A personal project focused on creating a stylized cinematic portrait of a modern samurai. The main goal was to build a clean, production-ready grooming pipeline in Houdini and master the Solaris USD context. To emphasize the silhouette and flow of the hair, I utilized a matte shader technique for the face geometry, creating a striking contrast between the minimalist silhouette and the rich texture of the hair strands. • Grooming: Created procedurally using Houdini's advanced hair and guide tools. Focused heavily on realism along the hairline, sideburns, and stubble transitions, as well as natural hair clumps tension pulling back into the man bun. • Scene Assembly & Pipeline: Assembled entirely within the Solaris (USD) environment to ensure a modern, non-destructive pipeline. • Shading & Lighting: Developed using the Karma Hair Shader (kma_hair) to achieve physical melanin-based black tones with natural anisotropic specular highlights. Lit using a combination of a precise rim light and sharp side lights to accent the silhouette. • Rendering: Rendered using Karma XPU with Intel Open Image Denoise for clean interactive feedback and final output.