It took me a looong time, this one. I struggled a lot. How can I be more accurate with my proportions while maintaining pencil stroke fluidity and a semblance of anatomy? In particular, both placing the hips and connecting the pit of the neck to the crotch area were extra difficult for me, so any tips are appreciated. I guess it's repetition, but... I know these aren't supposed to be perfect, but sheesh. Gotta practice more! These drawings are just the ones that I think turned out ok.

I did a set without looking at the demo, one after watching the demo, and another one after watching the critique video. Even though this is supposed to be about dynamic shapes, for me this was also very helpful with visualizing how shapes can denote weight and sense of place. I feel like I'm developing a better mind's eye! The exercise was also a really fun contrast to the rigidity of measuring. I still feel like I need to strike a better balance between gesture and accuracy, but this is the first time I feel everything coming together.

I made several attempts with the base exercise reference and this other one... I got pretty close in the end, but I still managed to squeeze the top and bottom parts a bit. I'll keep practicing. Gosh, this is tough.

I'm also behind, but I finally did it. I chose a concept art piece from FFV by Yoshitaka Amano and a movie poster of "When Marnie Was There", by Hiromasa Yonebayashi. I love how expressive their lines are... so spontaneous, so sketch like and flowy! Some of them look like they've been done in one single stroke. I tried doing that but, of course, I had to go over many of them because they are a bit difficult to do in pencil. Still I had fun trying to get them in one fell swoop. P.S. I can only post this if I click on the "Request critique" button. I'm sorry if this post shows up on your feed. Is there anyway to post without clicking that button?

I did it! It took me a LONG time, but finally I drew a character from imagination! It took me several practice sketches and it didn't turn out exactly as I wanted, but at least I drew something without looking at a reference! Now I can finally move on and catch up.

I can already tell that I did better with simplifying the snail than I did with the shoes. I got caught up in the smaller details, such as the laces and the seams. I tried not to do the chicken scratch thing, but I did fall for it quite a bit on the shoes! I will try again once I watch Proko's demos. Also, proportions are hard!

I did the second photo of the pear! I think it came out a lot cleaner than the first two I did, but I'm now unsure about my shadow shapes... I may have overestated the darkest shadows. Midtones are hard to find, but satisfying to get them right!

Here is my first and second attempt with the pear. I struggled the most getting the proportions right, and I'm still not very convinced I got to that point. Still, I was surprised by how different the second pear looked compared to the first one. I'm not 100% sure it's better. The highlights are more noticeable on the first pear because I kept accidentally smushing the graphite around with my grip (I'm left handed!), but I'll keep practising. There are so many things I didn't catch on my first try (like the shadows on the stem and the lower right part of the pear), but I was happy I got some of the details. Thank you for the lesson!