Hello this is my latest work in Blender.
I have created five timelapse videos of the workflow. You can watch them here if you like.
edit: 03-12-2012
Here is the Yafaray version:
I tried to reproduce the Cycles render in Yafaray. But I was not able to make the shadows in Yafaray appear like in Cycles. It is a bit dark so in the next render I would turn up the sunlight a bit.
Through the whole process of assigning and adjusting material values I really missed the Cycles render preview which makes life a lot easier. Since the render turned out very soft and there were only minor artifacts I refused to apply any nodes manipulation.
Anyway Yafaray is a great renderer and it deserves our attention.
If you are further interested you can watch a timelapse video of the workflow here.
Credits:
Statue of Liberty photo - PeterJBellis on www.flickr.com
HDR Image - www.openfootage.net
Textures - www.cgtextures.com
Enjoy!