Quote -
I got into this thing because I wanted to make monsters and toons.  I can't make monsters right now - which sucks but that's another story - and there's little point in making toons only to see them sit on the shelf and collect dust. So what is it? Is it the difficulty in morphing outside of the original shape but maintaining the style that is the poblem? Is it some unkown aversion to enjoying at home the same thing you pay to see in theaters? What?! lol. Seriously. I had this whole line of toons I wanted to create - very Pixar like stuff if I can say that - but I don't think they'll see the light of day because of the lukewarm reception.  Is it that they fall victim to the same problem in the first half of my post?

first of all, i think it depends on your perception of popularity.  Lady Littlefox's toons seem to be doing pretty well, imho. as have the Toon Baby, Nursoda's figures, and other cuties.  no, they're not V4 and M4, but only those figures are.  V4 has that circular popularity logic that's self sustaining, she's the only one that can come out with any number of faults and the populace will still say, "Well, merchants will fix them.  You can't expect perfection."  not even M4 is viewed so uncritically.

and i think a lot of people who use toons are part of other communities and don't post here. like the people into furry characters.  that said, i figure you know more about comic and toon based communities than i do, as well as how well Lady Littlefox actually does in sales.

so the next issue i'd say is: this isn't an animation community.  there _is_no animated form of Michael Whelan, or Boris Vallejo, or Brom.  i think there's only one Frazetta animation.  conversely, you look at still CG and it's dominated by SF and fantasy illustration.  well, to judge by book covers and such, the old guard is oil painters and the new guard is photomanipulators.  and that influences what work people do here, more than what Pixar or Dreamworks does.

part of making something a toon is making it exaggerated and unreal. that's just the opposite of what most people trying to bring their imagination to life want.  and Shrek may have be popular, but Pirates of the Caribbean is more so.

lastly,  i think the thing is that by being exaggerated and unreal, toons are also individual.  the whole point of buying a figure is to make your own artwork, not someone else's.  if you want a toon figure more successful than what's out there now,  you have to really think about how to make a toon that can be just as versatile as V4 in terms of genre, style, etc.  i mean, Pixar's Incredibles are nice, but that's one movie.  they don't look anything like the people in Ratatouille.  i can't see trying to make any of either of those fit in either of the other's movies just in terms of storyline.  but i could easily imagine both of those storylines with versions of any generation of DAZ figure (and their morphs).   you need to make figures others can project their vision onto just as well as you can.

just as V4 stylistically fits the average of look this community wants, you'd have to discover the average of what this community wants a toon to look like and deliver it.  i don't know if that would be worth it to you, especially since i think the prior two issues are going to limit the effectiveness of sacrificing your specific artistic vision to popular opinion.  to go further, i'm not sure there is a single norm for looks in toons in the Western community (which we largely are) the way there is for real women.  i mean, millions of dollars are spent on media in various forms promoting very consistent looks for women.  and V4 basically fits that look.  that level of uniformity just doesn't exist for comics or animation.  at least not yet.  that may change now that Disney owns Marvel.:rolleyes: