Figuring out orwell and his mate

Coming out of the print room, I had yet to draw orwell and his friend appealing to the farmer. I think being so loose and sketchy with all these characters is starting to come through on my general illustration, as can be seen with this stretchy drawing. I really don't want that to come through on orwell. I want him to be the normality, the sanity to the pages, so my goal is to keep him somewhere in the realms of proportionality. 

And so I started again, messing with a few thumbnails to try and get poses that express the characters feelings in these scenes. Starting with the characters asking for the work, Orwell does the speaking. I remember seeing something from body language experts that were sales people, talking about people who would disagree with their product offers, but show their hands open and raised somewhat, would be susceptible to caving in and buying. This came from this movement being done to show you were unarmed and willing to work with the attacker's demands from rougher times that, I guess, is engrained now, same idea when raising arms to attest innocence. A long way of saying Orwell stands with his raised hands to show his trustability, whilst his friend doesn't look so hopeful, hands in pocket, somewhat reserved. He is based on an actual character, Young Ginger, who was a bit of a thief and rough around the edges, I feel he would be used to and expect a rejection.

Leading to the rejection image, Orwell and young Ginger walk away, ginger maintains eye contact, in a sort of "you're going to regret that decision" manner, knowing he's probably going to steal from the farm now. Orwell just looks disgruntled, walking off in disappointment.