Work title "Smoke and Bone" Original artwork in progress

As you can see from the title, I've used some bones as a reference for this one.

Last year I was hanging in a bar, minding my own business. chit-chatting with some friends. Then the girlfriend of the bartender came by, and she had a friend with her. The other girl was an interesting-looking person.
She was closed off, yet was pretty reactive to everything around her.
I started joking around, even roasting her, softly. But she was one-upping me every time.
The jokes got rough, but we kept going. We had a couple of good laughs, Then I asked her what she does for a living, and she replied that she's a taxidermy expert. I was very surprised and happy that I could not filter myself in front of her, I mean... She basically works with dead animals. What could possibly upset her?

Went to a club together, she was stiff as a stick. Welp, I'm not a dancer either so can't judge.
We met again a few months later, and I asked her if she could get me some bones, animal skulls, etc.
She said sure, I'll see what I can find.
A few weeks later she mailed me 2 skulls, one of a small dog and one of a jackal. I was so happy. For years I wanted to get my hands on some bones. Was asking all the people I know that might have access to such things but nothing.

Now, these skulls sit right on my workbench, (you can judge people by their reaction when they see the skulls), and was thinking about using them as a reference for a long time, even just for a study. So a few days ago I was talking with a friend of mine. The one that got me into digital painting.

We were going to play videogames, but I suggested that we should paint. I had no idea what to put on the empty canvas, so just started slapping different parts from the skulls together.
Later on, my friend said, this is too abstract, you need to ground it with something more familiar.

I've had a scrapped project from last year, that I was revisiting recently. Took the fact that I've painted, and moved it to the current file. Now my hassle is how to make it part of everything else, and still, keep it... gentle, I have to yet figure that out.

Tools used: Photoshop, Wacom Intuos pen Small, and some skulls