My post is directly in reference to the inflamatory comments made by petereed. I have been an artist most of my life, working in various mediums, from watercolor, to pencil, photography to airbrush. Thoughout all of school, my main focus of study was art, and learning everything I could from technique, to history. In short, art is my life (so is music, but that is yet another form of art.) I didn't originally think I'd give your ludricous post any attention whatsoever, but after considering your views, I figured that in your own mind at least, they are legitimate. (though a little bit of formatting and grammar would have made it much easier to read). I admit of course, that the fact that I have created models, textures, poses, etc... poser content if you will, puts me in the category of what you call true Poser artists. But before I did that, I was a simple Poser user. I took the bits and pieces that other artists had laid before me, and turned them around to create my own vision. Is this not what (with few exceptions) MOST artists do? Take for example a comic book pencil artist. Once in a while, one comes along with their own unique and individual style, but more often than not, they are using the tools laid before them... their collection of old comic books, the images they remember from the artists who paved the way for them. Take any other style of art, and the same can be said. what artist out there cannot say they've been influenced by the works of DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Picasso, Dali, and so and so forth... the list continues nearly to infinity. Poser art is the same. People are simply using the tools available to them to create their vision of art. And one day, as I did, they will reach the point where they will attempt to construct original props, models, textures, figures, and more for their work. When I started to draw, I learned how to do so by examining other art before and attempting to recreate it. I know of many other artists who had done the same thing, in order to develop their skills. My own partner in crime, John K of Platinum Dragon Illustrations (he and I are in a partnership now with a new line of figures... you may have seen the first of them, the Warlords Collection Barbarian, on sale at DAZ) started out the same way. His original artwork, which has been the very guide by which I have designed the models for the Warlords Collection figures (and Musclebound Michael last year, BTW), has got to be some of the most amazing pen and ink artwork I have ever seen. He has a talent in that medium that I could never hope to reach, yet he has turned primarily from pen and ink and made his new medium digital art. He uses Poser and Photoshop, primarily. Does the fact that he creates images with these now instead of in a "traditional" medium make him any less of an artist? It shouldn't, and in my eyes definately does not. Art is an expression of self. You use the talents within you and the tools available to you to best express yourself, your own views, and you do so however you can. The important part about art is what it means to the artist. And I don't mean to the professional artist. any person who can devote their time and energy to express themselves, be it through a song, a poem, a short story, an image, a sculpture, even a newspaper article, is an artist. (okay, maybe not necessarily newspaper journalists... they pervert the truth to express falsehoods far too often for that to be considered art). My point is that if someone is able to put a part of themselves into something, it is art. They don't have to be a master painter, or have gone to school for years studying sculpture, or even be able to draw soemthing more than stick figures. Art is self-expression, plain and simple. As for Poser art, it is no different. whatever the final resulting image or animation from a Poser render is, it is something that the artist expresses a part of themselves, their views through. That is what makes it art, no matter how good or bad another may find it.