Great analogy, Teri.

One last thing:

"So are we.... It was our hope that we could have kept it open. Sadly, we were fighting a loosing battle"

is a load of complete horseshit.

I'm hoping the backlash of this act of idiocy will be to hurt Renderosity financially. I doubt it will, but I'm hoping. Speaking strictly for myself, I intend to show my displeasure by not spending another penny with Renderosity. I also intend to spend a lot more time at PoserPros (their Chicken Coop OT Forum can be interesting) and 3D Commune, and to slowly withdraw any and all affiliation with this site.

To all of my regular OT comrades; I have developed a genuine affection for each and every one of you; even the ones I consistantly disagree with and poke verbal sticks at. Mon1alpha, Allen9, Teri, BDC, bonestructure, jchimim, jumpstartme2, Bobasaur, c1rcle, Alleycat169, Hauksdottir, geoegress, Rockatansky, kawecki, aleks, quixote, the long lost Scarab, ChickenHawk in his many ridiculous guises, and anyone I forgot; I salute you. My morning coffee just won't be the same without you. See ya'

Wow, I just stumbled onto this discussion. Very interesting stuff. Lots of people are making some very valid points; and several people are making some pretty asinine ones as well.

"nude children is child porn. no matter what poses, and or objects are in it." Firekath

Needless to say, by your narrow definition I guess that counts for photography, as well. When we gave our now four-month-old baby his first bath, my wife and I, as parents have done since cameras got cheap enough for the average Joe and Jane to afford, took photos of the event (I also took pictures moments after his birth; oops, he was naked then, too). When we went to get the digital photos output, the pimply-faced shithead kid at WalMart gave us a bunch of static because in one of the baby's bath photos, if you looked reallllly close, you could see his wee lil' dingus right there near the water's surface. The kid refused to allow us to keep the print; said he was going to keep it, bring it to his supervisor's attention and call the proper authorities. At that point the situation got really ugly...I snarled and yelled, other customers were solicited for their support (which, oddly enough, all of them within earshot were happy to lend), my wife cried, it was insisted by myself that the store manager be called immediately, it was insisted to the store manager by my wife that the police be called immediately, the store manager was told by myself that he was to have his employee release ALL of my photographs or I would "have my attorney so deep in your ass that his yarmulke will be hanging out of your mouth". Finally the store manager relented, returned our photos of our beautiful boy, in his controversial 'nude' state of being, and sheepishly apologized, saying that "with all of the obscenity laws in place, the company had to be very careful to protect itself from liability."

What's the purpose of the JettBoy's long-winded tale? The Aseops Fables-like moral of the story? Pretty simple; contrary to what some may believe, not ALL representations of nude children are pornographic in nature. If someone honestly believes that, I would have to go out on a limb and say that they know very little about art, very little about children and very little about pornography. I hear WalMart is always hiring...

An excellent first try!

Truespace (even the older, cheap-ass versions) can make 3D text using any and all of the fonts in your system and then export as .dxf files.

Thanks for the ego boost!

Thanks all for the suggestions. I may end up purchasing the Millenium Girls at some point. They look great, but that's probably much more detail than I actually need to set up a sketch. Most of the paid illustration work I do is traditional hand work (3D-computer stuff is a lot of fun, but most of my clients want the old school type illustration using paint, brushes, etc.). I'll most likely just use the stock Poser children and add all the necessary details; clothing, hair and such, in the painting process.

Just what the doctor ordered! They had the exact hat I needed for my new pic of a fat State Trooper with a doughnut. Thanks a million, Papa.

Yup, that's a comb over, alright.

My folks divorced when I was less than a year old and I didn't actually "meet" my dad until I was 13 or so. By this time the old man was bald as an egg on top, but still had a nice crop on the sides and back. His clever strategy was to grow it almost shoulder length on one side and whip it up, up and over the bald area (usually assisted by various hairsprays, pomades, gels...God only knows what else) and sort of 'weave' it into the other side. There were always gaps where shiny bald skin shone through, and these gaps would of course get sunburned.

Some of my fondest memories of the old man involve him climbing out of the pool with short, neatly trimmed hair on one side of his melon and this long, wet curtain of hippie-length hair on the other...all crowned by a two-tone red and white tiger-striped dome. When I eventually go bald (at the ripe old age of 38 it's already starting), I plan on wearing the remains of my mane cropped velvet short or, better still, just buying a hat.

About twenty years ago, back when I was 18, I had a cousin who worked in the oilfields of West Texas. One day while working, defined herein as doing his dangerous job to earn a buck, a massive fire broke out and Mitchell got his ticket punched almost instantly. Was it a tragedy? You bet your ass it was. Was he a hero? Of course not. Had his job involved protecting the public from fires or criminals (or orbiting the planet in a high-tech tin can, for that matter) would that have made him a hero? Again, nope. What if Mitch had seen a clear escape route but still lingered in the blaze to pull two other men to safety...hero? Yes! Heroism is defined as a selfless act, so by definition a man who is doing his job, however dangerous, is not a hero...just a brave man.

What happened to Columbia was indeed a national tragedy, but dying a nasty death while performing the duties of one's job doesn't make one a 'hero'.

As a resident (an unwilling victim of circumstance, actually) of the deep South, I think this is hilarious. Few things are more satisfying than seeing some redneck Klansman getting their just desserts. Unfortunately, despite the humor involved, there is one thing wrong with this pic...everyone knows that heaven is staffed entirely by the Irish.

In the four or five months that I've been posting work and hanging around here I can't recall ever seeing an image in the Hot 20 that wasn't an illustration of a fantasy or sci fi-based female. Granted, I don't look at the Hot 20 on anything that could be considered a regular basis, so given the law of averages I'm sure that work in other genres and genders must have been included at some point. Does the JettBoy think that all fantasy/sci fi-based girly illustration is bad? No, of course not. I like fantasy and sci-fi as much as anyone and I just love naked women (don't mind 'em clothed, either), but a steady diet of Frazetta/Royo/Boris Vallejo clones gets pretty damn boring after a while regardless of the quality of the piece or the talent of the artist. I would be much more interested in the Hot 20 if there was even a hint of variety in it.

Man, candor and honesty are so rare around here. Say it, brother!