Assuming you have reasonable physical mobility yourself, then your own body is the key to getting a good pose. Sit in a relaxed state, with no muscular tension, and then slowly try crossing your legs. Concentrate on how your pelvis has to twist as you raise one thigh, how your other leg moves sideways, how the buttock of your raised leg comes off of the chair, how your abdomen and chest move slightly to compensate. Start dialling rotations into your character's joints, with IK off. Then keep tweaking the pose until you get close to what you want.

I know this isn't the pose you're after, but it's one of the hardest to do in Poser. As with any creative endeavour it's good to get the technical stuff under your belt first. Don't try to make a 'seated' picture .. just resolve to play for an afternoon. Keep doing the same picture again and again, using different lighting and changing the pose slightly and the figure's rotations. Render often, then look through your pictures .. which ones worked and why? Which ones didn't and why?

Because the 'flesh' of Poser models doesn't automatically squash when parts touch, don't be afraid of limbs slightly burying into each other. The important thing is to be viewing your pose from the proposed final viewing angle. And if bits still aren't quite right, you can always lengthen or shorten thighs or shins or whatever. Or make them thinner or fatter. Just be subtle and no-one will ever notice. Of course, if you're planning to sell your poses, you shouldn't do this. But if your pose is just for a picture, then it's all ok.

Final thing is .. post-work. I know some prefer to use a graphics app as little as possible. But a lot of us find it a very rewarding and fun part of the creation process. Use layers and alpha selections to create shadows and object collision AFTER you've rendered your picture. Good luck.

Message edited on: 01/16/2005 05:20