Unfortunately, you can't really learn all of these things at once. Before anything else I suggest you work on your observation and visual library. Your visual library will increase the more you observe, so observe everything! After a day of observing the various people and objects you may see, practice the gesture of the people and the form of the objects. This will help your gesture greatly after some time doing it. Story and composition come with the inspirations you have, that isn't to say just copy it. A character needs to show, in some way, what kind of world they live in, if you choose to build a world around said character. For example, Harry Potter wears robes and wields a wand, this shows that he lives in a world of magic and sorcery. Lastly, painting just develops as you practice different techniques and tools. After a while you should develop your own flow with all of these. However, these can't be learned in a short time, it often takes years if you want to "master" all of these concepts. Don't let that discourage you though! If you keep it up you can become a great artist. Hope this helps!

Hey Caleb, Nice job tackling this pose, it's a real good one to practice on. What I noticed the most is the proportions. See how the head is large, then the hips get much smaller, then the legs get even smaller. This is why we make sure all are proportions are working in the structural stage first. After doing a gesture drawing, we can build our structural drawing on top so that our drawing doesn't stiffen up. I did a quick sketch to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)

Some advice I think EVERYONE should know is this: Don’t compare your work to professionals work, instead compare your work to your past work. This can boost motivation by seeing how far you’ve come since the beginning. Looking back at my old stuff was a wake up call, I couldn’t believe the progress.

I'm by no means an expert but I would say do some looser sketches as well as more finishing drawings like this. Sketching skills and drawing skills are two very different skills. Get a sketchpad just for quick loose gestures/ sketches and don't try to make them prefect. Don't even show anybody these sketches that way you feel less obligated to make them perfect. (thus making them less stiff and more fluid) also there's an incredible book called: Figure drawing design and invention by Michael Hampton. that MFer can do gestures like a pro haha The book goes over balance, Timing, "the about to" pose, etc. It will really help you put more life and action into the figure. Making the figure look mid-action rather than in between actions. It also might help to think of the gesture as an exercise in the way lines move the eye thru the figure.

Hey Caleb, I think what would help your drawing would be to do an under drawing to make sure your anatomy is working. Also, try to use more flowing lines in the hair as well as coloring your lines to make them feel more subtle. I did a quick sketch to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)

You're off to a good start. However I agree with what Steve has provided. Starting off with a grid really helps with proportions, lighting, and overall balance. Something else that you could work on as well are the structures and nature. When drawing structures it's important to view the structure as it's base shapes, and use your perspective grid to perfect the proportions. With nature though it can be a struggle even for experienced artists, so it's a good idea to go out and sketch the forms of various objects in nature, being trees or rocks or other elements. Nature isn't limited to simple forms like most everyday objects, so studying them is very important when it comes to doing backgrounds. I hope this advice has helped and keep up the good work!

The drawing is done well you have everything in the right place, good job on that! The biggest problem I see here is exactly what I tend to do all the time which is go into details before establishing the big light and dark shapes. I did a quick overlay on top of your drawing to establish the shadow shapes away from highlights on the forehead. I don’t know if this really will help but I feel that establishing these basic shadow and light areas allows the form of your head to read a bit better. let me know if that is helpful. And keep drawing!

Been on a bit of a Ghibli binge, so here's Hayao Miyazaki as a cat. (not an animorph but uh uh thats fine right? (⊙_⊙;))

Let's see what the community wants. We were planning on keeping this category clean with only official challenges, but if there is enough interest in allowing user created challenges, I'm ok with it. I can just pin the official ones to the top. Let's VOTE.. Reply to this comment with your thought!

Hi, Caleb! You need to focus more on overall forms. It looks like you are drawing what you think a face looks like and not drawing what you actually see. Look for shadow shapes and try drawing those shapes. Keep practicing... you have a very good start!!