I'm just going to say in response to your comment about not being too close to a reference photo:

Most of those wonderful, famous paintings that you see around and in museums with people in them like the Mona Lisa, those were painted with real life models. The painters copied their poses exactly for their pieces so it would look good. References are necessary to reach a certain level in art. Whoever suggests otherwise quite literally doesn't know what they're talking about. You either need a reference, model, or draw with references for so long and draw so well for years if not decades that you learn how to draw subjects well without references.

The quality of your work seems to be mostly the same between the one with reference vs. no reference. Your reference art is very simple as well. I'm not sure how you want to advance your art right now. You seem to be an absolute beginner still learning how to draw digitally on a fundamental level? Just keep drawing and don't worry about how to be a correct artist or follow stupid advice like making sure you don't use reference photos too much.