Do you use the characters as sold or do you make modifications to them?

Faeryl Womyn

I also modify and switch things between models quite often, I will also use the character as is, it all depends on the render I have planned.

Matt_Castle

I feel like the only valid answer to "Do you use the characters as sold or do you make modifications to them?" is the annoying and non-commital "Yes".

Both options are entirely valid.

Did you buy a character because you thought they were absolutely perfect for what you wanted? Then no-one should force you to change them.
Do you want to customise every aspect of a character to make them uniquely yours? Then by all means, go ahead.

The only real wrong answer to choosing how you want a character to look is getting angry if someone else doesn't want to give you the recipe for one of their characters. Sure, if you see a lovely custom character, it's okay to ask how they're made... but don't demand. If the artist values the uniqueness of their character, then respect that.

In any case, my characters span quite a wide spectrum between pretty close to their original products to such a mix even I have to look up what they are to know. And when they're similar, sometimes the similarity is because the product is hard to deviate from, sometimes it's because it's a character who was originally quickly made for a background who became much more used over time but I didn't want to change when they did, sometimes it's just because I like the character as is.

In the end, there's good reasons for all of these things.

Linwelly

the only character I used out of the box is Lee 6 and then that's not true because I had to modify his skin to make it Iray compatible

Tethos

My main characters will be heavily customised. Background characters and monsters though I will leave as is.

It's a bit of a pain really, since I can't replicate my genesis 3 main characters as a genesis 9 figure.

nomad-ads_8ecd56922e

One of my recurring characters started out as a mix of two or three off-the-shelf Genesis 1 chracters, but I later converted that character over to Genesis 3 by the export-the-shape-as-an-OBJ technique.  Had to approximate his original skin by kit-bashing a Genesis 3 skin, though.

jdavison67

Always modify. I use multiple morphs from different characters, until it feels right... I hardly ever use the texture that comes with a purchased character, as most look fake.

JD

Cybersox

99 times out of 100 I will modify the figure significantly in some way, ie: mixing it with other shapes, changing the age or bodyweight dramatically, using a different character skin or going in and handpainting over the texture to add/remove/significantly alter hair, nipple, kneecaps, etc., or stealing eyes/hair from other figures, with the 001% exceptions mainly being on the handful of occasions where I either wanted a celebrity likeness and someone actually produced one that I thought was satisfactory, or when it's a background character whose face won't be cleary visible.  On the other hand, on the occasions when I've come up with a remixed character that I really like, I have no problem re-using that basic mix again with only minor changes.  In the end, I just don't want anyone to look at something I've done and then turn around and see the exact same character in a render by someone else.  And yes, that goes for sets/environments as well, so I do a lot of kitbashing and re-texturing, as well as mix and match and retexture articles of clothing from different outfits.        

nomad-ads_8ecd56922e

I tend to use a mixture of off-the-shelf characters and dial-spun characters.  In the case of the dial-spun characters, it's usually dialing in a bit of this character and a bit of that character.  I've also taken off the shelf characters and then simply applied the Growing Up morphs to them to make a kid, tho sometimes with those I have to dial down some of the body shape... i.e. to get rid of a he-works-out look to the chest and arms.

kyoto kid

...Zev0 has another utility for age transformations called Auto Life with which you can age a character to either an infant or 100 years old (and anywhere in between).  It also handles [proportions reasonably well. 

Unfortunately at present there is only a G8 Female version available. 

pwiecek

I usually mix 2 or 3 partial characters. This is a good way to create siblings or parents & children. It also works with aNTHRO CHARACTERS.