Need some pro advise....

[Hammerhead]

Depending on how many coats of paint you applied, that is a good possible source. Particularly if you applied several coats of paint to each part. 3 coats, which isn't a lot is 9 or more coats/layers in your equation...
3 on the damper (each side makes 6)
3 on the pulley (each side makes 12!)
3 on the bolting plate (if you did both sides of this too, your at 18 layers of paint!)
It is a crankshaft vibration damper after all...with that much paint, some time and vibrations to now wear all that paint away, and voila, you've created a 1/64" or so gap pretty easily.

I never even thought to ask about torque wrench quality/accuracy, but that is a high possibility as well.

Unless you gobbed it on, I still can't see the anti-seize as your culprit.