Well, this is a 'dummies' guide. I'll put my hands up and confess to being such, in certain respects at least.
My curse is that my observation skills far exceed my technical understanding in the material room...oh, and I have a poor memory. I can often make things work based on what I think they 'should' look like, but that usually leads to one-render solutions and at a fair cost of time.
I feel I've rarely been able to move past the technical stumbling blocks to really focus on trivial aspects like composition.

 

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

                                      www.danielroseartnew.weebly.com