A.K.A. Adventures in Mesh Lighting. Per Ashfire45's suggestion, I did away with point and distant lights for this one and tried some of Reality's pre-built lights instead. Even after dialing the wattage and efficiency way up they're still a bit dim, but otherwise I quite like the effect. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually. The character himself (who I've decided to call Stacey Reacher, because I enjoy the masculine-guys-with-girly-names trope and because I couldn't think of many surnames that sounded good attached to Stacey) isn't quite done yet; the pistol's only halfway retextured and in need of a holster, and I'm not quite sure about those pants or boots - the combination was chosen in large part because it's one of the few decent ones I could find in my library that goes together well without clipping. But here he is nevertheless. He's also the first human character I've done without pointing his eyes directly at the camera, which seems to have resulted in a slightly faraway look. So there's another lesson learned: characters should generally be looking AT something.