Huck Finn Cover

This next project is something for class which I am using as an opportunity to create a more stylized, friendly piece. I'm creating a cover for Huckleberry Finn, and wanted to show a scene of  Huck and Jim (the slave) on the river. I'm using myself as reference for Huck, and got my roommate to pose for Jim.

Here is a sketch I came up with. My idea was to keep the proportions pretty much accurate but simplify the anatomy into shapes. I'm using sharp edges and trying to keep most lines straight. I also decided I was going to have a strong light coming from the left to add some drama.

Here is my sketch after in Photoshop with added lighting.

I started doing the background next. I wanted to make sure there would be enough contrast between the characters and the sky/river. I made sure the sky matched the lighting. Compositionally (Is that a word?), I tried to have all the background elements point towards Huck and frame Jim's head nicely. Like the characters, I kept everything fairly simplified into straight edges, except for the clouds. 

 Here I started to render and add some detail. I also adjusted the colors slightly by adding more saturation/contrast. At this point I would say its maybe 70% done. There a couple things I'm thinking I'm going to change. The eyes and the perspective on the hat seem off to me. The text is still temporary, I'll most likely do the letters by hand.