Dungeon Delve Progress

To give a little background of the challenge first: the basic idea is that a D&D character is lost in a dungeon with seemingly no escape and is in dangerous/enemy territory. Plus, they've been lost in the dungeon for so long that they're in pretty bad shape (cut, bruised, exhausted, etc.). The illustration has to both come across as threatening and hopeless ideally.

So, I still haven't decided which sketch I'll be working from. I'm stuck between #2 and 3. I'm not sure if either drawing is great for the challenge or gets those earlier stated themes across. I did some color thumbnails to see if I could figure out any more ideas or make some progress. Here are the color thumbnails for sketch #2:

And here are the thumbnails for #3:

Original sketches are here also: Original Ideas

#3 doesn't really change that much and has less variety, which is why I'm starting to like #2 more now. Sketch #2 has a wary character trying to escape some massive, subterranean area only to discover a new room filled with tell-tale blood stains all over the floor. #3 has a close up of the character in horrible shape attempting to desperately make their way across a tiny ledge with a huge pit below them. Now to figure out which works better :/

Also, I got some great reference for these color tests from some Magic the Gathering art found here:

MtG Ravnica Swamp

Ravnica Swamp 2

Anthony Waters MtG art