practicing composition and scene openers

I was looking for something to draw the other night while watching the 40-year old virgin on HBO. There is a scene where the characters are at a japanese exhibition steakhouse and the waitresses are singing happy birthday to one of the people at the table. I thought that would be fun to draw for practice. The things I am trying to practice here are establishing a scene / location and setting an interesting composition for the panels and the page. For this I thought I would use two panels: one an establishing shot and a second shot of the main characters in the scene. That's it.



I think the setting is sort of clear....maybe not. It looks like a restaurant or bar at least - but could be a hotel conference room / wedding reception. the three people at standing in the background are supposed to be waitresses singing to the table. This is not really clear either I guess. The two main characters are seated at the bottom of the panel with their backs facing the reader. The composition in the opening panel is ok to me in that I think the lines and different values, move the eye across the panel from the bottom left across the table and up to the waitresses faces. The composition is a little too busy though(packed with lines). Also, the two main characters of the scene are seated at the bottom of the panel (with the backs of their heads to the reader) They are basically lost in the panel to me which results in a situation where the reader gets to the second panel and doesn't realyl know that these two people were in the prior panel at all. I should've done something to bring more attention to them.

The drawing is ok - maybe a bit to skritchy-skratchy. That always happens when I rush through stuff. I used a PITT brush pen to ink and I am not unhappy with it. I just need more practice with inks and finishing. For the fine lines I have to hold the pen tip so light against the paper that I get some shakiness in the line. Also at times I rush the line work and the line weights come out looking too uniform. Still learning.