Having completed my father's war story, my next project is the story of a person who passed through my life and left an indelible imprint on it. Rather than first embark on the process of endless dial-tweaking to capture this person's likeness, I'm considering hiring somebody to whom I would send some photos and ask them to do it. I'd want the end product to be mine alone (in other words not for sale to others). Any thoughts on how to find the right person for this project, or if this concept is feasible?

I think it would really depend on how long it would take to create. Some characters take a month or more to make, and even at minimum wage, that would still be pretty costly, just for the time alone.

It might well take a month, between back and forth correspondence, however I don't think it would take a month of forty hour work weeks. I think most people in here are hobbyists, and juggle their Poser talent and interest with other more mundane jobs. I would be happy to consider any reasonable expression of interest in handling this task.

My Bid: I can do this for $100. Results will depend greatly on your source pictures. I'll need clear source pictures that are a good resolution. I will only work with a Millenium Model, preferably Mike 3. (Mike 1 is very difficult to make look like anything other than Mike.) I will do the work up to stage 1 of satisfaction and send you sample renders. If you like what you see, then I will accept payment and continue on until it's as perfect as it can be. When I see the source pics I can give you an estimate on how close I think I'll be able to get. -WTB

Have you considerd the poser 5 face room???

I have tried tinkering around in the Poser 5 face room. I would rather devote my energies to dealing with the posing, the lighting, etc.. that lead to the storytelling, and leave the technical expertise of modeling to those who have more patience and skill than me. If I weren't juggling this with a full-time, highly demanding job, I would spend more time on developing the skills that would lead to my being able to create my own likenesses.

Do you mean you want an entire model created from scratch? If you find a modeller skilled enough to do this, you will pay a LOT for it. If anybody takes the time to make something that detailed, I don't think they would be prepared to let it go for a small sum. Also I don't think it's legal to sell any modified obj's of Mike, if that ever comes up. Only cr2's are permitted, for obvious reasons.

I believe Mike could be tweaked without modifying the .obj. In fact, William the Bloody has some existing products for sale that pretty closely resemble the person I have in mind for reproduction.

Um...no I don't. I don't have anything for sale except for Magic Mags for Stephanie Petite. Mike 3 can be modified using injection poses and settings and/or magnets and be distributable however you like. The biggest drawback I've faced in doing custom morphs is folks utter lack of good source pics. Nevertheless, I've done a few for people with excellent results. -WTB

William, you're right of course. I was looking at your freebie stuff. Anyway, I do have good source pics, and will follow up with you via IM.

It's definitely not legal to sell a modified obj of Mike. It is legal to sell just your modification to the obj of Mike. This can be done with Mover. Although I state in Mover's readme file that Mover is not for commercial use, I actually do provide permission if a) you ask nicely, and b) you are not a large corporation. However, it's still pretty difficult to achieve what you are after. The University of Glasgow has a very effective bit of harware/software for creating 3D meshes of real people, but it requires the actual person to sit in front of it, not just a few photographs. And no doubt they'd charge a few bob.