The obvious thing, in the obvious place

[Korvar]

Cool. So what kind of program is DAZ|Studio exactly? Like, are you playing with pre-built models or what? I'm familiar with 3d Studio Max, but it doesn't sound like this is the same sort of program, at least I don't think it has options for hair and stuff, unless you want to build it from scratch.

I've heard of Poser, is this something similar?

<--curious

As BruceCohenPDX said rather faster than I did (curse my verbosity!) DAZ|Studio is very much like Poser - they're both 3D posing and rendering programs mainly aimed at character-based graphics.  DAZ|Studio is basically a free version of Poser, but with correspondingly fewer bells and whistles.  Poser is pretty feature-packed, and comes with a metric tonne of content, but does cost about $250 US.  DAZ|Studio is free, doesn't do a lot of the advanced stuff Poser does, and comes with only a small amount of content as standard.  However, it's perfectly usable, and many people (including me) prefer it to Poser.  And the nifty thing is, pretty much anything that works in Poser works in Daz|Studio (and vice-versa).  And there's a lot of free content available out there.

Having said that, I'm using various bought bits and pieces, although I've only ever bought things on sale, taken advantage of their freebies, and that kind of thing.  This is Michael 3, with all his various morphs, Morning Hair (one of the few "messy" hair props I've found) and his Everyday Wear.  Oh, and Pendragon's free shaders, which just look lovely.

[Korvar]

Korvar, nice! I just realized it's not the mouth that bothers me. It's the wide-open, rather dazed eyes. I suspect you're stuck with that. Still, it'll be fun to see what you come up with next!

At the moment, I'm trying to make a Daz|Studio/Poser character that looks like Chaz, which I can then use to make actual fan-art.  So the mad staring eyes are more because I've not done anything with them other than make them point at the camera   Hopefully, when I do an actual piece, he won't look as much like a zombie

[mocknot]

Huh, interesting. I'm a bit of a graphics software dork, and I'm kind of tempted to go download it and experiment, except space is at a premium on my computer .

[AntoniaTiger]

There is an excellent free male figure called Apollo Maximus, but I'm not really familiar enough with it to be sure how it would work for the various characters.

It doesn't really fit with the sort of CGI stuff I do. There's various odd bits on my LiveJournal, but here's one direct link, and here's another.

I'm tempted to have a go, but I don't feel I have enough of an image of the characters to get close.

Unless you really want Chaz to look more canine

(I wonder if I have CGI models of the right guns. Quite possibly not.)

[Korvar]

There is an excellent free male figure called Apollo Maximus, but I'm not really familiar enough with it to be sure how it would work for the various characters.

You're right; Apollo, for free, has all the body and face morphs that Michael 3 for free doesn't. There are fewer resources around for him, but he's a really good start for someone wanting to explore 3D character building. I'm more used to M3 (and I already have his morph packs), so that's what I'm using.