These muscle fibers.... whoa

Here's my attempt. It doesn't feel done, but I feel like moving on for now. The gesture and face feel a bit off, as does the shading. I started out doing the blender stick smudging technique, but then watched the videos through and attempted the rest with the crosshatching technique Proko recommends. It was a great challenge, and I learned a lot! Thoughts and critiques welcome!

Good stuff - critiques welcome

Proko's rendering of example 3 looks wrong to me - the pelvis he drew looks like it's squeezed into 2/3 of her actual pelvis, and showing way too little of the top plane. Does anyone else see this? Also, the angle he drew for the bottom of the ribcage looks off given the angle of the shoulders - are her arms raised so much that the actual angle of the top of the rib cage is totally different than what you can see? Definitely confused and could use feedback (I know mine is wrong, too lol)

Marshall blinks like he has to remind himself. Incredible.

Nitpick - wouldn't the minor axis of the ellipse left from the cut taken from the sphere be parallel to the feature lines (x-axis?) as opposed to the head's depth dimension (z-axis?)? Does it really matter?

Should we be making a head unit spacing overlay for each reference? It makes it much easier to do the lay-in. It's tough! I find myself distrusting my measurements because they turn out wrong so often. I struggle to get a consistent head unit length count of my references. How does one get a steadier hand? lol I'm still really enjoying the challenge and I learn a little more every repetition, even if the results are mixed.

It was a struggle trying to simplify the shapes and not lose the gesture. I don´t know if I made it. Also, I feel that I couldn´t solve the faces very well. I need some help and critiques in this exercise. If someone can help me I would really appreciate it.

Hi! :D I have a little question. In the lesson notes it say: “Longest axis When you look at a form and try to find the gesture, look at its longest axis. Going down the length of the torso, down the length of the leg, down the length of the arm. It’s in the longest axis of each form where you’ll find the fluid motion from one form to the next. “ I’m having a bit of trouble actually understanding what axis means, it’s not a word or concept that I’ve really used before and then I try to google it, I just find meanings that has to do with history, math and things that I can’t really translate to what it would mean then it comes to gestures and figure drawing. Is it just to try to find the longest imaginary line in the pose of the body? Does it have to do with finding the centerline? But that might work for the torso but not really the limbs right? I feel like there is something I’m just missing with my understanding of the word. If anyone could help me understand this a bit better I would be very grateful! :D Sorry if this sounded like a strange question. English is not my native language so I hope I was able to explain what I’m wondering about even though it’s about something I don’t really understand. Thank you in advance! :D