the classical mold. Never owned a computer. :] Fish

'I'm a little surprised that the majority of replies come from people who have had some formal art training'

I was a bit surprised too actually. I'm doing it bass - ackwards :) I've spent years learning to use many cgi applications and have only just begun to do a self-study of formal art. Never too old to learn :) The only related theory outside of computer graphics that I studied was photography because I can't help but think that is very well related to 3D graphics in most aspects.

Like many people here everything I know about computer graphics is self-taught - there is such a lack of professional training facilities even today that this almost goes without saying.

When you consider all that's involved in obtaining a comprehensive knowledge in several graphics applications it's a wonder how we trudge through it - it's only because it's a labor of love I guess :)

Me, I've always doodled on paper. Still do, I can't sit and listen to anyone for long (meetings and such) without filling paper after paper with silly little faces. But any formal training? No. Nor do I work with anything art-related. I sit at a computer all day at work, but in order to type in loads and loads of very boring numbers. Then I get home, sit in front of my computer and play and have fun :o) with Poser and Max. My husband draws too from time to time. Mainly trains (or track-plans for his model railroad (yes he's a train freak) My eldest daughter is VERY good at drawing, so her teachers are starting to talk about sending her to special classes to develop it further. But she has a touch of Asperger's Syndrome, so any new things must be brought up carefully, or she'll refuse to do it. I don't consider what I'm doing in Poser as "art". It's fun and to me it's a way of "drawing" the things I've never been good at on paper. For instance I have never been able to draw a car. Any car ends up as some strange box floating on circles.. I can SEE it doesn't resemble a car but I can't do much about it. I'm not good at drawing things so that they "look like" something/someone real. I draw toony type things. Mort Walker style. But I'm having fun and I guess that's what counts :o)

"Proper" artist here, too. ;) I was always interested in art, from being a small child. I kept the hobby all my life, but never became "professional" until I started working on computer graphics. I was entranced by the idea of computer imagery and things went on from there. I've worked for a few major games software companies. Now, my artwork is almost excusively digital. I keep promising to get out the brushes and pencils for some real "dirty hands" work, though. Maybe next year. :)

99.9% digital here. I did a little cartooning, and a few oil paintings, but it was only for fun. No formal training whatsoever.

Formal training here, including 3 1/2 years of life drawing, but it isn't my degree field. I prefer to work with pen and ink and scratchboard because it IS precise. There is no undo, and even if you cover a mistake, the paper still shows the marring. I like the challenge. This is "Istarreth", an illo for a story published in Fantasy Magazine back in 1984... one of the very few pieces I've scanned. Sorry about the width, but anything smaller and the circles turn to mush. Carolly

I've been drawing and doodling ever since I can remember. No formal training though outside of elementary and middle school art classes. However, my grandmother used to run an art and framing store in the front of her house, so she taught the grandchildren to sketch with pencils, charcoal, pastels, and later, painting with acrylics and oils whenever we visited. I was never great at it but I always enjoyed it. The few things I've done worth keeping ( as an adult ) were done as gifts so I don't have any of my own work.

The only thing I've done traditionally since 1996 though are doodles in meetings. I started with POVray then and and bought Imagine for windows a couple of years later, and finally got Poser earlier this year. Still, in all of that time, most of what I do is just digital doodling. :)

Art Major in High School, oils (portraits, mostly), charcoal, inks, pastels, pencil. Got into Poser several years ago and have been hooked on digital art since. However, I do (like Batronyx) doodle in meetings, altho lately I've taken to doodling on my Palm Pilot. :)

Attached Link: http://www.pworld.co.uk/cgi-bin/pwrstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=MH05006

model kit basher here... used to buy kits just to make space models outta them.. airfix tanks, ships planes, even Zoids... was all useful :) tho, I did get a basis in art from my dad.. he's a sculptor, painter and figure painter... I learnt a lot from him :) now I use trueSpace.. hellva lot cheaper! Poser for my humans since unlike dad I'm crap at organics.. there again we're like 2 sides of a coin.. he can't do machines.. infact here's one of my Dad's Figurines -

I was a Fine-Arts major at one point, and I actually can draw and paint a little. I better at mediums you can work over though, as I have to keep reworking and reworking to get it right. I'd never make it with pen and ink. I used to paint on the computer too, but I haven't done much of that for a long time, either. This one is about the best I ever did. Painted in Painter, no scans, no renders. I mostly do artistic mesh now. ;-)

I draw a lot, but I have a background in forensic science, not art. Some of my drawings are in the gallery here.