If you want to be an character animator QUIT SCREWING AROUND AND ANIMATE! Until you have accomplished a character that is alive and THINKING and FEELING, forget about fancy lighting and texturing! CHARACTER ANIMATION IS ACTING. Subtle nuance is THE KEY, and it takes continual FOCUS and DEDICATION. You KNOW how RARE convincing animation is. Your fear of not being able to meet your own high animation expectations materializes unconsciously as procrastination from animating by spending infinite time being anal about textures, lights, modeling, and story (Yes, I said STORY). Make a stick figure walk across a room cheerfully, be struck with a profound realization, and convincingly transition into a full emotional breakdown. NOW YOU'RE ANIMATING! Send it to PIXAR and you'll get a job as a character animator way quicker than you would with that mediocrely textured, lighted, modeled, and half-ass-animated cliche short story piece you dawdled away on all semester. Weed from your process all extraneous aesthetic considerations, unless you are happy being a jack of all trades and master of NONE (ie. employment in Cleveland).