Thank you all for the comments. I made an appointment for Feb. to finish this up so I have some time to make a decision. Even talking with my wife and getting her thoughts, she wants me to stay with him throughout because of 1) she loves his artwork 2) the idea that he came up with from what I gave him for an example 3) his portfolio has the best color work that she had seen in a long time.
He has some other strong points but in the end, snail slow. If it did take the 70 hours to finish this up it would be another $4500 with the session price we came up with, not bad at all for a full color sleeve; on the other hand it should take 70 hours to do a sleeve. We will see in the next couple weeks and after he finishes this piece.
Once again, thanks.