I was always into drawing, modeling and animation.  In the late 80s I still had giant robot fever, and by the time I started high school was pretty heavy into mech modeling and had started dabbling in stop-motion.  I saw the Amiga around 88-89 and talked the folks into getting one of those thinking that CG would eventually replace practical effects in film.  As an avid gamer I could already anticipate the convergence of 3D animation and gaming, so it seemed natural to explore modeling and rendering.  I stuck with the Amiga throughout the 90s, building low poly mechs (such as the one in my avatar) and figures.  I really enjoyed building the mechs, but none of the tools available to me were up to the task of producing detailed poseable figures.  I didn't really have any aspiration toward sculpting characters (at least not before seeing "Sinkha" in Heavy Metal) but felt I needed figures in my scenes to provide a sense of scale and purpose.  I had long held onto hope that the Amiga might bounce back as a viable platform and was optimistic that more programs like Tornado 3D might keep interest in it alive.  Yet even in the Amiga magazines I kept seeing works produced using "crazy" new programs such as Bryce and, of course, Poser.  Poser was something that had no counterpart on the Amiga and so became the biggest temptation toward getting a PeeCee I had felt until that time.  A few short years later, and the writing on the wall was undeniable; the Amiga was never going to be at the forefront of digital design and even Amiga 3D pioneers Caligari had finally jumped ship.  I knew I had to get a PeeCee, and so around late 2000/early 2001 I spent all I had on a K6-3 450 box.

Throughout the Amiga years I had been adamantly anti piracy, at least with regard to productivity apps (I could see clearly how piracy had hurt developers despite helping the Amiga overall).  With most Amiga games being written for PAL machines I had at one time frequently copied games, though later preferred to purchase US developed titles in stores on the rare occasions I came across them.  But having spent my last dime on the new PeeCee and having no software I reluctantly looked around for graphics tools online and finally stumbled across Poser 4.  Seemed pretty harmless to download and install it so I did, although I can at least say I've proudly bought every version since 5 (though I may have skipped one along the way).

My forum stats show that my interest in Poser has had its ups and downs, and since discovering it I've went through a number of creative phases...  I was in an experimental noize band, edited wedding videos, did a lot of low-poly modeling...  But something would always bring me back.  In 2011 I thought I was just about to break away for good (possibly for A:M, or Carrara), then got a surprise contract with a gov't agency to produce a large number of short clips using Poser.  It seemed only fitting to spend some of my fat check on the just released Poser Pro 2012 and a hardware upgrade, and that combination of new features and having more computing power brought me back to Poser in a big way.  I was much more comfortable with Poser having worked on such a large project and was very impressed with the new features and improved render quality.  I had a very productive period of time from the beginning of 2013 until losing about 6-8 months of work to a hard drive failure in August of 2013.  I still have not quite got that momentum back but still use Poser quite often.  I'm currently using PP2014 to render elements for a 2D app game, and am looking forward to installing SR5 and EZMat as soon as I reach a stopping point in that project.