I want to make it clear (and apologise for not doing so before) that I wasn't implying the DAZ figures are a particularly wonderful alternative to the stock Poser figures.

I think it is important to distinguish between an application which gives you the tools to get on with creating and another which you fight with just to get a half decent result. That is different from saying "here's a paint brush and paint...now get on wtih it and don't blame the tools".

Coming back to the characters, of course it is a matter of personal opinion whether a body is too skinny, but it does seem to me that Poser (and DAZ) follow the paradigm offered to us by the disgracefully anorexia-oriented fashion press. Whether or not your personal taste is for flesh or bones I am expressing the thought that most available characters give little opportunity to cover the bone structure with flesh in a convincing way, despite the plethora of "boob" job magnets and so forth.

And while I recognise that some artists have succesfully overcome the limitations, looking at the vast majority of output available here and elsewhere, anyone would thing we are all barbie doll collectors. As for animation it is interesting to note that at the average Poser site there are tens of thousands of single frame-orented exhibits, software and addons available as against a mere handful of animation tools and images. I think that indicates far better than I could the gulf between a piece of software claiming to have animation at its heart and the actual reality, and indicates to me how clucky the animation implementation is.

Leonardis