Hey Honest

Glad you like it
With regards to the cloth: I did this on purpose I am doing a hommage to the puppet yoda from the empire strikes back ( although I do take a bit artistic license..) and there his cloth seams are even larger, it also enhances the fact that he is small in size.
The reason I use renderman is the same reason I use Maya over 3ds max, it speaks to me the camera effects are blazingly fast displacement renders just as quickly as if it isn't even there I have used 8K maps and it still renders out in 15 minutes.
regarding the light I off course see that the top is bright, but going down it gives (at least on my monitor(s) )a reall nice fall of, i am not saying this will be the definite lighting scheme, nor that is the perfect lighting set up, but i can see everything just fine .
don't know why the cloth at the back is brighter could be because of the hdr image or the sss-shader, but it will be fixed upon finalizing