eritz thank you so much for your encouraging comment!!!

The photograph above is not my reference for this work, by the way, it was just an example of a high contrast photograph.

This is not part of any project yet. I am still trying to learn Maya, so I come up with ideas that have to do with specific elements of Maya (lights, textures, NURBS, Subdiv, etc) and break my head against the wall until I get what I want. Once I feel more comfortable with most of Maya's features, I will begin working on a larger project. Thanks for asking about it, by the way!

Since I wholeheartedly agree with you about the shadows, maybe you can help me a bit with it: the shadows are done correctly, but when Maya does its post-render glow, the glow goes over the shadows and makes them light. I suspect I could solve this problem by rendering the shadows separately and imposing them over the glow instead of under. Am I correct? Any better suggestions?