The new pose is definately an improvement over the old, rather stiff one.
You'll have to decide what that is he leans onto eventually - currently it looks like a hiltless rapier (dangerous!?), something I really would not lean onto.
I'd personally work in some really rough shading into the body to see how it will get along with your quite advanced face.
Also it might be good if you allow yourself to also think about having the body influence the face, so potentially reworking it partially. Nothing exists in a vacuum and everything is related to everything (did sounds more philosophical that I intend it to do) and whatever you'll come up for the body will probably force you to do adjustements on the face.
[EDIT] man I totally missed the reference link you posted. If you REALLY wanna recreate that picture you'll have to work on the poses a lot more. Look at how they look at each other, compared to looking away from each other on your picture. You really need to see these two characters as ONE, (that is again, if you want to recreate the picture).