back to the future...i mean...pocoyo look

so after my attempts at re-creating the Pocoyo style, i realized i was out of my depth in terms of lighting/rendering knowledge. This is a weakness of mine i hope to strengthen over the course of the...course....ahem, but anyway, I showed Mr Grigsby (whose expertise in Maya are legendary) and explained my renders meant the lighting was too harsh on the subjects and when trying to add to the occlusion layer it meant the brightness was too much. He then showed me a way of flooding the scene with a more natural diffused light that led to a softer render. After taking some notes, I returned home to attempt the scene again.

Aaaaaaaand the result?

Weeeeell its looking better but I think it could look even better with an actual plastisine texture added to the lambert instead of just a colour...perhaps texture layering might add to the thick texture quality too? More experiments to come but I really should get back to my character...its good to start thinking about the next stage though!

Heres the added occlusion and render pass in after effects...as you can see...still too bright...more tweaking with the lights is needed in Maya

and heres the same render after a brightness tweak in after effects. This is more of the look I should be aiming for, however I hope I can sort out the lighting in Maya rather than adjust everything in post! Progress occurring don't you know
Heres some more tests:

Lowered the light intensity to 0.6 and occlusion and image added via the screen option in after effects. Looking better but still a little washed out colour wise. 

Light intensity lowered to 0.4 in Maya. Occlusion and image render added via add in after effects. Not a great deal of difference between this one and the previous...lets push it some more.
Light intensity lowered to 0.2 in Maya. Occlusion and render image added via lighten option in after effects. Looking better, seeing a lot more colour from the objects here yet still seems slightly washed out. Further tweaking to continue. I think the tests might be a bit more successful if the shapes are soften a little. Perhaps try photographing plasticine and applying it to the shapes in different colours...see if that makes any difference to the overall look. Bump mapping might also help at this stage.