Something I wish more people would bring up when recommending using posable 3D dolls as drawing reference is that you need to account for the camera when setting up the doll or you might get incorrect references. It's especially important if you're using it to help with foreshortening.
A quick demo of what I mean because it's easier to show. Let's say I want to draw a guy pointing upwards, and I want it to be super dynamic for my dramatic scene. I pulled the first 3D browser doll I found (app.justsketch.me) for this, set up my guy and angle the camera. With default settings I get this:
While not strictly incorrect, it looks pretty flat. The hand is closer to the camera than the head, but it doesn't really read as such because it doesn't appear any bigger. The arm also has kind of a stumpy, unappealing shape because the forearm and the upper arm have very little size variation.
I see this a lot in art referenced from 3D dolls and it can work for certain poses and moods, but it's not the dynamic foreshortening many are looking for. The solution comes from the camera, so I go to the settings, adjust the camera's field of view and position it again for the angle and distance I want.
You can see how this affects the proportions and what the pose looks like. The hand is obviously bigger than the head and the hierarchy between the forearm and the upper arm is more clear. That is a nice, dramatic finger pointing reference. (I'm not wild about the big scalp but this is just a quick demo so I didn't spend a huge amount of time fiddling.)
The devastating version of this is when I see someone used a 3D pose ref but got bamboozled by the camera and now their foreshortening looks like this:
My point is, everything you view in 3D space is through a virtual camera, and it has default settings that are usually intended for easy viewing of objects in the scene, so it has a bias towards flattening the perspective and preserving proportions. 3D dolls are great for custom pose and angle references, but when you use them, locate the camera settings and make them work for you! Don't just settle for the default (unless the default already matches your creative vision) because the default might not be correct for what you're trying to achieve. If the app / software doesn't offer camera settings, it's rubbish and you should pick a better one.
(I would also add that when using dolls, it's also a good idea to use photographic reference for posing the doll so that you don't accidentally make yourself a drawing reference that contradicts natural range of motion, but that's another thing entirely.)
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