Sorry late with this, distracted by other things. I use variations of this a lot, sometimes with composites of sketch renderer passes mixed in, for "sculptural" type stuff...

https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2890236

In this instance an IBL/AO hybrid with low IBL intensity and a single spot. Materials are just a noise and blinn but the different objects in the scene have varying diffuse values. Figure is La Femme (I know I said V4 but I have so many morphs I've made for LF and I hardly ever render them, so it was an opportunity to dial some in... OT figure). All shapes/sculpts/morphs are mine.

The render took about 5 or 6 minutes.