I am surprised that you haven't considered any portraiture course when your end goal is to draw portraits. You need to know about facial features in order to tell apart the unique differences in different faces. So I'd recommend starting there, try to study and practice the head and facial features like eyes, nose, mouth, jaw, etc. You should be able to get some results in less than a year, so it also fits your time requirement. Since you are looking for video course, Stan's portrait course is a good place to start https://www.proko.com/course/portrait-drawing-fundamentals

Hey James. If I understand right, you are a complete drawing beginner and want to get to where you can set up somewhere public and do live quick portrait give-aways for people? You aspire to produce a realistic likeness, although you're not interested in highly rendered finishes? Do I have that? This is a cool idea. Love the ambition! Since you're a beginner, though, I have to say this is very ambitious. Especially if you have no experience drawing whatsoever. You'll have to temper your expectations of being able to gain this ability in a short timeframe, because unless you're unusually gifted, this is a skill that takes years, not weeks, to develop. There are few challenges in the art world more intense than producing a recognizable likeness of a person with any kind of realism, even for experienced artists with unlimited time. With the added constraint of a quicksketch type setup and a public environment, I would say this might be a very advanced goal. Even if you don't care about the level of finish. In fact, simpler/abstracted/sketchy drawing that still looks realistic is often harder than a more refined approach. Not to put you off your project. I think it's awesome that you have this goal! But the reality is that drawing people is hard, and it takes a long time to learn how to do it with any level of realism. All that said, there are a couple routes I can imagine you taking. Neither involves any of the courses you mention, although I don't see why you couldn't fit them in somewhere if you like their ideas. The first is kind of what I would suggest but is more boring and will take longer. The second is kind of quicker and what might be the most fun, but also might not get you all the results you really want. YMMV, of course. First, I would suggest that you learn how to draw properly, from scratch. You know. Start with the basics and work your way up. I don't know how much you know, but if you have no clue how to even hold a pencil or make a mark or judge value or shape or understand shading or anything like that, you're going to have a terrible time trying to draw realistic people right out of the gate. It's that whole "walk before you can run" scenario. The Drawing Basics course is the most popular one here on Proko for a reason. It seems to be quite effective at teaching people how to go from never touching a pencil before to being able to understand the basic principles of effective representational art, and especially giving them the knowledge of how to execute it on the page. From there, you could study whoever's portraiture you enjoy the most (that you want to replicate in your own work), and then practice for your actual goal of quickly sketching faces. That's the "proper" way of doing it. It'll give you good foundations and allow you to build your skills with intention, structure, and predictable growth. There's much more control this way and less chaos. Given a couple years of study like this, you'll be able to make whatever art you want, I think. But. It takes years this way! It's not super fun and definitely might cramp your intended style or timeline. Alternatively, then, just throw yourself in the deep end and see what happens! Maybe start by grabbing a couple of portrait reference packs and go to the timer tool on here for practice. Go to town! Scribble away and find out where your biggest hangups are, what you want to improve the most, so you can target areas of specific study and find courses to benefit that. Grow organically and get making art quicker! Also, find other artist's drawings you wish to emulate and try to copy them, so you can apply it to your own work. I mean, you could just get out there and start doing your thing for folks! It's all in good fun, anyway, right? There are some great stories of Ralph Steadman doing impromptu sketches of people and giving them to them, only for the person to be delightfully horrified at the grotesque things he would produce. People love a good roasting haha. (Ralph went to art school, though, so his style was intentional after learning "the proper way." Just something to keep in mind.) Obviously, this way is far more chaotic. You won't have as much structure, or as much predictable skill development by following the "proper" path of art education. But if you don't care at all what your drawings look like, only that they're fun for you and can entertain someone else, then I don't see why you couldn't go this route. So it depends on what you want your final piece to look like, I guess. If you care that it resembles the person and obeys realism principles, then option one might be better for you. If you just want to have some laughs and play and expect little in the way of realism or predictable skill development, then option two sounds way more fun to me. Of course, a hybrid method of the two is possible as well, and might be either the best or worst of both worlds haha. I think it's just important to have fun no matter what! Hope that helps!