To draw the way Michael Hampton does, it is important to have a strong sense of form, so I suggest, alongside with the book, parctice drawing the most primitive shapes (box, cylinder, sphere) like how proko shows on his video regarding structure, and then, move on to something less sketchy and more deliberate like drawbox, that course gives you the tools to start doforming those primitive shapes as you wish. But in the meantime, focus just in gesture, because is better to study form and gesture separately than trying to understand both at the same time.

All reagarding the face looks awesome, but the hair kinda looks like the spaghetti hair that proko warns us to avoid. I think it is because the hair is disheveled and it's more easy to be a little messy when drawing. If drawing hair in general requires patience, drawing disheveled hair requires even more patience to design it and render it, and if it's sweaty, that just require more knowledge about rendering. Hope this can be helpful.

I think the main thing you need to work is to take a closer look to the face to identify the planes shown in Marco Bucci's course, start with tracings first, most plane changes of the head are REALLY subtle, so trying to understand what each line of the diagrams drawn in the videos represent in an actual face is the skill we want to get from the exercise. In the drawing you presented, it appears like you are trying to copy the shapes of the shadows (like in the cheek or the right eye) rather than analyzing the 3D planes. Do not trace the shadows, think about the mayor planes that makes the head boxy: side planes, front plane, buttom plane, etc. And then the minor planes, the mayor planes should always be more prominent than the minor planes. Proportion issues (like your concern with the left eye) are their own problem, practice the measuremet techniques that proko teches regularly. That could be all. Hope it can help!

Being that someone alredy did a critique of the leg, I want to focus on the torso: I think the pinching side could have been more emphasized. The drawing looks like is slightly turning, while in the reference it seems clear that is pinching to his left. That's all, I like that little value study on the corner, keep doing those. Good work!

What I think would benefit you the most is practicing basic forms more, draw boxes and cylinders, then put a cross cotour on them. It seems like you are blocking in the image an then trying to add planes and cross contours, it's not necessary a bad aproach, but keep in mind the procedure that proko does when drawing the camel on the video, it's more simplified and more focus on the 3D volumes rather than copy the 2D silhuettes. Hope this was useful.

Hi, hope this can help. It seems like you do have a good understanding of form, but struggle to simplify it on the figure. Try to make it even simpler by representing the torso with just two boxes (robo bean like) and the limbs as cylinders. From there, you can create a smooth transition betwen hard and soft forms. It appears that the organic curves that the muscles create are distracting you from creating a solid form, so try to make the forms without too much distortion, the curves that proko does in his examples are subtler. Pretty much what's left is proportion, take your time to measure a little bit more your reference. About the question, I think the most important part of this exercise is understanding the perspective of the large masses of the body and how they correlate each other, rather than the perspective of the whole scene, that's some adavanced figure drawing exercise, but there are clues in some poses tha can give us clues for where to eyeball the horizon line. For example, when you have a model estanding over a set up or props, like boxes or a carpet, they can give you information about the hight of the horizon line. You can also stimate if a part of the body is estanding straight, for example; on the first pose, I deduce that the ribcage is in a neutral position, in addition to that, the head also looks like is not tilting, so now I have 2 forms that CAN be standing straight (they might not be exactly like that, but are close enough) so I track the vanishing points from the head (almost strainght) and the shoulders (from the closest to the farthest) and more or less when they align horizontaly, that's the horizon line. To internalize this whole process takes a lot of time and requires many drawing sessions just drawing forms in perdpective and rotate them. Sorry if ts was a log comment but I tried to be as clear as possible, have a nice day!

Well, the character design looks nice, the rendering of the face works really well with the style you are striving, but it feels disconected with the rest of the body, which has shadows with low contrast and leaves ambiguity to the forms. The line quality also looks less refined than the ones used in the head. That's the main thing that comes to mind, but it certainly turned out better, so good improvement there!

Honestly, I think they are good representing the over all flow. But if you feel desatisfied about them, maybe you should take a step forward and start difining the body a little bit more. I don't know if you used a timer or not, but the drawings you are showing seems like the gesture you should expect for a 30 seconds drawing. I recomend study the proko demonstrations (the 2 minutes ones) and try to achive that, still prioritizing the gesture, but at the same time considering the general volumes of the body. This also might help you when drawing this simpler gestures. Hope this helps you.

Alright, since those are especific questions, I will give you the epecific reasons why the bean works that way. At the very end are the direct answers and critiques, the rest is the explanation and hopefully it's clear enough (was difficult to me to condense it). Full Explanation: You have to remenber 2 key parts about this excercise: 1.- The whole point of this exsercise it's to exaggerate, the streching, pinches and twisting are going to be even clearer in the bean than the pose itself, 2.-The bean is meant to be an analogy of the torso, and doesn't have to represent the exact anatomical information, but to represent the motion. For example: the first pose shows a curve created by the back of the rib cage transitioning to the neck trough the trapezius. You can analyze the entire line and use it to your advantage in a more difined gesture drawing, but when studying the bean you should ignore it, because the bean does not include the neck, it's just the masses created by the ribcage and pelvis+middle fleshy part. Visualize your first form as the rib cage, imagine the oval representing ONLY the rib cage (no muscles) and think how the center line travels in this simple oval. For the second pose is the same, the center line doesn't have to represent the exact line that the spine creates. Unless the model is a contortionist, you won't see a clean pinch in the back; but since the bean it's an exaggerated analogy, you should represent the pinch in the back if the model it's bending backwards. Short answers: 1. He IS ignoring the neck and only considerates the rib cage. 2. Another way to represent that pose with the bean is with a pinch in the back. Regarding the critiques, keep in mind the 2 key points. The center line must flow within the volumes you draw, not necessarily the exact line you see. For things like understanding the forms or the lines dexterity, it's pretty much practice. Remember that, regardless the tool or medium you use, draw from your shoulder. Hope this can be useful to you.

The only thing I can think of is that the joint of the arm seems odd, the whole arm have good lenght but the forearm looks longer than the upper arm, and according to proportions diagrams, the upper arm (counting all the way to the deltoid) is longer than from the elbow to the wrist. The rest og the drawing looks awesome. Hope this critique helps.

Hi, being honest, it's a little bet difficult to me to point an anatomy issues becouse it doesn't feel like that's the focal point in the overall composition. But from what I can see, the proportions look good, but particularly the arm and the neck have an unnatural feeling. I'm not entirely sure if the neck would have that look from the position of the neck. With tje arm it's a little bit tricky, looks "correct" but it feels like you were moer concerned about it looking accurate then gestural. As an overall advice, pretty much draw practice gesture from poses of the same nature, (from the back, with the neck twisting or the arms bending) try to apply structure to the point of interest and anatomy studies (always thinking of gesture). Hope this can help you to improve in your areas of interest, as I said, the proportions are good, so try to be a little bit more wilde with the gesture.

Hi, I think you're on the right track of gesture, and I hope my recommendations can help. First of all, it's not entirely necessary to draw the line of action in ALL the poses you draw, you will notice that there are a lot of artists that don't do it all the time. But don't get the wrong idea, the line of action IS important, the benefit of the line of action is to unify and give direction to the whole pose, so you don't lose the gesture bay drawing each individual part of the body instead of considering the figure as a whole. If you are having troubles visualizing line of action then you definitely should draw it more often. Regarding the different approaches, I think you got some good gestures in the last 2 pictures, I´m having a sense of dynamism especially in the big one on the 7th pic. What I'm seeing in must of the other pages is that you are working with symetrical shapes on the limbs, must of the legs are ovals and the arms are parallel straight lines (specially the 5th one). So I suggest starting with the side of the limb that shows the prominent curvature, and then draw the other one either as a curve with the same direction, a slightly straight line or as an opposite curve but with different size, remember asymetrical shapes create visual contrast and feel more dynamic. As a general tip, don't forget to draw from your shoulder, even in digital; you hold the stylus as you usually don when you write but the motion must be done from your shoulder. Changing your medium from traditinal pencil, paint, digital, etc; is a really good idea, so I encourage it. Hope this can give you some direction to work on and keep moving forward.