Masayoshi Shinohara - Portrait of Nozomi Sasaki

We came across a stunning piece of work by Japanese 3D artist Masayoshi Shinohara. A lifelike portrait of Nozomi Sasaki, a fashion model in Japan. We were pleased to discover the shot was lit with the help of HDR Light Studio. So we got in touch with Masayoshi to find out how HDR Light Studio helped with the lighting process in Maya with Arnold Render.

Masayoshi says…

“I took photos for reference. For the test, I used an exterior HDRI for lighting. But when I compared the reference with test render image, I could see I needed more natural sunlight and soft shadows, and I noticed the specular and reflections were not high enough.

I used HDR Light Studio to settle these problems easily. LightPaint helped me a lot. Increasing/decreasing light in a moment. I could change the light direction exactly as I wanted.

The realistic reflections in the eye, and skin specular – these are made using HDR Light Studio’s preset light source content. There are lots to choose from. Then I made fine adjustments in each light’s properties. It’s a simple workflow.

My final render is using only one SkydomeLight with a HDRI map from HDR Light Studio.”

Additional Project Details:
Modeling and details done in ZBrush.
Texture painting in Mari.
Hair using GeoMayaHair.
Rendered in Maya, Arnold (alShader).