Thank you, Stan, it feels so strange to be called advanced when only 2 months ago I was first trying to understand beans and tapered lines and boxes and 3D space. XD I have been practicing and hopefully some of the proportion issues have and will continue to get better. Thank you Steven Wolf as well, you always help us with excellent critiques. 😊

Thanks for the video Stan. Every time I watch a video of you doing / talking about your process for using rhythms for gesture drawing I gain more insight to ways of thinking of, and going about tackling, your method for rhythms and gestures. After watching this video I feel like I have a lot of room to explore using longer rhythm lines. I watch Michael Mattesi’s Force Fridays every week, and he has a different method for thinking about rhythms which concentrates on the rhythms of the forces of motion and gravity that move through the body, instead of drawing longer rhythm lines. In his case, the longer rhythm lines would be the imaginary lines that connect the lines that you draw, flowing that force from the one line to the apex curve of the next opposing sides line. So I had to adjust to the way that you go about it. I really like Mattesi’s Force method, but, at the moment, I find your method works in a way that is easier for me to get things more consistently “accurate,” when drawing from a reference. I feel like I am getting better results this way. Although I do find that when drawing using, more, your type of rhythm lines, I am still trying to think about how the Force would flow through it. I am convinced that there is some way to incorporate both of your two methods into one hybrid version of the two, and that that method will end up working the best for me. Right now my brain is a bit caught in between. I also wanted to thank you for your kind words about my comments. That was really nice to hear. It meant a lot. I always worry when I give feedback that I may be incorrect, or just think something is supposed to be done one way, when there are actually other ways, that I don’t know about, that are as equally valid a way of doing something. I don’t want to steer someone away from something that is just different from the way I understand it, but is not “wrong.” But at the same time when I feel like I might be able to help someone, I feel like I don’t want to not try to do that. You have encouraged me to keep trying to be of help, even though I am still just learning myself. I find it actually helps me understand some things more when I take the time to try and explain it, because I really have to think about it first.

Indeed (@Amy ), thank you Stan for the pep talk. After two weeks doing this exercise every day, I was frustrated and felt stuck. I took a couple of days break and now watched the demo before giving it another go. I have to post this sketch just because I'm so happy to see this result. It took me 10 mins, so I did it faster than I've been able to before, and even though my lines are still kind of all over the place, I managed to apply a variety of them. It seems I've figured out some things, and the best thing is that drawing this felt a lot more effortless than my previous attempts on this assignment. I feel wowsie, so thanks so much for such great instructions! :D

Great reference, thanks for putting this together!

Great introduction! Very excited to take a look more into the force approach through the books. Really amazing to see how quickly such energetic poses are captured!

Hey Stan, or maybe anyone else who can answer this- It's funny that this video came out around this time as drawing with rhythm lines like this in class has really upped my ability. But I've been wondering, is there any way to visualize, construct such lines when designing poses from imagination? Of course studying from life is important, but if you're a comic artist or animator- you do need to have an intuitive sense of this sort of stuff and ability to draw from experience. Thank you!

I have a pretty philosophical question. I've been keeping up with the assignments. And i know proko has spoken on length about how the lessons are not so we can draw a good (pear, seal, apple, etc) but we're practicing the fundamental of the subject, But how do we get from here, drawing seals etc, to there, drawing our figure, or face, or masterpiece. I want to be able to draw really good action poses, or beautiful scenes with people smiling looking at each other. But at times i feel insecure that me drilling the practice doesn't get me closer to my goal. I assume it comes with applying the principle to other things. But then when i draw something for me, I don't accomplish anything near what i want to do. Sorry, this message just comes from a place of discouragement as I am not trying to not compare my self to other artists that started at the same time as me, but appear to be making tons more progress then me, but without this amazing course. As an artist my greatest weakness my whole life is fighting the feelings of insecurity that come along with feeling i'm not good enough or that I will never be good enough to be a masterful artist. Unlike something like a physical sport like baseball, i have a hard time seeing the ball being hit by the bat as progress when it comes to art.

Loved this break down!

wow I am having some challenges with this one. any one else?

This project has been so much harder for me. My whole life I've only ever seen contour when trying to draw so it's left me unable to invent for my self very effectively. I've been redoing this project everyday since it came out and I finally feel like I'm starting to grasp the concept.

Happy as a hippo with how this guy turned out! 🦛 And I have to say — WOW, do I feel the difference from working on lines for as long as the course did!

Very excited for this section!! Great intro!

Amazing!! Congratulations! Excited for the course

Had fun with these! Love the effect of bringing out shadows and light direction

Very inspiring to see some really beautiful doodles! I've been impatiently waiting for the class to start, so I've been studying Loomis' Fun With A Pencil. A great supplement for anyone looking for a foundation in constructionally drawing the figure!

If anyone is interested in a study group, I can start a discord server were we can follow along with the course as the lessons come out. Comment below and I can shoot you an invite. *Edit* Sorry, not as discord savvy as I thought I was. I'll need you to friend request me, and then I can send you the invite link (has to be friends only). My code: Other Barry#8117

Appreciated both perspectives! Stan and I had similar trajectories. I started out as a music teacher, switched industries, and now take Proko lessons in my off hours. :) Great episode as always!

Carol Dweck was my first point of contact with the Fixed vs. Growth Mindset. I read her book on it when I was in my early 20s, absolutely changed the way I learn and teach others. Great show, as always! Building community is a funny thing, you two have a point about there needing to be a "Group Mom", or as I've heard it, a "Super Node" in the way a good teacher can be.