Shading and texturing

The next step in the process is to add shading and texturing to the model to add volume to the character as well as providing the viewer with an idea of how their skin, their clothes, their hair etc ... might feel. This stage can be a laborious one as it can consist of tricky processes such as U.V. mapping, however it is as vital as any of the others. Subtle changes in the colour or texture of a piece of clothing, or the fur on an animal could make a drastic difference to the entire animation and the audiences interpretation of something. There is a video on the 'behind the scenes' section of Shrek that shows when a novice animator made one minor adjustment that altered donkeys hair for the entire film, making him look more like a ball of fluff than a donkey. It can be the subtlest changes in texture that make the biggest difference. one of the areas in which texturing is incredibly important is in video games, where the models are low poly and so all of the detail is produced by the textures. A process called bump mapping is what helps to provide much of this detail. The difference between basic texturing where you'd simply apply a colour or image to an object, although this can be a detailed picture, it remains the same no matter where the light source, camera angle etc... and bump mapping, is that it responds to the direction of light, so whilst the object may remain flat, the various bumps and shapes on the surface appear to be 3D. The model below is a great example of the strength of bump mapping, the bottom right image shows the polygons that make up the creature, whilst the other images show it rendered out after the application of textures and the bump map, making it look far more complex and interesting. 

Other techniques that are often used when texturing include, as previously mentioned, UV mapping, this is a complex process that, in essence, means unfurling the skin from the model to make a flat net which can then be painted on using software such as photoshop. Every so often characters throw up issues, naturally hair is one of these however animation companies have found many ingenious ways around the issue of creating realistic and visually stunning hair. The recent film Brave has some incredible examples of beautifully animated hair and below is an article documenting the way that King Kong's hair was produced for Peter Jackson's adaptation of the film. 
http://renderman.pixar.com/products/whats_renderman/showcase_kingkong.html
Jobs in texturing often go hand in hand with roles in lighting and rendering, as you can see in the link below to a Job advert.
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/assistant-cgi-artist-auto-3dsmax-maya-lighting-modelling-texture/22221547?wt.mc_id=Agg-Workcircle