Sorry for the delay in responding.  Thank you all for your responses.  It's definitely a lot to think about.

I like the idea of playing around with Andy to get a feel for how everything fits before I try to actually model a character (I downloaded the Bumblebee Transformer model.  Supposedly, it took the guy 200 hours to make that, rig it, and so on.  My hat is off to him).  If I may ask a few more questions:

1) My main animation work is 2D in Moho.  There, have have this thing called "switch layers," where one layer has several images that you can display one at a time by switching between them, such as hands in different gestures and poses.  I take it the layers management mentioned above is similar to that?  Is that stock with Poser, or is it a separate download/purchase?

2) As long as I'm bringing up Moho, I'm guessing, since video can be incorporated into the background for reference, that an audio track can also be incorporated (I do lip flaps manually, I don't like how it looks when the software "guesses" when the mouths are supposed to move)..  Is it possible to just incorporate an audio to get lip syncs and other things right, and can it export the audio to the resulting media file, or is it video only and I have to add it in in an editor later?

3). This is a big one - usage rights.  I have Poser 8 because it runs under Linux and Mac 10.6.4, and Poser 11 for the modern machines and OS's.  Am I allowed to use the stock Poser models, props, poses, animations, etc. for my animations, or are there limitations like no commercial use or private only?  Keep in mind, you are talking to a guy who will spend an entire weekend just sorting through his fonts looking for what he can and can't use legally, and I frankly don't remember what the EULA's said.  I understand the EULA's for things downloaded here on Renderosity or other sites have their own rules for what you can and can't do, I'm just wondering about the stock configuration, so if I alter one of the models and animate it, will I still be legal?

4) So, suppose I make a Little People model in Blender.  I export it as an .fbx.  I load it into Poser.  I rig it up.  Is it now possible to save and export it as an actual Poser figure (I think the file extension is .pz2 or something like that), or when I save it, it only saves it in the project I'm working on, and I would have to re-import and re-rig if I do another scene or move to another machine?

I'm still getting the hang of things.  So far, the biggest obstacles to me are the textures (I'm just starting to explore the UV mapping aspect) and the lighting.  Good gravy, the lighting is tough.  I need to learn how to properly light the set/scene, and that's not counting going into the Materials room for things like ambience and such.  I'm looking forward to having some more time to play around when Labor Day weekend comes up and I have plenty of time, so I'm going to get my head set straight before that.