Quote -
Here's my take on it, it's MY opinion only, so please take it that way:

 There is a double standard in the Poser community and a general lack of effort and interest.  Female models are morphed to no end by vendors and community members, often resutling in entire product lines being created around the morphs. Why can't the same be done for the CURRENT batch of males? Why does the community seem to think that male models have to be spot on from the outset or they won't bother using/supporting/buying content for them?

 You all have seen Alyson, correct? The majority of you felt she wasn't particularly attractive despite the plethora of facial morphs she came with.  She was just assumed too ugly to make content/character morphs for. One artist comes along and challenges that idea and suddenly, Alsyon's not so bad anymore. SO WHY CAN'T WE DO THE SAME FOR ANY OF THE MALE CHARACTERS ALREADY ON THE MARKET? Simple. Vendor perception.  Vendors think that type of content won't sell. Users can't buy what vendors don't make and thus we're stuck in a cycle of "I don't want to take a risk". 

 The thing the vendor community doesn't seem to have a handle on is that people buy what you tell them to buy. Get enough folks in your corner saying how dope a male morph for Apollo is or how awesome a texture set for Ryan is, back it up with a render or two and you'll have your sales.  Just look at Anastasia and how word of mouth and a few renders was all it took to make Alyson, a character EVERYONE owns already and who has the most built in morphs of any character, cool to own. Now everybody's Anastasia crazy and that's due in no small part to one person taking a risk on a character nobody thought was popular. 

 So you want to know why there isn't more content out there for men - and judging by some of the content for women, quality isn't always important - it's totally because the vendors tell you it won't sell and they don't bother making the stuff. Self fulfilling prophecy that. There's a film quote that I'm going to paraphrase here:  "If you build it, they will come." If you don't, there's nothing for them to buy/make renders of. Who's to blame in that scenario? The user for not buying something that doesn't exist or the vendor for not making it? Yup.  So wake up folks. You want more males - well you already have a bunch - just learn to work with the ones you have and don't be afraid to take a risk on creating new stuff for them.

 

Pretty spot-on there. I've been thinking pretty much the same thing and I was playing with the idea of doing a custom sculpt for Ryan2, the way Blackhearted did for Alyson2.

However, there are drawbacks to that approach, which for me, makes it rather pointless, at least at this point, because I still wouldn't be able to turn it into the figure I'm going for. 

An entirely new sculpt for an existing figure still leaves you with a figure that has virtually no content to be used with, without modifications to existing content that most users just aren't going to bother with. The users who do modify existing content have said repeatedly that tools like WW don't always do that great a job with the fittings. 

So, a heavily modified existing figure, via the way of morphs, is really the same as having a new figure as content still has to be heavily modified or made again. 

Secondly, and more importantly, existing meshes can't be modified without violating Eulas. Morphs are great, but can only do so much. There comes a point where the mesh has to be recut, the cr2 has to be reworked, these are things that both Daz and S-M does not allow. The only time drastic changes like that are allowed for is when the original creator allows it.  I would love to go through and fix all the errors and bad geometry in the G2 models, or the P6 models, and make them so that they could be modified and turned into better characters. But I can't do that without permission from S-M. I even thought about using RTencoder, but Daz still doesn't allow for that, as I understand it, and RTencoder's website hasn't been updated since 2008. Maybe its been bought by someone else. Maybe its been abandoned by its creator. Regardless, if the existing figures can't be used with it any longer, due to eulas, it's pointless to go that route. 

I have a model that is about 90% complete in terms of sculpting. His feet and hands still need some work. From there I'll be building his topology, which will probably take the better part of a day. Once that is done I can begin rigging him. 

I'm thinking about creating a thread here for those who are interested in following his development. I figure it will help in generating interest in him. Some people don't like showing what they're working on, for various reasons, and prefer instead to just reveal it when its complete and ready to go. There are good and bad reasons for doing that. So I'm not sure at what point I should start showing him, but if no one knows he's there, then no one will be interested. Still, that is why I started this thread, to see what people are looking for in terms of content and functionality, in order to combine some of those ideas with the goals I already have for this figure. I do know that he will function at least a bit differently than what is currently available, and his eula will allow for other artists to create their own ideas for him. At least that is the goal.