Final Rendered Stills +Video +Rationale

Final Stills:

Final Video:

Rationale:

So, I set out to create a character that would seamlessly fit into the Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Were-Rabbit film.
I think I have definitely captured the quirky Aardman aesthetic in my character design. I've tried to throw in some Aardman-like strangeness too, like a teacup staff for him to pretend magic some tea into, or the Superman like onesie with a W (not an S) for Wizard - which also stands for Waldorf, his name - and the exaggerated features like the mouth, eyes and nose on his face.
These things along with a simplistic design work quite well towards achieving the intended Aardman like feel.

After saying this though, I am not entirely happy with the end animation. The first few seconds are the best I feel. More time and more knowledge of Maya would definitely go along way to improving this project. Adding some secondary animation to his movements later on in the video would significantly improve the end result.
Though I think of this as something to be improved on, the characters in Wallace and Gromit don't move altogether differently to this due to the physical nature of their animation.

All in all though, I am happy with the end result.

Various Bump and Displacement Maps

This is an early attempt at a bump or displacement map to try and get the pants to stand out.

It didn't work...

I went through various iterations of displacement maps with various results (see here).

This is the final displacement map I ended up using.

I used this as a bump map to give it the physical plascticine look.

And this is the texture I applied to the UV mapped model.

This is the UV map for the eye balls.

And here is the UV map for Waldorf.

Renders from the character creation process

I started some experiments to try and find the right look for Waldorf's hair.

The difference between UV mapped hair and non UV mapped.

Then it was eyebrow time!

After this I moved to find the right skin tone for this imitation plasticine man. I also tried to fix his eyes for ages (they had theses yucky marks on them)...

...turns out they were a blinn and reflecting alot.

More skin tone searching...

And for some reason I thought adding a bit of glow would lighten his colour :P

After that was sorted I moved to try and figure out bump and displacement maps.

Who knows what happened with the following images!?

At this point I started top figure them out.

This guy's pretty freaky.

A closeup detail shot. noticing some texture problems.

Fixed them here though.

After he's rigged, a shot showing Waldorf and his teacup staff.

Yay! Weight painting time!

Woah! Freaky!

The triumphant finish.

Ready for his animation debut.