"I simply want to make 3D animation shorts and it takes me months to get a character the way I want." "These programs should be a learning tool not a production company." Do you not see the paradox in what you just said in those two sentences? ;-) You want to make animation shorts (production), but the programs you use should be for learning, not production? I don't know why it's taking you months to get the character the way you want it, but anything worth doing is also worth the time it takes to do it. As you pointed out, you're not a studio. So animation on a production level (yes, even a "short" is production) is going to take time for one person to do. It's a craft, and like any craft, it does take patience.

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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.