I modeled and rigged this in Maya 2015 (student) for a Maya course at university. It’s my first 3d character. The background sunrise is not mine and is a photo I found online. I was playing around with poses and lighting. Also, character is based on a 2d sketch I drew for reference, but I ultimately changed the design in Maya because the drawing was kind of flawed.
The main problem i see is that your lights are infinite. Real lights have falloff so check out all the light parameters and if it has falloff/atenuation or whatever that might be called, try playing with the settings.
Your lights also seem a tad bright, thus the pictures has burned areas aka pure white. You should avoid those since the surface is never white, unless you are in some sort of “supernova” explosion center, where it emmits so much energy that all goes white.
Also, you should look into hdri for lighting. There should be alot of tutorials on google and youtube.
Something that could help with the lights could also be where the sun or moon is. This could help give it a better feeling with lighting in not only the room but even the character. if you want light in the room try adding props that represent light fixtures as well.