What character models in the store are closest to what I want?

Questionable Sanity

I'm looking for four character morphs: One young adult male, one young adult female, one middle-aged male, and one middle-aged female.

The character design that most appeals to me is the semi-realistic anime-esque look, much like what is used in the most recent Final Fantasy titles (e.g. Noctis from XV, Vanille from XIII). Of all the choices I've browsed, it looks like Aiko 8 is the best match for the young adult female category, but I still need matching age and gender counterparts. It's very important to me that I don't accidentally fall into the uncanny valley by, say, putting an Aiko 8 character next to an Elios 8 character.

Hylas

That's a tricky question because Aiko 8 (annoyingly) doesn't have a male counterpart. Kenji 7 is the closest you get, but that's a Genesis 3 character.

I've heard rumours that a male counterpart to Kanade 8 is on his way, so maybe it's worth waiting for that?

There's no older anime characters. To age the characters up you could mix them with other, older figures. You could also try products like these ones. I don't know how well they work with Aiko 8 specifically.

Questionable Sanity

I'm now realizing that Genesis 3 characters are somewhat cheaper, and there's a wider selection of them. Perhaps I need to move away from the cutting edge a bit.

Hylas

Genesis 3 is a fine model to work with. That generation has a male anime character. On the down side, Aiko 7 looks more Asian than anime, at least to me...

The only thing I recommend, at least when you're just starting out, is to focus on only one generation.

***

Now, the following is not exactly beginner's stuff and might be a bit much if you're really just starting out with DAZ, but it's actually not that hard to tranfer morphs from G3 to G8, or from G8F to G8M. If you're willing to get into that, there's two things you could do:

- Get Aiko 8 and Kenji 7. Transfer Kenji 7 to G8M. Now you have both a male and a female G8 anime character. Or...

- Get Aiko 8. Transfer her head morph to G8M. Now you have a decent base to create your own G8M anime character.

Here's the morph transfer tutorial:
https://www.deviantart.com/sickleyield/journal/Tutorial-Transferring-Character-Morphs-G1G2G3G8-409437916

Elliandra

Another option would be to take a look at the characters you already own for whichever figure you decide you want to use and see about mixing and matching the morph dials and skins. I've been able to do quite a few characters that way and it makes the most of what you already own!

Elli

MimicMolly

So far, the closest I've seen to "anime styled" guys in this store are Luc, Michel, and Ade, by Marcius. (Although I think they need smoother'/less detailed skins.) And Thorne's Luca. Though you would have to do your own mixing. Then, there is a G3M/G8M anime boy at Renderosity by muwawya "Fantasy-Anime-Cosplay 2_Ayumu_for G3M G8M". Still, all this would require you to dial your own characters and use different skins, which is probably better, IMHO

Questionable Sanity

Okay, I'm really in a pickle now. Kenji is only for Gen 3, but I've found a tokusatsu costume for Gen 8 Male. I also have a tokusatsu costume for Gen 3 Female.

My fundamental decision to use Genesis 3 or Genesis 8 all comes down to this. Do I try to "downsample" the male costume for Kenji 7, or "upsample" the female costume for Aiko 8? (And also how would I do either of these things?)

Hylas

The bodysuits themselves will probably convert reasonable well across generation, although you might get problems with the cape and shawl.

Aiko 8 can wear G3 clothes via autofit. DAZ can just do that.

For Kenji 7 to be able to wear G8 clothes, you might need to buy an additional product, such as this one: https://www.daz3d.com/sy-genesis-8-clones-for-genesis-3

Also, RiverSoft is currently working on a product that will allow you to convert Kenji 7 to G8 without going through the manual conversion process I describe above. The product is still in development but there's a thread about it here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/340346/coming-soon-character-converter-from-genesis-3-female-to-genesis-8-female-commercial#latest

Also also, here's a freebie you might be interested in: https://sharecg.com/v/93266/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Sentai-Outfit-G8F-dForce
 

@MimicMolly: Oh, I wasn't aware of those models. Michel looks really good! I put him on my wishlist. A bit young for my purposes, but I can probably age him up a bit.