Okay, let me be honest, I have messed around with all this for about 6 years, and still have days where I feel like I have no clue what I am doing.

As to how I got caught up in the madness.  I blame of all things, dolling, yeah, those stupid little pixel dolls.  My sister, then a kid (she is almost 20 now) had seen a dollmaker online and wanted one of her own that, and I quote, 'Did not suck' she hated most of the one's she saw but wanted one of her own.  This of course was her demand for a christmas present.  Me, I made one, a couple hundred hours of pixel shading tiny clothes for her to drag and drop to her hearts content.  Never ever again.  She was relentless after for more stuff for it.

This led to joining a forum for pixel art, which I messed about with for a few years and from there, on the site of one of the members I found renders she had done in at that point Daz Studio (pre-version 1).  Silly me, after talking to her for a bit, went and downloaded it, and it began.  I was running a play-by-post RP site at the time and thought it might be an interesting way to put faces to the characters people were playing.  Too much free stuff, too many purchases, and a need for more hard drive space followed swiftly.

Used DS up until 2008 when I saw Poser 6 on sale just before Christmas.  The rest, as they say is history.  Had to get 7... then 8... Now I am wanting PP2010.