Quote Originally Posted by auditory hallucinations
someone said to me...80% of the work should take 20% of the time, and the remaining 20% of the work should take 80% of the time...seems to fit with what you're saying

going back to the actual processing of the sounds, what kinda things work well...obviously compression, eq, distortion - what other kind of processes can you recommend? trial and error is probably the best way but could do with a few shortcuts...
General modulation stuff.... flanging, phasing, chorus... ring modulation is sometimes interesting... vocoding, if you've got the software...

+ also, always play around with automating parameters on your FX.