I think you should concentrate on the smaller one, the bigger one is doable but not really practical on a pixel scale, it's much better suited for something like freehand painting. Then again, the bigger one might be fun to work on and be better practice because I haven't seen you attempt things that big before.
A good source of reference would be
fencing, because the standard form has a leg positioning similar to yours. You might also want to adopt the pose for the legs because it's more balanced, but I think the leaning adds to it and makes it more dynamic.
