yay!  i'm so glad this has happened.  i was worried for a while that there wasn't enough interest in the other thread for karen1573 to do this, but she took the bull by the horns and got the ball rolling!  thanks so much!

ok, thoughts-

acadia - sorry to disagree with adp001, but (to my eyes) you can do that in poser.  see bagginsbill's posts at rdna (poser 6 forum, i believe) on his vargas shader.  also, look in the daz forums for.... let me see if i can remember this properly, 50's pinups.  i think it was xaa (jim farris) that had one.  iirc, he didn't say anything about how he did it, but he might tell you more in pm.  if you're willing to just try some nodes and settings, i'd suggest the skin node, the velvet node, and edgeblend nodes in diffuse, alternate diffuse and ambient settings.  and starting with an airbrushed skin to begin with (like most in the freebies, some of vali's skins, thorne and sarsa's, etc.  also, if you're using poser 6+, ibl can give a very soft, ambient lighting, so you might try lighting with just one ibl (no image) for ambient and a spot or infinite for contours.

anyone at all worried about the quality of their work -
i can't speak for others, but i don't think that your ability to imagine the perfect picture has anything with your ability to implement it.  nor does it affect your ability to spot flaws.  you don't need to be a gourmet chef to have an educated palette, and you don't need any artistic skills to be able to write a good critique.  i'm not hoping to have people who are better than me teach me to get where they are.  i'm hoping to learn how to be a better artist in general, and i think anyone with a critical eye can do that.

that said, i'll take some advice, keep some for consideration, and some i'll feel won't fit my goals.   and i'll expect others to do the same.  so if i don't seem to act on specifics, please don't be offended- i'm definitely reading and considering every bit of advice.  and i'll never think of my advice too seriously- there are tons of people who know more than i and see things very differently, and you have to do what's best for your own work.

goals -
i want to reach a professional level of quality.  i want one day to do work i'd be proud to show at cgsociety, regardless of how they might react to poser work.    i'm just at a point where i'm realizing i need to work on my own voice and develop a style as well as increase my technical abilities in 3d, color/photo correction, and in digital painting.  i think i can paint hair pretty decently now (enough for a start), and i want to learn to paint clothes.  so if anyone has advice or tutorials that helped them (just to mention, i know the ones in the tutorial section here). 

just a quick mention, there are some pieces missing from my gallery here due to the thumbnail policy, so if you're interested here's a link to my runtime dna gallery.  the missing pics aren't pinups, actually- those were easy to crop into compliance.

i'm really looking forward to this!  i'll be as helpful as i can in my critiques- please pm me if you have any follow-up questions or responses.