\n\t\t\t\t\talec8terMore info now that I'm awake: this was supposed to be a test case for the quick-and-simple coloring method I was developing. It took a month. Some of that's the method and a lot of it's me being a bonehead.
I made a tool that swaps false colors for points on a sphere, e.g. a mirror-ball. Basically I color with directions instead of brightness, so stuff pointing up is greener and stuff pointing right is redder. This requires no forethought about the scene lighting or the character references. It also makes shiny reflections and soft lighting dead easy. Which is great, until you put a dude in green latex against a green backdrop because you did those parts separately. And then you spend a week learning to paint a mirror-ball instead of just squiggling out the implication of specular reflections. And then you have to go re-export the color+lighting layer because you had the wrong ref sheet.
So this shortcut took more work than simple talent would've needed, as shortcuts often do. I'm counting on it taking a lot less work now that I know how not to balls it up. I'll spread the tool thing around when it's less primitive.
Anyway: this scenario is fucking hot. Discuss.