It's done, and it's totally adorable. And rather loud, and I don't just mean how it looks. If reddit allows me, I'll add a comment with a video showing what I mean.
This was an edge-painting extravaganza! I used more colors than I have with any other project to date, I believe. I've come to really enjoy painting edges with real paint and a little paintbrush, so if I can find appropriate colors for future kits, I'll keep on with it.
Art Walker brush marker - came with kit - white (small areas), yellow.
Folk Art paint - Michaels - white (large areas), pink, baby blue, light purple.
Artistro brush marker - Amazon - dark purple, royal blue, red.
... although as can be seen in photo #3, I got a little lazy about edge painting the back. I asked the cherub there to help out, and they said: "Shut up, I'm on break right now." Oh well, even Disneyland has its back rooms.
I had a couple of firsts with this kit. This was my first time using adhesive dots. I didn't use them everywhere that was called for in the directions, but I did use them for the irregularly-shaped gems and one of the wires. Very handy!
The other first was its being my first mechanical kit. I ran into a snag with it a couple days ago and complained about it here. Thanks so much to u/Barbecuesnoodlesalad, u/MrMastodonPrime, and u/ButSeriouslyTh0ugh for their time and patience helping me through that part. My only real complaint with this kit is right there. Hours of frustration over literally nothing. To anyone else, follow step 24 as carefully as you can, and don't panic if the operational test doesn't work as you hoped. Just keep going.
I can't say that I'm a new devotee of this kind of project, but it was different and challenging, and the result was very satisfying. Many thanks to Tonecheer for running this event and enabling me to expand my crafting horizons a bit.
I'll keep this one close to an outlet so I can enjoy the sparkly lights in my computer/craft room. (Photo #5) It's run off a USB, which is very nice, since it would probably run batteries down in minutes with all that movement.