editorial illustration - police lie under oath

UPDATE - 03/21

Okee dokee, so I've been working on CONCEPT #1. The concept is an ominous looking police officer holding up a mask. Here's my work in progress. 

I found a stock image on getty to use as a silhouette of my officer.

And I also found a very spooky looking guy for a face. you can see here where I've started outlining shapes in Illustrator.

Here's all my outlines. You can also see where I've attempted to add the hand holding the mask.

I then imported it into photoshop and applied a bunch of photocopy textures to the whole thing. I wanted the figure to look really dark with just some shading to give it some shape. I also used the image of the spooky face to give the face more detail.

I think its looking pretty cool. I do worry that the face is almost too scary looking. But I suppose that's the concept. I have to work on the mask and the hand holding it. Also need to add his badge on his shirt. And then I want to play with a spot color or something. 

Here's a mask I was trying out. The face is from a baseball card I found on the library of congress image site. I feel like the mask needs to be jolly-er or more smiley. Right now don't think the concept is coming through.

One more image. Here's what homeboy looks like without a face. You can also see the outlines of the badge and hand where I haven't added any shading or anything.

Anyway, any feedback/ideas appreciated. Questions I'm asking myself: Should I lose the face? Is the concept coming together? Should I do the mask photographic/graphic or should I try something more hand-drawn looking? Should I add artwork/texture into the background?

Thanks!

Alright, a little behind schedule here. But here's my thumbnails. I've got about seven ideas here. I think a couple of them are working. 

CONCEPT #1

This would be a shadowy silhouette of a police officer holding a mask. I like this, but maybe feel like I've seen it done before?

CONCEPT #2

This is a police officer covering their mouth with their hand. But their hand has a mouth on it too. Could look cool, but the meaning is a little ambiguous I think.

CONCEPT #3

This idea would be a jury box, with the graph paper from a lie detector feeding out the top. The second iteration has the squiggles forming a symbol, like a question mark. Not sure if it needs the extra concept on top of the concept. But maybe it makes it more clever? I think this is one of my faves.

CONCEPT #4

This idea is dfferent speach bubbles making weapons. Implying police use thier lies as another tool.

Which led me to this idea.

Which could be cool I think, but also seems less original. I feel like I have seen speech bubbles a lot, and I have seen them make a shape of something bigger. But maybe that doesn't matter.

CONCEPT #5

This would be a shelf full of different talking mouths. A hand is taking one of the mouths off the shelf. This is my other favorite concept.