As a kid, I liked to doodle, but all I could really draw were stick figures -- not that stopped me from making epic battles of hundreds of stick figures. As I got older, I got more and more interesting images in my head, but my ability to draw never advanced beyond stick figures. I never attempted any formal training, but all my "self-taught" attemtps were unmitigated disasters. So, while my imagination and standards increased, my ability to do anything about it dropped to zero. Years later, I actually got into the computer graphics field as a programmer, and I was exposed to some computer animation packages. I used industry contacts and eventually employee discounts to get some of these $3000+ packages, but I never got much past rendering poorly textured spheres and boxes. The learning curve was just too steep. Meanwhile, I'd gotten into photography and was able to vent some creative juices that way. I did some landscapes, figure studies, portraits, etc. All just for fun, but friends of friends would seek me out whenever they needed a photog for a project. Then in 1999, my job took me to Siggraph. I'd always meant to go but had never been able to. I'm not sure if I actually ran into Poser while I was there, but I do remember that shortly afterwards, I was logging into Renderosity, and then I was installing the Poser 4 demo. While it still had issues, the learning curve was easy. With very little effort, I was able to get at least something interesting, and I could see that it was possible to do quite a bit more. I was hooked, sort of. I would fiddle with it, trying to work out the images from my head, but I never quite got what I wanted. I moved to Poser 5 and got a better feel for how to control materials and took some interested in dynamic hair and cloth, especially as they looked like they could reduce the need for postwork. (Remember -- I can't draw more than stick figures!) But while I could do something better, it still didn't flow. Then this spring, I got back from a fairly relaxing business trip and decided to try it again, and this time everything clicked, and I've been at it since. In the meantime, all of my other creative hobbies (writing, photography, etc.) have all dribbled down to zip. The irony is now that I finally broke through the barrier, I find I can draw a little. If I need a custom texture, I think, "Sure, I can just draw that out in Photoshop."