Rolling Dice

An image I did for 'Vampire: The Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Edition'.

Although drawing awesome monsters and beautiful women is part of the job of an illustrator, I think that's the easy part. I find more often telling a story through a compelling image is the hard part of the job.
The description for this was "Mritunjay is playing a dice game with some brigands in the street." That could go in so many directions, so many boring directions. With a little research and some more story telling, I decided that this guy has totally roped these thieves in. Making them think that he is a total rich pushover, losing to them in the beginning, building up their confidence. Now the game has come down to one final roll of the dice, all money is on the line. You can almost feel the air being sucked out of the space as everyone holds their breath in anticipation as two small cubes decide the fate of everyone involved...
Anyway, that's what I was going for. Did it work? How do you approach storytelling in your work?
Thanks for swinging by! 

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