"And, sorry, I'd rather pass on the 'fame and glory' if it means remaining a poor slob and giving away all of my hard work." I agree, but if you're smart you can get both. First, you have to get your foot in the door. That's why there's such things as internships. When a financially successful company asks you to do work "pro bono", that's your chance to be clever, not pretend you're already an established artist who is in a position to make your own monetary demands. At least 9 out of 10 times you'll lose that bluff. You can request compensation, but you have to play the cards right. It's up to you, but it's not like this is a picture being done special for them. They're asking to use one that already exists, and isn't making a profit for you anyway. ;-)

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.