Finding a vision

I wrote a children's story and decided I wanted to illustrate it myself. The first "vision" I had of these illustrations was oils done in the tradition of my fine art. This is my first:

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I really liked the ominious presence of the crow, but after coming upon a book about Arthur Rackham, I fell in love with idea of the sepia tones in watercolor, with ink. I felt it fit the time frame of the story, seeing as our main character is Escar Gogh, the artist snail, and the story is full of puns set against paintings of Van Gogh's. This is my second vision:

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After a rousing critique by an art director and a room full of published illustrators, I realized that the main character, the snail, was out of sync with the look of everything else. He looked too cute and coloring-bookish. And the heirloom look just wasn't going to sell to publishers. A more modern approach was needed... more humor. Maybe even some down right silliness. So this is my final vision (without color... I'm still working on that.) The crow will not be that fatal black; he'll just be a ratty grey. The snail has more attitude and character. The coloration of the background will be loose and not so serious. I've also changed the type of snail... he was a pond snail with a shell that, honestly, reminded me of a pile of dog poo. Now he is an Apple snail with a shell that follows the Golden Mean . (It's a mathematical formula created by God to design many things in nature, such as the petals on a sunflower, or the spiral of a shell. It is also used by many master painters to determine the composition of their masterpieces.)