Visual Language - Figure and object - Colour

These are the final drawings of birds that I would like to use to create my final piece on photoshop

I drew them onto tracing paper so that I could feel comfortable drawing them and not fear making a mistake and wanting to draw all three again. This also allows me a lot more control with regards to fine tuning my composition.

Creation

Initial laying it out, I realise that the branches will not work in pencil, so Im going to re do them in fine liner.

Below I am, trying to work out compositionally which works better, this one with less branches...

This first image is more flowing, but more branches add more depth, but the lower image at the moment feels to unbalanced as there is a lot of empty space in the bottom left hand corner which stands out so much as it contrasts with the bottom right corner that has branches filling it.

Using Colour

At the moment I am using a photograph of these birds as reference for the colour. 

Initial attempts, also above is the colour palate that I have restricted myself to at the moment. I picked it trying to achieve as accurate colours as possible to the original bird feathers etc, but perhaps I should pick the colours with more regards as to how they interact and sit with each other to make a more interesting piece.

Second attempt

(Second bird from the left) I started colouring in the second bird, this time using a much more limited palate. I was original planning to add a further darker colour, but at the moment I think this works as it is. I also think that I prefer the first bird, with these reduced colours too. 

Here is the third rendered bird with the swatches of the colours that I used. I'm going to work more on the tail, its too heavy and the shape stands out against the rest of the image.

 Using another layer, with the white paintbrush I faded the Bluethroat a little bit, but still his solid blocks of colour make him stand out more from the other two. I might try to play around with the opacity some more.

This is still just a screen shot, but I do quite lie the composition of it, but as the branches are still not complete, and this is a much closer angle, the sense of depth/viewpoint I was trying to achieve is lost somewhat. And the colours of the birds do make it feel quite unbalanced to me still.

Here I have tidied up the background a bit, evening out the scanners shadows, I've also added in some more branches to attempt to address the composition of it. At the moment this isn't proving particularly successful. I'll shuffle them around some more, and probably edit the opacity of the image, as actually before in its rougher version I feel that it was more successful. 

Finished for now?

Tried to use darker colour/tone in the top section of this image, as compositionally it is rather bottom heavy. Still not that keen about the background, and the objects.