For this scene I wanted to achieve a Rainy mood with soft lighting. A rainy afternoon where one can relax, reading the newspaper and having hot tea in the comfort of your home.
Below are the images I took reference from. I wanted the old man to be lit primarily by the light coming in from the window.
Breakdown
My approach to this is to first determine what kind of mood I want and collect references from films that have the kind of lighting I want (Pictured above).
Now that I have determined the lighting and mood of the scene that I want, I start placing in the Sky dome and the Sun.
From here, I added a Key light that is a little more frontal to brighten up and shape the character to allow him to read well against the bright background.
The Fill side of the character is a little too dark, so I added a Key wrap to help sculpt the character a little more on his fill side.
Next I added lights to brighten the background to help separate the character more from the background. I also added a little purplish hue to the light to help integrate the scene with the curtains behind him.
Next, to make it interesting. I added in a practical light source to represent a Street Lamp streaming in from a window screen right shining at his feet.
Finally, I Comped in some haze and steam for his Tea that was done in Maya and added in the Depth of Field, Glow, Chromatic Aberration and Vignette In nuke.
Below is a close up of the scene.
I edited some parts of the environment and the model of the old man in the scene, adding more details to his face to show the history of the old man through his look dev and set dressing.
This scene was lit with Arnold in Maya using ACES workflow and composited in Nuke.
The Environment was Modeled by Shane Sternstein, Original Character Modeled by Leo Rezende and Concept art by Mike Redman.
Below is the concept art of the scene by Mike Redman.
Click here to learn more about the process that I went through to light this scene with the guidance of my mentor Francesco Giroldini.
Angela Foo 