lol I can relate with the posing. It's a nightmare at times, the robe needs a texture, there should be some tutorials in the tutorial section here that can give you a hand with those sorts of things but still, nice work :)

yes, nods head listen to the goddess of paint!!! your artwork is really well done! =]

looks good steel.. good texturing on the skin and staff. the expression is also quite good - i can never get michael to smile right. you asked for feedback so here goes (again:): camera focal length is important, a low setting causes depth distortion. try setting it to between 70-100 mm. lighting could also use a bit of work. try lighting the scene with a spotlight from the front and slightly above, and having it cast his shadow on the wall behind him. also, play around with the map size (larger map size decreases jaggedness) and shadow settings (higher setting means darker shadows) to get a softer, darker effect. itll add a lot of depth and realism to the scene. the hi-res texturing on the staff and his skin seems to clash with the lack of textures/low-res textures on the rest of the items. if you look in freestuff you can find a wide variety of textures for all sorts of items - if you cant find some made specifically for the cloak there are a lot of general clothing texture packs available for free download, you could try mapping it with those or using the textures on the texture template to create a quickie map. the pose is decent - but could use some work. this will sound silly, but every pose that i do i actually stand in front of the mirror and try it out myself, especially hand poses. difficult poses or couple poses i enlist the help of my g/f :) try standing in the same pose - look at how you would hold your neck, your shoulders, your arms, and your fingers. hold a broom or something like the staff - look at how your fingers are positioned. look at how they bend, look at which fingers tend to pair up, where there are spaces between certain fingers, etc. a good way to 'rough out' a hand pose is to use the grasp and fingers spread morphs on vicky/mike's hands. i should also point out (you probably know this but might not, it took me awhile to learn) that you should ALWAYS use the dials to pose... i rarely if ever use the mouse and the pose tools. you get much better control with the dials, and avoid unnatural movement. besides, the poser mouse pose tools are really badly done, and its a pain in the ass to get anything posed right with them. vicky also comes with some hand poses i believe - these work well with mike too, use them as rough poses then tweak them to your needs - it saves time. also, and this is a problem i always had when i was starting out - have him looking at something. he seems to be just staring off into space. either have him looking at an object in the scene, or at the viewer. if hes just going to be staring off into space, try making him squint or something, make him look intently, then it gives his gaze some 'purpose'. sounds wierd, but trust me on this :) i hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions...cheers, -gabriel