Work in Progress: "Psalm 115"

The last of my senior project re-dos is a piece called "Psalm 115". Here is the original against the newest digital developments on the piece:

This one has a lot of little changes, but none of the huge composition changes like my previous pieces. I first increased the contrast and made the smoke coming from the popcorn bowl more visible, especially as it hits the light. I also added a little glow to the screen on the foreground man's head to help indicate that it is emitting light. Then, I worked on improving the anatomy of the mannequin, moving his belly button up higher, flattening out the pectorals to match the low point of view, putting the left elbow up higher so the upper arm wouldn't look so long, etc. Next, I moved to the foreground man, correcting some anatomy issues with his arm and legs. You may notice that the cup has moved over slightly. I did that so the cup would still overlap the knee when I made the leg shorter. Otherwise, I would have a tangency between the knee and the cup. After that, I worked on my first rat, then a second rat, and then went back to change the first rat so you could better see him eating behind the trash. Most recently, I created more cracks on the wall and debris in general.

Here is about one-third of the reference photos I am working with:

These are all procured in different ways. The first is a photo of a maquette I built. The room is made of leftover mounting board that I busted up a bit. I gessoed the walls a little as well. The figures are built out of Sculpey clay with the front figure having designer masking tape apparel. The light is from a little LED stand light that is sitting mostly outside the room with the light bent forward to sit in front of the guy's head. This photo is used for general lighting information, such as the cast shadow behind the mannequin. As you can see the anatomy isn't so hot, so that's when I find a trusty friend or family member to pose for me. The second picture is a good example of this. I will be very faithful to this type of reference. The third cluster of images is some details on plugs and a stitched wound that I will use to help with the details on the front figure. I will be faithful to small parts of this reference, but I am usually painting the actual content at a slightly different angle. Last is a cluster of rats. The top left rat I referred to heavily for the rat in the painting on the left. The other rat is a composite of about three different rats. The other reference rats I may not use directly, but give me a better understanding of rat anatomy so I can be more informed of what I am copying from the main reference rats.