To get early and reliable evaluations of preliminary 3D design on workplaces and vehicles it is essential to utilise manikins corresponding as much as possible to actual persons. This paper describes a methodology to generate body typologies from anthropometric data of Italian population, identifying realistic combinations of anthropometric measurements actually found among real subjects. We applied these results to Jack, a software with an interactive virtual human model able to be manipulated by adjusting individual joints to simulate realistic postures. We then made a postural comfort comparative test, using the new manikins and standard Human Scale manikins obtaining quite different results: in particular, with the former manikins we found lower comfort indexes because they show a higher global variability, important to consider when designing systems fitting the characteristics of a large part of the population.