Thanks Momodot, that's a great tip!

Thanks, those are great textures! Site appears to be back up.

Thanks lhiannan for answering my newby question. I was looking in all the wrong places, as usual. BTW, Nice Kitty!

Once again thanks to all! Not just solutions to my basic question, but some great techniques I never even suspected were there, even a filter. What a great resource this forum is!

Thanks PhilC and Little Dragon...both those suggestions work great!

FWIW, I've been doing some newby experiments mixing different skin textures in Photoshop. I found that by putting two different textures on different layers, I can sort of cross-dissolve between them by adjusting the transparency of the top texture. Here's a combination of StefyZZ's Mediterranean Yoda texture "mixed" with the Nordic Millenium Kids texture. As the Yoda layer becomes more transparent, the Mill Kid layer shows through producing an ever pinker skin. On the Mill Kids texture I had to rubber stamp out the eyebrows and some of the lips, and adjust up the contrast of the final blended image. The greenish neck is part of the un-adjusted Yoda body texture...the lighting makes it look a vastly greener than in does in normal use. There are probably easier ways to create similar effects, what say you old timers?

No, I don't regret buying the Daz textures. They're very Nordic whereas Ludivine is very Mediterranean - that gives a good range of complexions. I suppose the smooth, light skinned DAZ textures would also make a good canvas for evolving other character textures. The basic Mill kid faces are definitely hard to model in an interesting way. They're sort of chubby, which prevents them from having a lot of angular face planes. Face planes (or bone structure) contributes a lot to facial expression, and in this way Valentin's scrawny Ludivine morphs are truly excellent. The stock Mill Kids get a lot more interesting with the Ludivine morphs. No, I won't ask for my money back unless a product is misrepresented. The Mill kids are well represented on the DAZ site, and I feel if I got what I expected. Thanks once again to all for their input! And special thanks to Valentin! You are a genius!

Silly pazu! Ludivine sends a little kiss to her true creator, M. Valentin.

Thanks to all for the replies and info! I didn't realize the Kozaburo hair could be colored and fitted with MAT files, that adds a lot of range right there. Hey you other newbys, you better learn about MAT files quick, they're barely mentioned in the manual. I feel resistant to heavy postwork, since mostly what I like to do is character studies where reality is not so important. But I suppose it's inevitable.

Betty Boop and the Egyptian Gods? Why didn't Max Fleischer think of this! Betty as Hatshepsut! Koko as Osiris! Bimbo as Horus! You gotta promise to share these images with us! ;^)

Doh! Ludivine is NOT a Maya Studio character! She someshow wound up in my Maya Studio folder. You have watch these kids constantly. Like I said, Stupid Newby! Wonderful character, much more expression and range than any of her uptight Mill Kid sisters. An old character animator's dream. OK, I got her to load and map OK by loading the MAT files from the Poses pulldown, hadn't seen those before. Like a dope, I was trying to just overlay the texture .jpg's by creating a node in the Materials Room. The Poser manual makes only the most oblique reference to MAT files, but now I see the light. Let's hear it for MAT files! Also learned that it's best to load the MAT's in the base pose.

Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com/article/articleview/31/1/93/?nf=1

Speaking of hair...here's a URL to a tutorial on using hair to make flowing robes! I got one of those new Wacom tablets the other day. What I found out is that over the years I unconsciously developed a drawing style based on dragging my fingertips on the mouse surface to sort of smooth out the mouse motion. When I went to the pen, I lost the smoothing and am having a hard time drawing a straight line or smooth curve! It'll take some relearning.

Looks good to me! I guess the biggest catch with painting is that you get locked in to a particular lighting scheme for your render. My painting skills are nowhere near as good as yours. While searching "wedding photo" on ebay I've noticed lots of super formal wedding pictures with the dresses carefully arranged in front almost exactly like your image. I'd be tempted to do some rubber stamping from an image like that.

Thanks randym77 for all the effort you've expended on this issue! Yeah, it's probably some sort of directory thing, although Ludivine does show up in the Pose pulldown, and I can get her morphs loaded. It's really helpful that you verified that there's no problem with the download. I'll take a look at it again tomorrow with a fresh brain. What I like about the Ludivine model is that the morphs are centered on a tomboy look. I also have a Britani model, but that one doesn't morph younger or plainer very well. I want to do a character piece on gossiping ten-year-olds with lots of exaggerated expressions and postures, and need some expressive characters a tad on the cartoony side. I'll work on developing a few new characters by Photoshopping up a couple of new textures.

The Mill Kid sez...Thanks fer tha' skin! It's nice not to feel like a dummy any more! I took randym77's pragmatic advice and just got the Mill kid textures...immediate problem solved, no brainwork involved. But I still can't get that Maya Studio "Ludivine" head to map onto the Mill Kid pre-teen, those basic painted-on surface features just won't take a powder! I tried mapping the image onto the eyebrows, lips etc...no deal, doesn't change anything! Ludivine is a full map image with all the features in place, very cute churlish kid. Oh, well, someday... Man, it's not easy for a newby to come up to speed on this Poser thing!