Thanks timburr, I've just copied your tips. I hope it's okay with you to send it over here and there to friends that like to watch me working with P5. Every time they see a finished render I hear the same thing: "How I wish I could do this too..." and because they know I'm using poser since years they are immediatly discouraged and some won't even try it out because they think they have to do it as quick as I (clicking here, pushing there, delting, adding, conforming - you know what I mean). And @singermatic: Look out for some light and camera-settings in the freestuff and search for P5-materials and some good skin-textures. You can also search the galleries for the phrases "freestuff" and "free". Start out with something really simple but make use of your collected lights, camera-settings, a few poses and, maybe a bit later materials. How about the free V3/M3 with a nice freebie-texture and Kozaburo's hair? (You may have to switch off the inverse kinematics to make the poses work!). If you managed to set up everything explore the free things. How did the developer made the light, the camera setting? Tweak it a bit to change the effects. And this exactly is the point where cretivity begins! Try to have fun instead of expecting too much at once. And about Dr. Geep's useful articles: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2096208

Different priorities. Different talents. Different lives. That's it (IMHO)! For me the items that I buy or download for free are representing the tools, just like brushes, canvas and colors. Yes, in fact it's a fascinating idea to grab a squirell, comb out some of his tail hairs, get stick, wire, glue and so on and build my own,no, my perfect brush. But my day has 24 hours, every 2 days I need some sleep ;o). And I have to live from what I create. So time is money - and I even want to make art for my own pleasure, so I need some extra-time. And I think, I have much more talent and experience in creating images than in modeling. And as I see here and there, some merchants have more talent for modeling, texturing etc. then for rendering promo-images. Don't get me wrong, please, that's okay for me. In this case I get even more then shown on the promo-image. Yes, I would like to do my own things, sometimes I'm in need for some sepcial little things and can't buy them. I tried to do this and that on my own but ended up with some mess or compromise and a clock that shows me: 6 hours until I should be finished with work, the customer is waiting! What to do? Paint the missing things! So: If I could make a wish for a buyable item - it would be time. And then I would like to learn modelling too (texturing is not that problem for me). But life is no wishing-well and so some people have to make decisions for one thing or another.

Oooops, just found myself in the forum blush. Yep, we're in touch already and I hope I managed to bring a bit more light into the "trick" behind these expressions. It's a combination of character morphs (some characters are expressive by polygon-nature ;o) and some faces are empty like a photo-model without makeup), light, camera, neck- and head-posing and, maybe most of all, slightly asymetric expressions. Feel free to contact me again, if I didn't manage to give understandable hints - but beware of my english ;o)

If my creativity is burned out I listen to music while browsing my runtime. Most of the time something I hear (a melody, a lyric, a mood) suddenly matches something I see on a thumbnail (so sometimes my ideas start on something like a shoe, a pose, a texture...). Browsing galleries of my prefered artist (like Sorayama, Brom...) also cases brainstorming from time to time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not encouraging you to copy other artists. But try it and you will find something that catches your eye: An expression, colours, materials, light... But the most inspiring thing for me is sitting with friends in front of the monitor and let them lead my hand. It helps me leave my preferred sujets and try my skills on something totally new. Greetings from Meike

Two little tips on nasty things like that: 1. Paypal, ebay etc. are very interested in these phishing-mails. Look for "security"-links at their sites and report the mail you've got (don't forget to paste the header of the mail!). They have much more staff (and experience) for hunting those little thiefs, so let them do the work ;o) 2. If you are not sure wether something is serious/secure or not search the usenet with google (link "Groups" or here http://groups.google.com/) by pasting the subject of the mail, then look for results in groups with an "abuse" (like news.admin.net-abuse.email) in the name. Most of the time you find the mail you've got with a little description of the content, sometimes you find detailed informations about the sender (so you can rent a bus and visit him with some other angry recipients ;o) ). By the way: If you want to post there read the Group-FAQ first! Mostly you're not allowed to post attachments there and full copys of the questionable mail are not welcome, the header and your question will do. Greetings Meike

That's okay with me, thanks for your quick answer. As I'm only interested to present my artwork here for discussional purpose and on my personal site as a reference there is no possibility to exract items or textures from the pictures. Greetings from Meike