
“This is hopefully a tutorial covering some basics of lighting in Maya, utilising Mental Ray. I made this tutorial for someone in a forum and tried to replicate their scene to better show them how to control their lighting. So while I wish I had some more detailed models in there to demonstrate with, such as the head, I used what I could find that was shaped most like the stuff in their scene, rather than what looked best.”
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_3/basic_maya_lighting/basic_maya01.php