"I say go for realism, just concentrate more on the animation than the rendering style" Perfect advice. BTW, although most of you probably already know/do this, I've settled into a productive way of attacking the animation. I turn off the background, the clothes, the hair. I leave the lights on. Using "smooth shaded" I try to get my preview looking as much like my final as possible. Then I run the animation over and over, sometimes with "skip frames" on (which throws it into near real time) but mostly with it off, and watch each fram unfold. I take notes on paper, including frame number where something is not right. Then, I "make movie" to .avi with preview mode chosen. On my computer, this can spin out about 2-3 frames PER SECOND, so I have a 620 frame clip at 720x540 in the time it takes to go make coffee. I run that movie over and over, taking more notes. Then I go in, SAVE OUT AN INCREMENTAL COPY, and begin tweaking the animation, cycle same over and over. I love the graph editor, of course, although it won't "grow wide" on my big LCD (although the dope sheet will.) Man, that fast movie render under preview mode is just fantastic. ::::: Opera :::::