hi, I feel you being too contour focused is the fact you use the gesture line as your spine. You have to realize that gesture lines are not an anatomy representation but a depiction of movement from the pose. You can see in the reference his weight is shifting towards his left side while yours the weight is still in the middle. The best way to visualize this is to think of the body as a line and where the weight is shifting towards. An example would be if I rotate my upper body towards the right, my lower body will move towards the left even if its very subtle just to balance the pose. Every pose will have the element of balancing in it unless its intentionally unbalance (ie. falling poses or poses that the body is supported by something else). Once u discover the main gesture line, you can trying finding out the gesture lines for the other parts of the body, for this reference its the arms and the right leg. Hope this will help :)

Hi Court, when do you decide a piece of work is considered finished. I've always have this problem where after finishing something, may it be a school assignment or personal works, I still would feel like it could be better. Also how do you view your work through an audience's perspective where they're seeing it for the 1st time instead of the artist whom seen it for weeks maybe months, Thank you.