I haven't brought in her eyebrows or eyelashes yet. That is why she looks surprised.
I also had to re-animate her fingers for this shot.. Hopefully that is all done now.
There is some bad news, however.. That de-noiser tool doesn't work miracles. The 3 minute render had terrible artifacting upon closer inspection. It looks nice if I crank up the samples; which yields longer render times. It shaves off a little bit of time but not as much as I first thought.
I still have that AI tool I purchased. The one that creates images between images.. If I use that on the background and render every 3rd or 4th frame I may be able to shave off 20% or more from the render time. We shall see.
More to come!