A matter of scale

It's been years since I've even visualized an entire cohesive scene, let alone tried my hand at one. This is an image that popped into my head  a couple days ago-- we'll see if I can wrestle it into existence. One step at a time-- still a long way to go.

First, some gestures to warm up. I've decided I need to work on more than just full-body gestures, and in particular hands, feet, expressions, musculature and clothes. Since hands are so blasted complicated I gave myself two minutes a pose.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah... Definitely more work.

Then onto the image I have in my head. It'll be really interesting if I can end up with a finished piece (in color, gasp!) in a few week's time.

Patrick already pointed out the ridiculousness of the bard's
pose-- I'm mulling a couple alternates. Don't be surprised
to see this revised in the next round.

Value test-- can I understand what the hell's going on?