Attached Link: My little gallery

Actually, I asked the first question because I'm curious who the primary users are for Poser. I've occasionally seen Poser used in commercial works, but that's more the exception than the rule. It's still relatively rare to see Poser artwork outside of a Poser gallery. It also says something about the marketplace for commercial content if the primary Poser user is a hobbyist (which is what I am at the moment). Affordable content should sell more than high priced content because there doesn't seem to be a large group of users profiting from using the program. I've got no argument against calling Poser content builders artists. I was sort of leaving them out of the query because, outside of price, they shouldn't care too much whether they're dealing with hobbyists or commercial artists. Another indication that the Poser community is more a hobby venture than a commercial one is that the content being provided leans very heavily in the fantasy arena. As far as artwork goes, it doesn't matter to me how it's created, digital or otherwise. The end product is all that counts. Given two individuals with equal technical proficiency with Poser, the one with more artistic skills will probably produce the better image. If the Hildebrandt Brothers were familiar with Poser, they'd be putting out some unbelievable Poser art that probably wouldn't be very distinguishable from their paintings. Even if we had access to the same models they did, they'd still put something out better than what we could ever imagine. There's no substitute for having decades of experience as an artist. The more a person draws (there's no distinction between digital and natural media), the better they are going to get. It's like any other skill. The more a person practices drawing, the more they break down the barriers in the mind to translating what's in the imagination to a final product. It's a matter of having a good "eye". The interesting thing about Poser is that it allows anybody to produce a good render, but not necessarily a good drawing. Just open up Poser, pop in Victoria, render her with her default pose, and you've produced a better human drawing than what 95% of the people in the world can do with natural media. That's not a particularly interesting drawing, but it's still a very cool capability to have. That's where the photography analogy is useful. Anybody can take a photograph. There's not a lot of skill required to push a button to take a photo and even the more arcane photographic skills can be learned (exposure, lighting, etc.). There are still people who take great photos and people who take uninteresting photos. There is the same disparity in Poser. We've all seen good Poser artwork and bad Poser artwork. The good stuff has figures in natural flowing poses and the bad stuff has stiff, awkwardly posed figures. The best approaches the quality of a painting or photograph and the worst looks like bad computer art. Much as I'd like to point out some concrete examples from the gallery, it's not fair to the people that did the drawings. They're doing the best they can and, given a number of years additional experience, will probably be producing some really incredible stuff. I'm still learning Poser. I'm trying to get over the frustration over the amount of effort to lay out a drawing versus the speed of getting a render. I can produce a good sketch in minutes that lays out all the dynamics of a drawing, but it takes me hours with Poser. On the other hand, it takes minutes for the Poser layout to be fully rendered and much longer for me to try to do the same thing with paints. I've only done two fully rendered images (in the gallery here) and can finally start seeing that I can do something with the program that I find pleasing. Poser is a more iterative form of drawing than using natural media. There is much more control in producing a natural media drawing than with Poser. Poser has to be pushed to get the same results. When I'm drawing, I can put every body part and finger in place with a few quickly drawn lines. I have to turn dozens and dozens of dials in Poser to do the same thing. What I've done with Poser to date mostly just starts showing me where I can go and I've got to crawl before I can get better.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=517273

Here's a drawing I did with DAZ Platinum Club Grim and one of Rawnrr's textures, also at DAZ. I still have to start playing around with creating my own textures, but this one is very well done.

Attached Link: hhttp://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=529752

I'm also looking forward to it. I'm very curious if it's really possible to teach somebody how to create good poses. It's akin to teaching somebody how to draw. It's not easy to show somebody how to do such things. I've seen drawings, both Poser and natural media, where the figures simply do not have a natural look to them. Bodies have joints bent in impossible ways. Figures are stiff or defy the effects of gravity. To some extent, a person almost has to have an eye for creating realistic poses. I use Poser poses, such as yours, as a shortcut to get a figure into a pose that I want. It's not the end pose that I'm looking for, but whatever starts the figure off into something close to what I need saves me time. I've started cataloging (using thumbnails in Word) all the various pose files I've downloaded over the years and I'm coming to a conclusion that it's too voluminous to be fully useful. It can take longer to search for a pose than to do it myself. I'm trying to figure out whether there is a subset of poses that will move a figure into 95% of the positions that one would ever need (lying, crouching, etc.) I used some of your poses as a starting point, in my linked drawing, and then fiddled with each for an hour to get the poses I really wanted.

Below is the complete list of all Michael 3 body morphs. Morphs without an asterisk can be injected into The Freak. Anything with an asterisk is not available (and won't be seen when all the M3 body morphs are applied). I'm just showing them so that people can see what won't work. Full-Body * ArmGlove ArmsHeavy ArmsThin * Emaciated * FingerGloves * Heavy * HeavySpandex * HvyNippleGo * HvyTghinFl * Muscular1 * Muscular2 * Muscular3 * NailsGone * NailsLong * NeckOld NeckThin * NeckWattle Skinny * Stocky * Tone * TorsoHeavy * TorsoLegHvy * Young Hip-Abs-Chest AbsLeftUp AbsRightUp AreolaOut * BellyOut * FileList.txt * GluteBig * GluteCreaseL * GluteCreaseR GluteFlat GluteFlexL GluteFlexR GluteRaiseL GluteRaiseR GluteSmall Gluteus HipNarrow HipSmall Inhale LineaAlba LineaWide * LoveHandleL * LoveHandleR LvHandleGo Navel1 Navel2 Navel3 NavelHoriz NavelRaise NippleRaise * PecLower * PubicHairFit * StomachIn StrnmNarrow * WaistNarrow Muscularity Adductors BicepFlex Biceps * Brachialis BrachioRad Coracobrach Deltoid ErectorSpin * ExOblique ExtDigit1 ExtDigit2 ExtDigit3 ExtDigit4 ExtPolBrev ExtPolLong FlexCarpRad ForeArm * Gastroc * GroinLine * Hamstrings Latissimus LatsSmall PalmLongus * Pectoral RctsAbdmWd RectusAbdm2 * RectusAbdom RectusFemo Serratus Soleus SternoMast1L SternoMast1R SternoMast2L SternoMast2R * TeresMajor * TibialisAnt Trapezius TrapsSmall Triceps * VastusLat VastusMed Legs-Feet BigToeDwn BigToeIn BigToeUp * CalfBulge * FootArch * FootFrShoe * FootSock LegThin * NinjaSock * SmallToesDwn SmallToesIn * SmallToesUp ThighFull ThighInFull ThighThin ThighWide * ToeNailsGone * ToePointed

My niece looked at some of the comments and it's gotten her a little more interested in playing around with Poser. I guess that hearing that even 5 year-olds can use Poser sort of got her out of the mode of thinking that it's too complicated a program. She's very much into arts and crafts and drawing, so i was surprised that she didn't jump more into the program.

Attached Link: American Gothic

http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Modern/pages/MOD_5.shtml To be honest, my post was a "deer in the headlights" reaction to the comment I got. Sure, any time you poke your head above the crowd, by posting an image, you've got to be resigned to the reality that somebody may take a potshot at you. I posted a gallery image of an adventurous girl stumbling on a witch stirring up a spell in a cauldron. I didn't expect thunderous applause, but I also didn't expect somebody to give it the lowest possible rating solely because of how it was created. Had I not taken the time to credit the models I used, this poster's reaction probably would not have been negative. That's why I thought it might be an interesting topic to post. The comment had nothing to do with the image I had produced. It was something to the effect of saying that anybody can produce an image with a bunch of models and why don't I come back when I do something original. The same comment could be levied against nearly every Poser artist. I didn't take the comment too seriously (hence the subject line of it being about a cranky comment). I didn't report the poster to the Moderators, so had nothing to do with the comment being removed. The poster wasn't a typical troll and has some skill as a modeler, but doesn't have an artistic gallery as much as one that shows off the models (such as this tire sample http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=462978). That's not a negative comment as much as a description of how this individual is using the gallery--it showcases the models and was never intended to be art. I take nothing away from modelers--the best modelers are artists with the same talents as the best sculptors. It was so bizarre to see somebody get so worked up over the technique of producing the image instead of the results of the image. That's why I thought it was worth posting. At issue is a philosophy of whether a work should be taken on its own or be judged on how it was created. One of the most famous paintings ever produced is American Gothic (link above), a painting showing two weathered people standing in front of a barn. I found a book about the painting at a library and learned that the two figures are based on photographs (one being the artist's sister). If one wants to take an extreme purist attitude, the painting is crap because it used photo references and did not solely spring from the artist's mind. The Mona Lisa is crap because DaVinci worked with a live model. It's a viewpoint that is so narrow-minded as to be ridiculous. In some ways, a person, with such obsessively defined logical rules, can almost be pitied because a lot of enjoyable things in life are going to be trashed when they conflict with those arbitrary rules. As others have suggested, applying the same logic to the poster's models would make them seem worthless because they were not created with original code, but used 3dsMax. Computer artwork is taking off because the computer provides capabilities that traditional art media doesn't have. The greatest reason to use Poser is because it simplifies some tasks. With the existing models and textures out there, one can render a very realistic human character. There is very little reason to want to create a new human figure from scratch when there are many good ones out there already. Since I had downloaded a cauldron many months ago, there wasn't a reason to build one. The same goes for the background. The latter two items are not beyond my ability to create, but why spend a few more hours to create something that already exists? Sure, it's nice to point to them and say they're mine, but all I wanted to do was create an image that was in my head. If it takes me less time to find an existing model than it does to jump into a 3D program and build it, then I'm just taking advantage of the tools available to me. It's the image that matters and whatever shortcuts that get the image I want onto a screen or canvas is all that counts. Unless I need a very specifically shaped cauldron or other object, it's rather pointless to spend lots of time creating one because I just needed a cauldron. It's not the focus of the image. There's no sin to using what's already available. In fact, it's kind of silly to expend dozens of hours to create a model when the goal is to produce a drawing instead of a model. The hardest thing to get used to with Poser, from regular drawing, is that the amount of time and effort to do a drawing has been reversed. With a traditional drawing, laying out the drawing takes the least amount of time and rendering it with fleshed out details and shading is where the real work occurs. With Poser, laying out the drawing is the most painstaking process and rendering it is done entirely in the computer without human assistance. That's taken me a long time to get used to. I can lay out a drawing in a few minutes and flesh out a fairly good rendered pencil drawing in a few hours. Going beyond that to a painted image has always been a more difficult task and I often lose the spontaneity of the original image whenever I paint. I spend hours in Poser composing an image, getting figures into natural poses, getting the camera angle right, and getting the lighting right. Then it becomes the time-consuming process of pose-render-pose-render to achieve the look I want because a lot of problems aren't uncovered until the image is rendered. Due to the drain on computer resources, I often have to work in a piecemeal fashion one model at a time before integrating the complete image. At times, it's a tedious process, but I'm finally starting to become happy with the end results. Seeing somebody getting so bent out of shape because I used a bunch of existing models for a drawing simply struck as such a weird reaction. I essentially got the drawing I wanted, so it doesn't matter much that one person got so wrapped up in internal obsessive rules that the person lost the impact of the drawing. There are still little things that I want to do to flesh out the image, but I thought the image stood out enough on its own that it was worth posting for Halloween.

Thanks for all the encouragement. I didn't really take much stock in the negative comment. The person, who posted it, isn't a typical troll because the person has done some modeling and has a gallery--unlike the typical troll who has no accomplishments to show. The fact that this person looked at the image, based on the thumbnail, is an indication that the image was worth looking at. I know I only have time to look at a fraction of the images in the gallery and, if the thumbnail doesn't grab me, I don't bother opening it. The weird thing is that, after opening it and seeing all the credits for what I used, it suddenly turned this person completely against the image. I do not understand people like that. Something, that was once good, becomes completely horrible when it violates their internal rules. My mother is sometimes like that. She once complimented me on how good my car looked after it got washed. I told her that I never washed my car. Her immediate response was that I better get it washed. It was a 180 degree reaction. One minute, the car was spotless. The next, it was filthy. It's one of those strange perceptual things where reality is totally governed by perceptions. Had my car been washed a minute before my mother saw it, she would still have seen the car as filthy if I had said that it hadn't been washed. These perceptual things are constantly at odds with much of the art world. I remember seeing a photography site that expressly would not allow digitally altered images on their site. There are many art sites that are the same way--but the photography snobbery bothered me more. The best photographer in the world only has marginal technical skills to learn. A two year-old can figure out how to push the button on a camera. It takes a little more knowledge to understand lighting and focus, but it's a smaller learning curve than something like Poser. What truly distinguishes a great photographer is having a good eye for an interesting image. It astonishes me that an artist or photographer can dismiss digital art as not being creative. As with anything, there is good and bad digital art. We've all seen it. I'm sure that we've all seen highly acclaimed artwork and shook our heads in dismay at what the critics are trying to tell us is magnificent art. I've seen Poser art that is awful. Poses and expression aren't realistic. Composition is bad. They're still using the lousy default Poser camera focal lengths, etc., etc. Most of us would never consider knocking those efforts because the person, that put up the images, thought that they were good enough to show the world. Considering that it takes time to learn Poser well, they've still accomplished something. With the right helpful comments, they can improve what they're doing. They'll probably never achieve what the top Poser users can do, but the most obvious problems can be fixed when they are technical errors. Artistic errors are harder to correct and harder to offer advice on. The average camera shooter will never achieve what Ansel Adams did in his career as a photographer. No amount of technical skill in Poser or Photoshop is ever going to turn somebody, without innate artistic sensibilities, into a great artist. I started looking at some of the galleries, of posters here, and there's some really incredible stuff. I've been putzing around with Poser for years, but only recently started trying to do full images. I've always enjoyed drawing and have some decent skills with a pencil, but always lose something when I try to finish the drawing in ink or paint. Computer art has always appealed to me because of the ability to redo things that aren't working without starting from scratch (though that ain't always the case with Poser). Getting good results in Poser (or any art program for that matter) is not as easy as it looks. I've only recently started getting comfortable with my results in posing figures. Poser can be terribly frustrating to use because there is nothing natural about posing a 3D figure in a 2D interface. I could spend hours getting a figure into a natural position that I could draw in minutes. It's taken me a long time to do a full image in Poser because of the difficulty in getting results that were worth the effort to complete. The lights in Poser are more arcane than I'd like. It's annoying to have to wait 30 minutes for a render to see what Poser is doing with the lighting and find that it's nothing like in the pre-rendered image. In my image, there's a yellow spotlight directly under the wood spoon and there's nothing to indicate that it's there in the render. I was hoping to get yellow highlights on the bottom of the hands and on the spoon. I'm still learning. I'm finally starting to appreciate what can be done with Poser. It is still a lot of work to do something. It's pushing me to upgrade my 800 MHz system. I'm getting tired of trying to nudge a rotation, in a busy scene, by a couple degrees and have it swing 270 degrees. Thanks again for the nice words.