It has been silent for a while now, but therefor I can give you a closer look on the first character for Vannacart.
The first mesh, not really casual, way too realistic 
Derived from the far too real model I tried to get it more casual 
And then create a custom biped for the animations and rigging
Just to mention here is that the result you see below is the work of only four hours so far.
Do you recognize the character yet?