I had three purposes in mind when creating this image

1. To create an image in a vector drawing package that had more of the look of an image created in a painting package. Why? Well the only problem with using a painting package is that you need to create the image at the finished resolution, and if this is going to be for a 10x8 print, or even worse, a poster, then memory, or lack thereof can be quite a problem. If you use a drawing package, then the only decision that you need to make at the start, is the proportion of width to height. You can re-size the whole image quite easily, or export a bitmap version at any size you need.
   
   
2. To get "Poser" figures to look reasonably realistic in a final image. I haven't been able to achieve this yet when trying to render them, even when importing the models into other 3D programs. I'm not saying that it can't be done, I have seen some very good renderings of Poser figures on the web. It's just that I haven't been able to do it yet.
   
   For this image, I rendered the figures against a plain background, at a size to suit a final image of 800x600, pulled the image into PhotoPaint to get rid of the background and then placed the image into a layer in Corel Draw. Of course this slightly defeated the objective of purpose one, as I will need to re-render the figures to create a different sized final image. Maybe creating a fair sized render of the figures and then auto tracing that in Corel or Xara would create a scalable vector image of the figures. I'll have to put that on the "experiment list".
   
   
3. To create a desktop image for a couple of friends to use on their computer at home. Yes that's them in the image, and yes they are both girls, and yes they are...
   
   One of the nice things about Poser version 4 is that you can alter the shape and proportions of each body part, if you have enough patience you can get the figure to look like an actual person. There's at least two hours work on both of those figures. Unfortunately for this image I had to use my imagination, as I had only seen the girls with their clothes on.
   
   Poser 4 also allows you play around with all of the facial features and once again, if you are patient you can get a close likeness to an actual person. It is probably best if you have a photo to work from. I tried to get the face of the girl facing forward in the image above. I was working from memory and after about three and a half hours I finished up with a perfect likeness, of somebody else that I know. I decided to light the face for "Looking In" so that it was in the shade.
   
   The work on the face didn't go to waste, I created a suitable body, put some clothes on it (well I didn't know her so well and her husband is about ten feet tall), added a stock background of Trafalgar Square using PhotoPaint, printed it out and gave it to her, she was delighted.

Did I achieve my aims?

1. Well if I turn of the layer for the figures, the rest of the image scales up or down very nicely and looks good at any size. I quite like the bush in front of the window, though don't ask what type of bush it is, I made it up as I went along.
   
   
2. I think that the figures look quite good in the final image. The girls thought that the figures looked very like them, in fact they asked if I had been "Looking In". Yes, that's where the name of the image came from, and no, I hadn't.
   
   
3. My friends were thrilled with the desktop image and have asked if I could make them a screen saver with a series of images. I'll have to think about that... there would be quite a lot of work involved, maybe if I could get them to pose...