Hey! You're welcome! I recently put myself through a self-guided gesture phase (which isn't over, btw, just on hiatus), so this is fresh in my mind. I could talk ad nauseam about this stuff. So... sorry for the essays haha. Q: How much should I practice gesture? A: For many people who are great at figure drawing, including comic and cartoon artists, gesture is an essential and lifelong study. So, technically, you should practice a lot a lot. Like, for the rest of your art life, as long as figure drawing is important to you. This could potentially be decades, and thousands of hours and drawings. Q: How often should I practice gesture? A: This depends on your personality, I think, and your aptitude for learning the concept. If you're anything like me, you get an obsession and burn it into the ground. Then you move on once you feel you've internalized the ideas and accomplished your goals related to those ideas. Since you're first learning, I wouldn't really recommend that approach, since it can lead to burnout. It works very well if you're willing to put yourself through it, though. Assuming you draw every day, you could potentially make good progress if you dedicate one or two full-on drawing sessions a week to studying nothing else for those sessions. But you could also probably make similar progress with more frequent study (4-7 times a week) that's just a portion of your daily session instead. You have to consider the tradeoffs of increased intensity versus increased frequency, and which is more your style. I'm an intense person, so I like intense study. If you hate high intensity, incorporating just a bit of gesture study most times you pick up a pencil should have similar effects. YMMV. Q: Where is gesture on the hierarchy of things for me to study? A: Great question. Pretty high. If you intend to get the most out of your figure drawings, no matter the style, gesture is integral. In fact, I'd argue it's more important for cartoons or comics or manga, or animation, etc., because the gesture is always exaggerated for impact/storytelling. In any art style involving figures, though, it's always the difference between something that feels stiff and something that feels alive. Ultimately, however, you have to decide how important that is for your art. Just consider that pro-level figure drawing requires you to have a solid grasp of this. Q: How do I study gesture? A: Another good question. For me, it's a mixture of absorbing instructional material, doing master studies, and then implementing what I pick up from those into my own studies from my own references. The instructional stuff can be courses, books, YouTube, etc. Master studies are usually out of that instructional material. Then my gesture studies are usually timed figure drawing sessions from a reference pack, which is amazing practice. It's where the rubber hits the road, so to speak, and really forces you to focus just on the gesture. Proko is an amazing resource for learning about gesture. These's so much on here to pick from. Just typing "gesture" into the search bar will get you hours of material to look at. Just pick a direction that interests you the most and go for it! No wrong answers, really. Hope that helps!