Excited Pose - "Same Same-y"

An assignment I had for last week was to create an excited pose for Stu. I took plenty of reference photos (probably should wear shorts next time, not boxers!), drew out my ideas and made sure I thought about non-cliche poses. I was pretty happy with what I came up with. Stu looked happy and so was I.

Original

I found it interesting in my critique from Mark that, even though it conveyed excitement, I didn't push the pose as far as I could. I was paying so much attention to lines of action, that I didn't realize I had equal negative space, "OK" lines and just a "meh" pose. Mark descibed my pose as "Same Same-y", which he admitted wasn't even a word, but really made the point that I needed to hear. Everything was there, but my character wasn't popping off the screen and was sorta happy compared to WAHOO! happy.

Same Same-y - Equal negative space and meh pose.

I few tweaks later, I think it makes a world of difference and breaks up the same same-y monotony. Now Stu's stoked and so am I.

Revision