"The Daz Production team has created the Aiko character and recruited expert Japanese and other international artists to create clothing, characters and accessories," said Dan Farr, president and co-founder of DAZ Productions. The 3D technology used in Aiko allows users to change character poses, shape morphs such as the character's eyes, and add clothing and accessories. Users can utilize Aiko to create characters for anything from comic books to animation. "Essentially, Aiko is a 3D kit that almost anyone can style art and animation with our 3D program, Daz|Studio as well as other 3D party products like Bryce, Poser and Shade," said Farr.

The public can experience this 3D Anime / Manga product for free by downloading the Aiko V.3 base package at http://anime.manga.daz3d.com. Aiko V.3 base provides users with a female model, hair, poses, expressions and a cartoon style skin type. The character will also be "Mimic-ready" so users can easily lip-sync Aiko with any pre-recorded sound file with Daz|Mimic.

Other Aiko packages are also available. The Aiko 3 Starter Kit for $49.95 features Aiko 3 Complete (a character with all her morphs, expressions and a couple of textures), additional expressions, eye textures and first moves. The Aiko 3.0 Professional Bundle for $99.95 includes the Aiko 3 Complete with more advanced clothing, poses, hair, textures and accessories.