Why did this take hours?
It looks mediocre.
Eh, I haven't used my tablet in a few weeks, so this was a rust-breaking piece centered solely on trying new techniques. It took forever to find the right shade a skin tone for him, and even longer to apply shading with the airbrush. I'm still trying to ease back into it, and this isn't even the final version. I felt accomplished just doing this in between finals and major essays.
Oh, and I don't use SAI or Flash like most people. This was done in Autodesk Sketchbook, and I think it's turning out pretty well.