Gimp has a smudge brush I use a lot also.

Turn the bit down so I have a few colors kinda like a 8 bit then blend with smudge .

I don't think there are many making a living purely out of sell pictures, but I think some vendors, Stonemason (Stefan Morrell) for instance, can make a good living out of Poser sales.

Here's his advise for new artists and modelers who are just beginning their career in CG work-

"The help manual usually offers the best answers. Use all the forums & tutorials available too, there is a lot of knowledge out there so dont be afraid to suck it all up & ask questions. Take advice & criticism whenever you can get it.
Everything I've learnt has been from reading forums & tutorials as well as trial & error."

So I guess you have taken the right first steps :)*

Quote - I agree with laurie. You want to make renders that sell? This is the standard you should be trying to aim at.

http://isikol.deviantart.com/gallery/

His galleries are a good example of using Poser combined with Postwork.

Agreed. There can't be much money in doing hyperrealistic Poser renders of people, as it's cheaper and much more efficient just to buy stock photography, which you can then manipulate at will. I'd expect the market would be for stylized or illustration type renders.

Just as an example: The book cover market looks huge these days, with everyone and his dog putting up an e-book, hoping to be the next Shades of Grey. These individuals aren't going to pay as much as Wizards of the Coast for a commission, but as long as you aren't working for the ones who offer $10 and then want a million changes after the fact, there's some work there.

There are thousands of talented artists on Deviant Art. Look at their galleries! But how many of them can do a commission to someone else's specifications and then actually deliver it before deadline? The competition may not be as fierce as it seems at first glance. Creativity and technique are important, but professionalism gets you paid.

Quote - However I was really meaning more stuff like overpainting techniques I guess. It's my oil painter's brain thinking here about how one might work (PS brush work, etc) on top of a render... without just obliterating it, of course...

...I know this is largely just about layering, and building up in increments... guess I'm just interested to know what different folk do in terms of postwork...

Have you considered looking at matte painting tutorials? Or photo manipulation?

Many of the techniques would carry over.

Quote - Have you considered looking at matte painting tutorials? Or photo manipulation?

Many of the techniques would carry over.

Thanks Moriador - yeah good suggestions... I'll have a look along those lines...

Will share if I find anything that looks like it might be of interest to others ;-)

I guess to a great extent it is horses for courses... because what I might be looking to achieve out of postwork will be likely different from the end result that, for example Isikol is looking to get...

...because postwork is, to a great extent, about "styling" an image... whether that be a 3d render... or a photograph... I guess.

I really love Isikol's work. But, stylistically, at the moment, at least I (for example) am aiming for a kind of "hyper-realism"... but with those hyper-real elements arranged in highly surreal scenes... I guess.

That said... it's probably quite a "painterly" kind of "hyper-realism" I'm aiming for at the same time... if that isn't a contradiction!

Whether anyone would ever want to buy an image of mine... I don't know. But I suppose that's just the thing... I don't care.

I'd be very happy, flattered, if someone liked something I made enough to want to buy it. But I simply couldn't make an image with the goal of making something "sale-able". That is the perpetual difficulty, in being an "artist" with the goal of making money out of your art.

Quote - There are thousands of talented artists on Deviant Art. Look at their galleries! But how many of them can do a commission to someone else's specifications and then actually deliver it before deadline? The competition may not be as fierce as it seems at first glance. Creativity and technique are important, but professionalism gets you paid.

Some people are lucky that the art they want to make is commercially viable. Others are more naturally predisponed towards making art for a specific market or taste, even if that isn't their own personal taste.

I certainly find it almost impossible to force myself do the latter...

Which I guess is why I work as a programmer ;-)

Monkeycloud,

http://www.renderosity.com/-i-poser-and-photoshop-integration-i-by-stephen-burns-cms-14884

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Poser-Photoshop-frontier/dp/1598634313

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Photoshop-techniques-integrating-Illustrator/dp/0240811909

and many other tutorials.

Alot of great free brushes, actions, patterns, etc. out there.

The Alien Skin plug-ins are really good, particularly one called SnapArt. Akvis Sketch looks really cool, also... (it's on my eventually wishlist). I have photoshop 8, which is pretty old... But I love it, probably my most used tool.

You can do most of what you need to do with just the filters and tweaks available with PS... One indispensable item is a Tablet and Stylus of some kind so that you can emulate the various pressure qualities of a brush, a mouse is extremely awkward to draw with.

http://www.wacom.com/products/pen-tablets/intuos

Intuos5 touch Medium

Intuos5 touch Large

Are most recommended for those of us on a budget

http://www.wacom.com/products/pen-displays/cintiq

Are kool is ya got the $$$

There's cool tutorials at you tube that might be helpful.

Cool - many thanks for all those links Primorge and RorrKon. I'll check them out.

I've got an A5 Wacom Bamboo at the moment. Basic but has pressure sensitivity at least... and I actually quite like the A5 dimensions, usually.

if i can't get rich quick with poser, what about fame then? 

i've always liked boris vallejo and frank frazetta.

i'll settle for infamy,

"infamy infamy, they've all got it infamy"

Carry on Cleo.    i think they mean Cleopatra?

I'm gonna try my luck doing a Zazzle Orion Dancing Girl theme.  basically fantasy clad green girls. 

though i'm a little stuck, i want the green to look like caked on make-up.

Here is my slant on this. 

This is assuming you want to create quality work and not considering the comments on selling "crap" because you market well.  (that is the case far too often).

I started out as an artist.  Started drawing as a toddler actually.  (or so I'm told) I also have a visual impairment that limits my visual field and I have no depth perception.

I have sold work based on Poser.  But, that is NOT the only tool.  I used Poser as a manican (what it was originally designed for according to Jerry Weinberg, Poser's originator). I use photoshop, Illustrator and traditional drawing and painting tools to create art.  I personally believe that Poser does not create art by itself unless you are a modeler.  You have to CREATE something.  Not pose and render.  I don't mean to insult anyone.  This is my oppinion.  I make Poser images a lot.  I make illustrations with Poser ... but that isn't created art if someone else can gather the figures, props, poses and lights and cameras and duplicate it.  That is my belief as to why you can't easily make money with JUST Poser renders.  You have to make something extradinary.  Take the tools and be original with them.  Plus ...

You need to understand the principles of design and composition.  How the lighting works in an image, how to juxtapose your objects ... now to use color, form and mood.  You see so many Poser images and can't tell what isn't working?  it's generally dealing with these features.  I miss the mark a lot and I've got a BA in art!  I understand these concepts and still I don't get it much of the time.  It takes a true artist and gifted creator to make Poser work as a stand alone art tool.  I've not found the perfect formula, a few have, but it's not easy.  AND ...

As said before marketing, finding the audience who will appreciate and want what you create ... finding how to produce the finished renders.  Prints? Comics? Bookcovers? what is it you want to create in the end.  You need a personal business plan. 

I've done all of this ... I have a Graphic Design company.  I'm struggling to get started.  It's NOT easy.  I've rambled again.  Sorry all.

Just IMHO.

Boni

I wasn't suggesting that one should make crap and then concentrate almost exclusively on marketing. I was only pointing out that, given how well even crap can sell with the right marketing, just how important the actual selling part of the business is.

Too many people have the impression that all they have to do is make stuff they like, and if it's good enough, people will buy it. I read posts on DA all the time from disappointed artists wondering why they can't sell prints. But no one seems to have explained to them that it just doesn't work like that. Writing is exactly the same. And even authors who have a contract with an established publisher seem to be bemoaning the fact that they end up spending more time on the road, at book signings and so on, than they do actually writing. And that's if they're lucky. If they're not, the publisher prints 5,000 copies and lets them flop, with no marketing assistance at all.

and then there is finding the right value for your work.

The balance between what people would spend for it, and not selling for dirt cheap, either.

I used to make everything myself. Never bought content.

But when I see the current quality increase, and the unbelivable LOW prices??
I wonder.

There is some HI QUALITY work out there at bargain dollars.

Devide by 2, and the creator gets what??
1-5 dollar per item sold??

Knowing that it takes quite a LOT of time to build a Hi quality object file with HI quality textures.

Yes vilters, it's quite sad. Ya could almost call it sweatshop labor. LOL

Laurie

sometimes daz buys out a content from a pa. 

is that lucrative? creating to sell all the rights for it?

Quote - sometimes daz buys out a content from a pa. 

is that lucrative? creating to sell all the rights for it?

It's better then being broke and hunger.

Probably why you can always find a starving Artist working in a restaurants.

I think the vender have other incomes and do this as a few extra bucks
as they improve there skills just in case ILM or Blizzard calls.

Don't AerySoul work for a gaming company now.

If I were selling prints locally, I’d give some nicely framed ones to places that would display them like small businesses and include a business card in the frame. I’d be more likely to buy something from a local artist where I could see the product than something off the internet – not that you can’t sell there as well. There’s a fair amount of toon/kids content for Poser, maybe there’s a kid’s market for art like posters, etc., especially if you have some examples in places like pediatrician’s offices, day care and such so that the kids will bug – excuse me – encourage their parents to buy them. You could do custom birthday cards, posters etc. 

Without exposure it doesn't matter how good you are.  Build a gallery of your work on every site you can find that allows it.  Try to only post the best of your work. This evolves over time. Facebook and other social networking sites that have gallery features are also a good place, and helps you start networking with other artists. Post links on you facebook page to a couple of your main galleries and your own website if you have one. 

Learn photoshop or gimp and experiment with postwork. The best poser images are post-worked and don't look like poser renders. Try to avoid using the mainstream poser figures like V4, M4, etc - as these are instantly recognizable by just about anyone that's been familiar with poser for any length of time, so the less like those figures your characters look, the better. The more of your own original models you can use, the better.

Find other artists' blogs and videos (vimeo, youtube, etc) that demonstrate their techniques with painting. Look for videos that deal specifically with painting images completely in photoshop (or similar software). If you can paint well in photoshop, then you can post-work a poser render.

Find images from other digital artists that inspire you in style, composition, technique, etc, and try to recreate them, adding your own changes, elements, etc. This is a good way to practice and get more comfortable and confident with your work.

Show enough diversity in your style and subject matter to attract a broader range of followers, but choose a few niches that you enjoy and are good at. The niche themes is where you'll get the most if you want to try using a merchandising site like cafe press, etc., Try to keep things relatively similar, but diverse enough to attract fans from multiple areas of interest. Fantasy/sci-fi themed art sells more than anything else on those sort of sites, so if everyday people/life is what you're rendering/painting, chances are less in your favor (unless they're the naked kind, but I don't think most of them allow that). 

If you're any good at storytelling, try developing a plot that several of your images follow. It doesn't have to be a full length comic or novel - short stories that are unique and can be told in a handful of images work too. Even if your story doesn't sell, it demonstrates your skills and ability to follow a consistent theme, opening yourself up to other artists/writers, that might like your work and want to collaborate with you, or hire you for a project.

Fan art. Try doing a few gallery images of famous characters, roughly related to whatever your own personal style is. Or not - that doesn't even really matter. Point is, when someone googles "Superman" your gallery will eventually show up, giving you one more hit, one more potential client or contact. For added effect, try doing a few famous characters that don't get so much attention - (such as Cheetara or Blade), as that will bring your results higher up on the google searches for those names, as opposed to the millions of fan-art spidermen.  

Once you're confident enough with whatever techniques you've developed, a good source of added exposure is doing tutorial videos and blogs. A lot of digital artists have been taking this approach and it works out pretty well for many of them. People like watching other people paint, draw, etc, and learn their techniques. It also exposes you to other artists. Networking is as vital as marketing. Most successful artists get their breaks through networking with other artists. 

From there, your options are pretty open-ended. Ignore those that claim you can't make money. You just can't do it over night. It takes full time commitment and constant experimenting with new ideas and getting your work seen by as many people as possible. Eventually someone somewhere will like what you're doing and want to pay you to do more of it. 

Good luck.

~Shane

seems there is another gimmik, stir up controversy with gory promos and bump the topics to death.

Q: How Can I make Money with Poser?

A: sell you copy on ebay and get a steady job instead.

OK, seriously, making money with Poser isn't going to happen for most of us. You can try selling your images online, but you'd be one in million. Perhaps selling them locally on a market or so would work better, but then you'd have to invest into getting them printed.

You can try creating content for Poser, that is not making money directly with Poser, but still using Poser in the process. Some people make good money doing that, but contrary to popular believe, most people make a little or hardly anything at all. There may even be more vendors then customers, at least there are too many of them to make some serious money.

Then there are comics or images for books, you can try that. Works for some, but again, lot's of people do it and most don't succeed.

The other one is game graphics, you could team up with other who develop a game and work on graphics using poser.

Whatever you do, you need to find an audience, that's the important part. If you find an audience that likes whatever you do, you may end up with making some money. The most important thing you need to do is let go of the idea that you can make a living from using Poser..... sorry to disappoint you, but those slots have been filled already. If you use Poser for fun and then slowly start finding you audience, you may earn a little and the more you create the more you earn, but just don't expect tons of money.

Connatic, I have never, ever seen a question about "how do I make money doing X?" where the responses weren't almost all negative and filled with doom and gloom. It doesn't matter what X is - commercial real estate, programming, digging ditches, selling small parts of you body to starving dogs - it's always negative. I don't understand the phenomen.

Still, Poser doesn't seem to lend itself to too many opportunities, especially if you are looking at what you do as fine art. A more productive approach IMO would be to see yourself as a commercial artist. I can easily see Poser used to illustrate children's books, technical manuals or comic books.

How to make money with a hammer, a srewdriver, a fork or a shovel?

Poser (or DS) or Photoshop are tools in your toolbox.
What you do with them is limited by your own imagination.

The true artist will make money.
(But he would have anyway, with or without Poser or DS, or Photoshop, or Gimp Or?? Or?? Or??).

It would be quite a Poser challenge to create what is considered "Fine Art" in the contemporary sense of the word. Count on being considered an illustrator no matter how you personally view your creations.

"The true artist will make money."

That would explain Vincent Van Gogh and countless other posthumous masters.

I would say that a "true artist" makes art regardless of what ANYONE thinks of it.

"How Can I make Money with Poser?"

Well, you could make a start with producing some artwork, maybe something which stands out from the Poser crowd? Then you could market your work in such a way as to have publishers beating a path to your door.  Then you could maybe charge a fee.  

Seriously, make some art - it's an obvious starting point. 

I'm not a vendor, so can't address/advise how to make money vending Poser content.

For local jobs ,Friends and Family can help you.
Insurance ,auto salesmen before they hire you they want to know you have a lot of contacts like friends and family.

This sweet girl wanted me to do a cartoon as a blueprint for her kids birthday cake.
So wally world would know what to put on the birthday cake.
I thought I was pricing the job low when I told her sure for $50.00.
When I saw the look on her face I realized that was to much .
So I said we have a $5.00 dollar special for kids birthdays.

After I thought about it.
This girl works for minimum wage.
Her weekly check probably only $150.00 a week.

I like the girl and wanted to date her so the money was irrelevant anyways.

The girl didn't know what size the cake was.
She goes just make a lot of drawings .
Spent 2 days on the cartoons.
Then wally world would not make the cake cause of copyright infringements.

The family views me as a black sheep.
They did not want the sweet girl dating me.

--

@millighost  LOL  That cracked me up.

Quote - Connatic, I have never, ever seen a question about "how do I make money doing X?" where the responses weren't almost all negative and filled with doom and gloom. It doesn't matter what X is - commercial real estate, programming, digging ditches, selling small parts of you body to starving dogs - it's always negative. I don't understand the phenomen.

Still, Poser doesn't seem to lend itself to too many opportunities, especially if you are looking at what you do as fine art. A more productive approach IMO would be to see yourself as a commercial artist. I can easily see Poser used to illustrate children's books, technical manuals or comic books.

I don't think this thread has been full of almost all negative doom and gloom.

On the contrary, I think it's been overwhelmingly positive.

Unless of course by "negative" you mean telling people that in order to make money they will probably have to work pretty hard.

All self-employment takes hard work. It's not like being at the office and being able to take time to surf the web and post in forums because you feel like a having a break -- all afternoon -- because your boss isn't watching. When you're self-employed, the boss is  ALWAYS watching. And if you want to make a livable paycheck, (at least in the beginning) that boss needs to be a hard-ass. But other than that, making money selling things is totally possible.

Been involved with selling poser content for nearly 10 years, I can safely say one thing that way. You ain't get gonna rich. That said if you run it as a second job/business, you can make a few quid from doing it if you make the right things and diversify. For poser content, if you don't want to make slutwear or hair, biggest sellers will be buildings/sets and real world everyday vehicles. By diversification, forget t-shirts and sites like zazzle. Waste of time. Get out there and talk to small business. Use poser/renders on anything from photo manipulations, magazines, leaflets, web designs. Basically anything you can print on. For example, this image shows some ContraVision, aka vehicle wrap. At around 1/2 metre square, it's the smaller of two images. Which will be used to give the appearance theres a dinosaur behind a wall.

Poser images are neither photographs nor paintings - both of which have established markets and appeal. As some have mentioned, starting with a render and then doing a lot of postwork e.g. painting hair and clothing (really well of course) may be the best bet.

hmmm, not sure how the tax laws work but maybe you can give stuff to non profits and claim a nice deduction … maybe set up an account in the Caymans …

All you can do is put yourself out there.  Look into marketing tactics if you're interested in book covers.  And put your work into online galleries.  I sold the rights to one of my images to a major ad agency for 1 year.  They found the image online and contacted me through that website.  It was a nice chunk of change too.  

Quote -
Most end users do not create (few of us do) , but most just Pose @ render.

Those that ""create"" are the true artists.

Yuck, that's like saying most painters aren't artists because they just apply paint to canvas and don't make the paint or paintbrushes from scratch. Unless I'm misinterpreting you, that's aweful way to look at things.

Quote - > Quote -

Most end users do not create (few of us do) , but most just Pose @ render.

Those that ""create"" are the true artists.

Yuck, that's like saying most painters aren't artists because they just apply paint to canvas and don't make the paint or paintbrushes from scratch. Unless I'm misinterpreting you, that's aweful way to look at things.

This argument and "this vs that" app has always been around.

C4D ,zBrush ,Poser ,Paints ,Cameras.

Are all different mediums , that get different results.

As long as You get the results you want is all that matters.

--

It’s part of the perennial ‘what is art’ arguments that have no answer. A person’s position says more about their personality and world view than any illusory universal truth. Is someone who creates collages using found objects ‘creative’ or the photographer who merely documents existing reality? Everyone ends up using existing elements – even the painter who makes their own pigments uses chemical compounds that were here before. In that sense, only God is a creator and I’m not 100% sure about her. IMO the creativity lies in how people take the components, – no matter how primitive or sophisticated – and combines them to produce the end result. It’s like these competitions where they give kids a box of junk and challenge them to build something that performs a particular function. Everyone comes up with a different solution. There, you have an objective criterion, either the egg breaks when you drop it or it doesn’t. ‘Success’ in art is, by its nature, almost entirely subjective. Like pornography, everyone knows it when they see it but everyone disagrees.

So Poser uses premade stuff. No two people are going to create the exact same image, even using the same content. Some will be more ‘correct’ from a technical standpoint or according to ‘norms.’ We’ve all seen art that broke the rules in every way and been hailed as great, even if we personally consider it worthless. Creativity exists by default. Unless you’re trying to follow an exact set of instructions on pain of death, you’ll create something unique, even if you’re not enthusiastic about the process. Of course you’ll be more creative if you’re engaged in and enjoying the process and not just working off the random firing of your synapses. I know a lot of people, artists in particular, will disagree, but I think a lot of the debate over what is art and who is creative is, at best a matter of taste and, at worst, more about ego gratification. That may be fine for the artists but since we’re talking about making money, we should recognize that the average consumer or viewer probably doesn’t really give a whit about the creative process or standards or any of the other inside baseball stuff. Half the ones who claim to are probably posers (no pun intended) trying to impress. At the end of the day, most people are probably going to value their kid’s precious childhood scribbles more than anything else.

Quote - All you can do is put yourself out there.  Look into marketing tactics if you're interested in book covers.  And put your work into online galleries.  I sold the rights to one of my images to a major ad agency for 1 year.  They found the image online and contacted me through that website.  It was a nice chunk of change too.  

Perhaps my first post was poorly construed or worded, but thank you Kendra and others. I'm not looking to get rich from Poser, just make a little extra cash.

I guess what I was really trying to ascertain was how could I go about getting my artwork noticed by people who might like to use me on some of their projects. I think Kendra comes closest to an answer for me.

Thanks for the replies.

Simple.

1. Render Porn

2. Make sure it's fucked up porn.

3. Ask yourself, does what I just rendered turn me on?

If it does, throw it up on a website with paysite and promote it with seo. The only hard part is rendering something top-notch that stimulates.  95% of 3D renders for adult are complete shit.

Stop trolling Zanzo. EClark has gotten what he asked for before you showed up.

PS: Would you PLEASE learn to use the Language check box??

Laurie

sigh wrong site Zanzo.... you want renderotica for that...

What a charming individual.

Anyone familiar with Laveyan Satanist Destruction Rituals?

Hmmm?, Oh, sorry. Just thinking out loud.

I'm a left-hander for some things... well more ambidextrous tbh. Currently using the mouse right-handed.

But I'll pick up my tablet pen with the left...

 ;-)

Quote - Stop trolling Zanzo. EClark has gotten what he asked for before you showed up.

PS: Would you PLEASE learn to use the Language check box??

Laurie

Language check box? Here I have a better idea.  Get the renderosity developer to add a language filter and let people choose if they want to see bad words or not. That is the proper way to do it.

But because I respect you guys so much I will bend to this backwards way of thinking lol.

Hey, not our rules. Heh.

Laurie

zazzl isn't making me rich. it isn't making anything. :(   http://www.zazzle.com/kittehgirrl :)

could i really make money rendering adult entertainment?  is there a niche for toonish a.e.?

Quote - Simple.

1. Render Porn

2. Make sure it's fucked up porn.

3. Ask yourself, does what I just rendered turn me on?

If it does, throw it up on a website with paysite and promote it with seo. The only hard part is rendering something top-notch that stimulates.  95% of 3D renders for adult are complete shit.

what does seo mean?

thanks.

SEO means search engine optimisation.It's where you design a website pages to be more search engine friendly. Extreme SEO is kinda like an arms race between site and search engine. usually at the expense of good design. It's also time consuming as you need to constantly change things as the search engines do.