Hey Philippe! Great job on this, I really wouldn't change much about your robo bean. It's definitely correct, and you're understanding the anatomy of what's happening. That being said, yours lost the energy of the post. I think the next step would be to draw it with more gesture, and to simplify your shapes. I did a very quick draw over of what it might look like if I were to draw this post in a figure workshop. Sorry if it's not that clear in my example, but what you drew can be explained in two very simple lines. Two mild C curves to show the gesture of the body, and then some overlapping Ines to create some structure. This is really one of those skills that will take years to master. A good exercise to practice this is to do draw overs on poses. This makes it so you don't have to worry about anything other than the structure / gesture which allows for more precise practice. Hope this helps!

Hey vvvz! Good job! You're getting the hang of this. I can tell you're really starting to understand the rule of thirds and how to place features. What I'd say is that though your placement is correct enough, you could improve your structure. For example, on yours the eyebrow, nose, mouth and chin are all on separate axis. I did a really quick draw over of what I'm talking about. You can see in the plum lines I placed over the reference that the nose, mouth and ears are all off. On another note, you could also improve how your lines flow. In the third picture I've attached, this is how I would go about drawing this. I would make a big envelope to encompass the shape, but also something to keep the gesture. Then from there in the forth picture I would add some structure. I think it would help your drawings to try to draw more with longer flowing lines, rather than trying to make it more structural. Hope this helps!

Hey Anubhav! I believe that's the TFL, but I could be wrong. That being said though, I would probably just try and interpret the entire shape as just part of the quads. The reason I say that is because I don't think you really have to know all of the anatomy specifically in order to draw well. In fact, focusing too much on drawing correct anatomy can hinder you from being truly creative while drawing. If you listen to the comic artist Jim Lee talk about anatomy, he'll say he actually has very limited knowledge of what the actual anatomy is. He understands the shapes, and what looks cool but throws out anything else that might make his storytelling less exciting. It really depends on the art you'd like to do, but if you'd like to be a story teller with your art I don't really believe you need to know every muscle to make that happen. When I was taking classes with @Erik Gist, he would always say that the anatomy is there to complement your art, not to be the point of it. I'm not saying to throw out anatomy completely, but it isn't that important. I've included some of his drawings below too, if you look at the legs you can see how simple they are. They're essentially just cylinders with occasional anatomy thrown over them. Hope this helps

Hey Luca! Great job on this. Something I might add is it doesn't quite feel like the anatomy is being utilized to design the shapes, right now they make the forms bumpy. What I'd recommend is to try to simplify your drawings a bit with more gesture lines that describe more of what the forms are doing. For example in the draw over I did below, you can explain one of the hands a lot more simply with gesture. From there you would include all of the structure and anatomy stuff. I also included a diagram by @Stan Prokopenko demonstrating what I'm talking about. You want to get the primary form down (the overall wrist / hand) , then from there focus on the secondary shapes (fingers / bones / other anatomy). I'd highly recommend looking into @Steve Huston's videos on gesture. He defines gesture as "the movement between forms". Hope this helps!

Hey Elson! Great job, this is a really neat character. Something I might add is to think about the silhouette a bit more. You've done a really good job making it look like a person. But I think if you were to add some more negative spaces, more specifically in the feet/ arms it might do something for making the character more readable. The next thing would be to organize your shadow shapes a little more. If there was more contrast / more definite shapes it would do a lot for the design. Good luck!

Hey Nahgul! Great job on this! @Steve Lenze is spot on with the draw over. What I'd add onto it is that I'd try and organize your values more. Your edges right now aren't distinguished, and your values are a bit all over the place. Right now there isn't a clear focal point, which makes the entire drawing look a bit mushy. I'd recommend looking at Charles Bargue for separating values. I think if you improve your value separations, it'll greatly improve your drawings. Good luck!

Here's some more gestures. Following the advice of @Kristian Nee I have been trying to experiment with the Reilly Method to try to get my gestures more put together than they were before. On my better attempts, I think doing it this way has helped me improve on getting the motion from the torso to the legs. For simpler standing and sitting poses I think I have a decent starting point for making the gesture, but for more complex ones I'm having a little trouble finding out where to start. I think I'm moving in the right direction but I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out how to refine what I have here so any advice would be much appreciated. (All the photo references are from http://reference.sketchdaily.net/)

Do you guys sometimes collaborate with people who live on the other side of the planet? :p

This is awesome! Love that you did your own in his style. What I would add is that Sargent's values and edges are generally less intense than yours in your study. For example on the nose, the values are closer and the edges are softer. Also keep his colors are a bit warmer than the ones you have in your study. Great job! and keep it up

Hey TJ! Great job on this, this is a really strong painting. Keep up the good work! It is a great painting, and I'm hesitant to say anything on it because it's better than what I could do. What I might say is that the underlying structure is a bit off. It's definitely good likeness, it has humor, and is well painted but it feels like the cheek bones and jaw could have more structure. For example, it feels to me like the lines of the eye brow, nose, mouth, jaw, and chin are all different. I think it works really well compositionally as a caricature but adding those might help giving it more dimensionality. But that's seriously only a nitpick, again good job on this!

Hey George! Great job on these, you're definitely picking up the lessons Stan's teaching. To me you're actually already adding structure and not quite adding enough gesture. Sorry if that's confusing! What I mean is that in your drawings you're adding lines that wrap the form or lines that place the character is space. The idea is way more of what the subject is doing vs how it sits in a scene. Sorry if that's confusing! @Steve Huston defines gesture as the "Movement between forms" and to use gesture to find structure and structure to find gesture. What you're doing is actually a good start, I can tell you're starting to understand the idea of movement and you're beginning to put structure in based on that movement. Adding in everything at once takes tons of practice, and when you're able to it should feel natural. What I mean is some problems are best solved by adding more gesture, and others structure (and others rendering, color, composition ect... when you're trying to do more complicated art). Right now you're just trying to work with those two tools, which are the most important in my opinion. An exercise I'd recommend doing is trying to simplify your gesture to one action line. I'd also recommend checking out @Erik Gist's videos on the Watts Atelier Youtube drawing on quick sketch. The idea in these shorter drawings is to break down the drawings into simple CS and I lines. Anything more complicated than that is missing the point of quick sketch. I added another draw over I did for another student where I simplified their study to a single line. I think they did one from the same reference pack. If you'd like, I can do a draw over of one of your drawings as well. You're doing a good job, keep up the good work and you'll get there.

Hey Elson! Great job on this, I can definitely tell it's a study of Stan's. The anatomy, edges, proportion and gesture are getting there. What I would say is to focus on trying to understand the forms and how they're moving in space. Right now it feels like more of a copy of someone else's drawing rather than interpreting those shapes in 3D space. What I mean is it feels sort of flat. You did a good job placing everything, but it doesn't feel like you understand the underlying anatomy yet. For example, his left scapula and how it relates to his traps/ deltoid is correct enough for me to understand what's going on when looking at the entire drawing. When I zoom in though, it doesn't really feel like a shoulder. If you were to really try to nail down where things insert/ how the traps sit on the scapula it would do a lot for making it look more 3D and allowing you to interpret that information yourself. Hope this helps!

Kevin the beast

Hey Yiannis, great job on this! You're definitely getting the concepts Stan talked about in the video. What I would say is there isn't really much I could say at this stage. The drawings might be able to be a little bit cleaner, or maybe you could start thinking more about longer drawings but that's less important than just doing more of it. I'm pretty sure I recognize all of these from the video, I think the next step would be to take the concepts you've learned from the lesson and start applying them to other poses. @Grafit Studio has some great model packs on the site to draw from if you're looking for reference. If you want something free, New Masters Academy has some stuff on Youtube that is really good. One other thing I would add, it's more a nit-pick, is to take better photos of your art. These aren't that clear, and it's really hard to tell what's going on in a bunch of them. Hope this helps