Get started making your own cartoon characters in Maya with this tutorial.
More info and an introduction can be found here.
Burt the Cartoon Dinosaur - Volume 2 UV, Texturing, Lighting and Shading
Learn the new UV workflow in Maya 2016 that makes it possible to UV a character like this in 15 minutes. This project also covers hand painting textures, character lighting, shading with the Mila material and setting up a subsurface scattering network. More info and an introduction can be found here.
