A lighting challenge

I've always loved symbolism and minimalism. With this piece I had a clear intention of what I wanted to say so the only question was:  how can i make this 3D?

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FIREBOY

Innocence, awe, curiosity and destroying what we love. 
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DO WHAT YOU KNOW LEARN WHAT YOU DON'T

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Iray render

Iray render

I chose to sculpt the flames of the Fireboy to have a solid stylized graphic shape. Once the texture spiked up the temperature i knew i had to create some effects like smoke and sparks to add to the realism. This is where a dabbled in Houdini and proceduraly creating volumes that Renderman could interpret as a VDB volume. 

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Last thing I did was to add 2 scientist and a camera in the background (barely visible). This changed the ambiguous setting to a laboratory flipping the context and added a new layer to it.

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Let's just tell a story