Here's some edits to help you get some ideas for your poses. The top row are the originals and the bottom row are my suggestions.
For the first guy, based on your description I gave him a dominating pose, by puffing out his chest, ala Superman tanking bullets from hapless criminals. My skeleton edit is actually a bit off on the legs, they should be straighter.
For the second guy, it looks like he's raring to attack, so I bent his legs more into a "ready to attack anytime" pose. I don't know if the weapon he's holding is a two headed spear or sword, which would affect how his arms are positioned.
For the third one I didn't edit too much, just leaned him forward a bit more and bent the far arm. Not much to say here, I tried posing myself and got something similar.
The last one, I get the "elegant but deadly" feeling from your pose, so I emphasized the "elegance" by trying a more female pose.
I guess one general piece of advice I'd give is to ask yourself: "If I was this guy, how would I stand?", and study what you do. For the first guy though, you might not notice a lot of difference, so I'd ask: "What is the difference between my current pose and the pose I would take if I was relaxed?".
For the first guy, based on your description I gave him a dominating pose, by puffing out his chest, ala Superman tanking bullets from hapless criminals. My skeleton edit is actually a bit off on the legs, they should be straighter.
For the second guy, it looks like he's raring to attack, so I bent his legs more into a "ready to attack anytime" pose. I don't know if the weapon he's holding is a two headed spear or sword, which would affect how his arms are positioned.
For the third one I didn't edit too much, just leaned him forward a bit more and bent the far arm. Not much to say here, I tried posing myself and got something similar.
The last one, I get the "elegant but deadly" feeling from your pose, so I emphasized the "elegance" by trying a more female pose.
I guess one general piece of advice I'd give is to ask yourself: "If I was this guy, how would I stand?", and study what you do. For the first guy though, you might not notice a lot of difference, so I'd ask: "What is the difference between my current pose and the pose I would take if I was relaxed?".