Hey I think your second attempt at the combining images exercise is much better, the reflection on the water looks great!
Really love how you use cubes instead of squares/ovals for the head/torso/pelvis, they read very easily! Love the clean, smooth lines too. Maybe you can consider lowering the opacity of the reference images to make the lines stand out even more? Or draw next to the reference, not directly over them (That's what I did for mine )
Keep up the good work, can't wait to see more!