I've discovered something!

The thing that I discovered is that I am much better with tree pulp and dirt in a stick than I am with a tablet.   I did a partial scene with the aforementioned tree-pulp-and-dirt method, and it looks so much better than anything else I've done so far.

Here's the au naturelle scene bit:

And then here is the compiled bunch of animation fragments I've created so far in vague order:

I think it's pretty obvious which one is better.  >_>