The Unusual Suspects

Okay. 
Here are my little creations. All in a neat line. 

They each have an Idle animation for the diorama. Toro alone has been given more animations as he is the playable character in the level. 

Teaser shots of the completed diorama

(I've been meaning to post these all week I've only just got around to it)
A few shots of the Minions diorama - 

I need to add some movement to the palm trees. They look a bit unnatural being completely static.

I apologise for the awful video quality but it's the best I can do right now. 
I was just testing out the movement of my chosen Minion - Toro.

I was tempted to make the environment appear cartoon shaded but I have decided it looks pretty good as it is so I can scratch that off the list right now.

Minion World Progress

I've been beavering away making assets to place in a diorama for my Minions and it's coming together quite well. 

Wall Relief

Pyramid

Roman Column and Pedestal

Old Slate Wall

4 Surface Pillar

Palm Tree

Temple Stone and Sand Floor with a Stone Ring Aperture

Angled and Straight Vines

Wild Grass

Fire Brazier

Soil Ground Plane

Stone Blocks

Background Planes

Mega-Worm!

Wooden Plank Platform

Wooden Post

Minion! Finally :D

At last - Minion! 

This is the original concept for Minion which I have changed since starting this project to make him more heroic - he was a little dumpy ;)

He looks a lot more like a leading character now (that diet paid off)

Still texturing the little guy but he's coming along a lot faster than the previous Minions. 
I guess he's lived in my head for so long it's not a hard stretch for me to visualise him in 3D space. 

I'm strongly considering incorporating a comic-style shader in the diorama. 
Need to do a little research on how to effectively pull that off. I really like the shadow quality of consistent colours in the 3ds max viewport. 

More to be Ertzed

Ertz is coming along nicely. 
Using multiple maps has helped to maintain a consistent amount of texture density as I hoped it would. 

I have a Biped set up for rigging with custom bones for the extra limbs. 
I'm considering just having the Minions in idle poses for the end diorama as I don't think I'll have enough time to animate four individual run cycles for the hand in.