Sketch:
Current render:
Balanced, focused critique and good advice, please 
Am still n00b. Especially looking for help with lighting and materials, plus ideas of how I can add to the model.
By the way: how can I make one mesh different colours, or of different materials without dividing it in to different objects? I’d like black rubber soles for the boots.
Select one of your boots. While in object mode, go to the edit panel and choose the ‘new’ button in the link and materials window. Make sure the field above the ‘new’ button now says 2 mat 2, then go to the materials tab and make your new rubber sole material. Put your boot into edit mode, select the vertices of the sole, then hit the ‘assign’ button in the link and materials window of the edit panel. Repeat for other boot, just re-use the sole material you created for the first boot.
For multi-color meshes use the material index shown in the Links and Materials panel. Selected vertices are “assigned” to a material index, and the material index can have any material attribute, including textures. You get 16 indices per mesh.
In the shader panel for materials, Ref basically controls the value of the body color, and spec and hard control the highlights. Set the preview window to the sphere to see how the settings affect the material. Light plays a big role as well, a single light tends to be rather stark, back and fill lights are usually needed to make the render look decent. Back and fill lights can be hemi lights, which provide illumination without casting shadows.
For light coming from the South, say, put three hemi lights at North, East and West, pointing in toward the model, with a fairly shallow angle and low intensity (0.200). In the South, put two suns, one right behind the other, set to around 0.600. Make one of the suns “no diffuse” (ie: spec only.)
I usually give the hemi’s a bit of a tint, just to liven up the render. The spec only sun light lets me play with the highlights without affecting the overall lighting in the scene.
If you want soft shadows, change the sun light into a cluster of spot lights (three or four of them, at reduced intensity, and spread out a bit). The spots have a soft edge setting, and using several also breaks up the hard shadow edge.
Thanks for the tips. I’ve made the inside of her mouth pitch black and I fixed the soles as well. I’ll be making a park for her to play in as well I think.
As for the lighting - I thought the point with those big area lights (I’m using a square one now) was so you wouldn’t have to add a bunch of spotlights in order to get soft shadows? I’ll do the lighting with the park, I think, though.
