I am pretty new, but I can't resist flinging a pitch in this thread.

All of you touting the Daz figures are certainly campaigning for a "concept", but not actually srrduude's concept! He/she wants to create characters without spending a lot of money. You people are leading srrdude down the path to Daz where (how exciting) there are oodles and oodles of follow-on supporting products SO HE CAN SPEND A LOT OF MONEY. Not just the 39.99 per core figure, but HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS on all the other stuff you are so exited to point out as available.

There's nothing wrong with your approach per se. But it is not the approach asked for in this thread.

Here is the correct response for someone who wants to run with 3D in Poser and not spend a lot of money.

An artist makes his own tools.

In the 3D world, even just in Poser, that can go very deep. You can learn to create models from the ground up using Wings3D (free) bring them into Poser and bone them in the setup room. You are now in control of the morphs, the look, everything, concerning the model.

You can learn (as you indicated in your opening post) to make textures from scratch. You can get free or cheap photo reference sets to do so. Or, get a friend to pose nude for your camera. (An artist makes his tools and lots of time it's fun!)

While I have not personally made use of the Hair Room, there are possibilities there, and you can get free hair that can be made to fit your model. You can learn to make textures for that hair in a 2D graphics program. Or, purchase one incredibly flexible hair model and learn to exploit the heck out of it. I paid $7.95 for one model that gives me all the hair power I need.

Next...the Cloth Room....PhilC's tools for making clothes....learning to take free (or VERY inexpensive) conforming clothes and make them dynamic. Modeling clothes in Wings and bringing them in to Poser, make them dynamic. There are other tools such as the Tailor which might be part of the arsenal. An artist makes clothes for his purpose.

Same for props. Make a small budget to buy some, or learn to model them an import them.

I could go on.... read books on building Characters in Poser, review Dr. Geep's tutorials and all the tutorials. Dig and dig.

Now, to be fair, I would put myself "half on" that track. I purchase a few things here and there. But I am learning the tools on my own advice. I am deep in the cloth room now.

I start with Judy, the Poser5female (free) and she is the root of all my human characters, male and female.
Here is my core purchase:

Eternal Judy by 3Dream 12.25
Nikki texture and morphs by posermatic 11.90
P+J Two of Hearts to get male texture. 12.95
Egypt Hair by 3Dream 7.95
Real Skin Shader by face_off 12.00

From that I am deriving incredible diversity by opening the textures in my graphics program and altering them, creating many many completely different looking hair styles from this highly morphable hair, and spinning the face dials to come up with unique looking faces. You are taking the Poser5Female and with these few add-ons giving yourself power.

That's my two cents.

See a group portrait of a just the first few characters resulting. Note: Srrdude did not indicate his/her intent with regard to style and purpose. Please bear in mind that in the images below I am specifically going for ordinary life, not glam or fantasy. I am shooting for characters that you might meet walking down the street and interact with normally. [Some images below did not receive the benefit of real skin shader yet. Some hair below by Kozoboro (free)]

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