Feedback session (negative moodiness)

Today we had a very long and very scary feedback session for the work we'd done so far, which in my case was not as much as I could have done simply because I've been so stuck on this project so far. 

What I learnt:

• people really liked the analogue stuff that I'd done and didn't seem too fussed about the illustrator work, which is good because I also liked the way the analogue things looked and the general consensus seems to be that wet media works better to portray the feeling of being underwater
• however, even though people seem to like the use of gouache, and I really enjoy using it too, I feel like I tried to push the boat out with the digital work and it still hasn't worked out? Anything I could do on Ai I feel like I could also do using analogue media if not do it better. Maybe I'm wrong but that's what it feels like at the moment and I'm worried it looks like I've not experimented at all and always play it safe using the same materials
• the swimming pool idea has been a success and will 100% be the idea that I take forward, which is good because I've run out of time to think of trying much else
• I need to be more specific, honing in on certain feelings I'm trying to evoke using an image and focusing on smaller scenes at once and in less detail. REMEMBER, things can be abstract

After the session I went home and just roughed up a lot more compositions of a similar thing I'd been doing before but focused on a smaller section of it. I wanted to show the feeling of desperation and near death state that Nakamats would be in, and the oppressiveness of being surrounded by water:

The second version is a bit better in my opinion as it actually looks more like him, the skin tone is better and the gestures stronger. I've realised its really hard to show someones reaching really determinedly underwater, none of the arm gestures look strong enough so that's something I need to work on tomorrow. But in terms of composition and process I'm chuffed with this, its a bit more evocative than the things I was doing before which is something I'm striving for. Tomorrow is a new day, and hopefully this will all be less of a struggle then, I'm going to go in to the studio and work more on making this image say something important, and maybe the rest of the brief will start to follow on from that? really not feeling too positive about this project. Maybe its because its close to the end of term and I'm mentally exhausted or maybe this topics too broad for my weird organised brain but I'm really finding it a struggle to make anything I like and think of as good illustration at the moment which is very disheartening. I think maybe I need to rest on it, think about what I'm trying to do with this project and then try again tomorrow? ahhhhhhhhhh help