Fancy Animals Assignment

Hey guys,
I enrolled in Chris Oatley's Magic Box a couple of months ago and am currently working on my second assignment. We were supposed to combine a master renaissance work (that had atmospheric lighting and visible brush work) with a funny animal. I chose one of Rembrandt's self portraits and an aye aye, lol. Here's a look at my progress so far.

 

After starting on the brush work part of the assignment, I've begun to regret choosing an animal who's fur is such a different color (and has so many colors) from the Rembrandt reference. I don't know how to interpret those local colors properly with the Rembrandt light and shadow colors. >_< The instructor's demo isn't mush help in that department unfortunately since he chose to use an opossum. I'm also concerned that I might be in danger of over rendering since my painting doesn't have the nice visible brushwork that Chris' has. I'll keep going though and see what happens.