Hi, thanks for a quick reply. Your bending question - sorry if I am too verbose:

Your are correct, the back verts do not bend much, but, they give a gradual bend rather than the 3 current obvious bend points.

It's about the subtle movements that make the natural look. For instance

A person, say gymnast, can twist keeping the lumbar spine (stomach/gut region) straight and only twist the thorax spine (chest region). This will make the ribcage on the side that is twisted forward, project a little over the abdomen in a diagonal flex of the ribcage, and twisting the skin over the abdomen.

The ribcage functions differently from your thought. Each rib has a flexible ligament/cartiledge joint giving rotation where it joins the sternum (the vertical breast plate bone between left and right ribs), and has a simialr joint where it joins the spine. This lets the ribcage to substantially charge shape and distort as the spine twists - and why the rib cage can be depressed 2" in CPR, and why it can expand as we breathe.

So, the ribcage is not the rigid structure fixed to the spine that the figures are modelled on, and I guess it doesn't matter if the figures are clothed. The ribcage does reduce the maximum possible bend and twist of the upper Thorax spine by around 35%

Yes, good guess the centre point of pivot for the vertebrae is about 4 to 5cm max from the outside back.

From the top of the lumbar spine (vertebrae L5) which is around top of stomach, a person can bend so their shoulders are about 25 degrees forward, and about 8 deg backwards, athletes more.

As you say, maximum bend occurs at the hip. Lumbar and Thorax spine together will give a bend of around 45 deg without hip bend, but, obviously gradually, vertebrae by vertebrae.

If you wanted, I could send a medical sudy showing how the ribcage flexes at its joints and chnages shape, I have it in digital archive somewhere - amazingly it was only fully understood how it moves in recent times. Some of Deviant Art's work recognises how the spine and ribcage move.

All this may be taking your new figure into a level of perfection you do not need. But, it would be an exciting one to use. We would certainly buy it.

Were you thinking of a male figure too ??

 

Regards Jonathan