Playing with Environment

 For this render I used the vRay plugin fur to create crass and a paint effect tree converted to polygons. Default lighting. The plane has been made "bumpy" with soft selection and a grass texture has been put into it with a bump map.
 Playing with the physical sun and sky lighting creating a sun set using a tutorial. Also playing with the tree and plane again. This was a good learning tutorial and I may use the physical sun and sky lighting for the environment I create. I'm also looking into adding an image in the background or on a plane to create a background/sky. It may limit me in camera angles however.

Playing with shadows and light here.

I have rigged my mechanism's legs which was very difficult and took me much loner than expected which was frustrating. However, I still need to learn how to animate the character walking.

I've also been watching tutorials for creating depth of field in the cameras on Maya. I think that would look really amazing. Hopefully I have time to do this. I'm aware that it can also add to rendering time significantly.