After a long battle, I admit defeat.

I messed up big time, even beyond repair. While I decided to give up and deal a quick finishing blow or rather stroke to it, I still like parts of it, naturally.

But overall, I fell prey to misconception with that one. While the whole setup looked good and solid in the sketch, I really bumped into severe issues with the light later on, as one might notice. I even had to go as far as pulling out the rabbit out of the hat, it's magic, a.k.a layers and overlay stuff in Photoshop to adjust Zidane there in the front with shadow over the head that wasn't planned to be there from the start.

While this basically started out as a mere test of that technique used in Photoshop rather than Painter (which worked fine in the beginning, I need to point that out) turned into more, but then turned against me. So after hours spent, though not totally in vain, I quickly added some finishing touches in Painter and then PS again, and decided to move on.

As there are more important matters at hand to deal with, I just have to draw the line here and say "It's finished despite the major flaws". Thought I'd share anyway so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
(And don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a total failure or anything, but the wrong parts heavily outweigh the good parts)

Anyway, FF9 characters (c) Square Enix.
'nuff said.