I decided to post a pic at last, hoping for advice from you good people. The thing is not finished yet, the figure primarily needing a skin texture. I've used Michael 2, Yann hair by Neftis and the Sturk/Lampton remapped bodysuit. The character is my own creation, and the gent will be holding a flame as soon as I create one that doesn't look like a big blue, red and yellow dog turd. :) I'll faff around with the hair at some point, too - I like the idea of a red streak. So, should I continue with this here Poser lark, or should I be banned from the computer forever? Fire away, people.

Go for it! It looks pretty darn good to me. What might help with the flame is to encase it in a glass sphere. That might soften the dog turd effect. Why did that comment remind me when the puppy ate a box of crayons?

Thanks for the advice, I'll try it tomorrow. Well, today, I mean - it being almost 6 am here in the UK. :)

looks good! Hey here's a thought - when your done with what your doing you might try branching the character off into a young Elvis. I'm not a huge Elvis fan but even I can see that with a little work "The King" could live again. - TJ

Hehe, I think I'll pass on the Elvis for now. I'm more of a punk/metal guy myself. I may do Jaz Coleman from Killing Joke next. Here's the latest version of the WIP - after playing with shaped for flames. Any suggestions?

SamTherapy, At the present I've only got P4 so I have to go from that perspective. there may be more advanced techniques in P5. you could check out transmapping. the best tuts are about hair, but you could probably convert the information to your flame. Kosaburo's site has a tutorial on transmapped hair. digitalbabes2 or something like that. if you have trouble finding it IM me and I'll look up the url for you. also search under Hein's light in the tutorials section at the top of the Renderosity page. Also Anton has been revealing some of the techniques he uses lately. search poser forum under Pheonixrising. good rendering, - TJ

P5? I'm using P4PP, have only recently bought it and can't afford to upgrade yet. It may be an impossible dream, but what I'm hoping to do is achieve good quality images in Poser with no post work. I'm very comfortable with Photoshop, but it seems like cheating, if you get my drift. :) I'll look into the tutorials you mentioned, though. Thanks for the heads up.

don't forget to post your improvements . . . fire has been a 'hot' topic in the past. I'm sure a lot of people would like to see what you come up with. - TJ