I See Faces - Figure, Setting

I find figure really quite difficult.  As much as I do enjoy drawing people from life and at times reference, and it is something that I used to practice a fair bit, I still find figurative drawing pretty tricky. This is especially the case when I have no reference to go off, or I am making a character up. 

The left sketch is drawn using a shaman image on Google as reference to get the basic body figure correct. I find the image quite boring though, even if it exists as a practice. I think putting the masks onto a human form can create some very eerie and unsettling drawings, a vibe which I am hoping to achieve in the end.

The free form, smoke-like body shape of the right image is a lot more interesting. I feel the flow and fluidity is a lot more appealing and somewhat more mysterious, although I have no idea what the arms are doing.

Some of the images that came to mind when listening to the song were those of floating people; there is a lot of photography on the internet which is along this theme, and is where the reference for these roughs was based from. They're so predictable and very overdone though, and would be a struggle to make original and different. They proved useful as anatomical practice though.

Council estate setting experiments. Does it work? Still trying to answer that one. I like it, but it needs to do a lot more to excite me enough. 

Maybe I am being too figurative though? Am I pushing my image making enough? Do I need to push it for the sake of it, even if the project and my ideas don't align with overly different image making?