First of all.. DO NOT STOP DRAWING. I had issues and I was able to reverse them. Still working on it, but I have progressed. I had signs of arthritis and early carpal tunnel. My hand would swell and I'd get pain that shot from my shoulder blade down to my wrist. My hand would get numb as well. Then I had lower back pain. It was all connected. Here's the deal, I had/kinda have horrible posture and muscle imbalances from being overweight and sedentary. What helped me was 1. Physical therapy for posture and repetitive motion 2. Working out, to strengthen my body 3. Yoga 4. Deep tissue massages 5. Acupressure massages. Point is, the whole body is connected and I'd start off by excercise, stretching, yoga, and seeing a physical therapist. That's at least what has helped me and I went from being stiff in the morning to almost doing the splits. You can do it! And I never quit drawing. And as far as critique, you're doing great! What I would advise you improve is your structural drawing. Good luck. Also, I am not a doctor.

Your drawings are amazing! Everything is nicely detailed! For your wrist, I know this may not be what you want to hear, but I think you should listen to your body. My sister had wrist pain in her dominant hand (it wasn’t carpal tunnel, we never figured out what it was) but she didn’t stop doing the things that hurt it and it got worse. To the point where she needed a splint (like a cast you can take on and off, but it basically immobilized her wrist). Typing and writing, really any activity with her wrist, hurt a lot and she could barely do her school work. Eventually, she stopped doing the things that hurt and slowly started doing exercises to strengthen her wrist. She’s fine now and was able to go back to doing what she was doing before without anything hurting. Considering you’re a beginner and your wrist is an important part for drawing, I seriously think it would be much better if you did take a break (or at least tried doing less, stopping when it hurts). I think it would be much better to deal with this problem now, rather than taking the chance of it getting much worse in the future. Also, maybe get it checked out by a doctor if you can. I’m only talking from my experience and a medical professional could give you more help. I know this is a difficult situation but seeing the amount of work and dedication you put in your drawings, I’m pretty sure you will be able to get through this. Hope this helps and I hope your wrist isn’t a problem for too much longer!

Your drawings are incredible for your age and it would be a crime for you to stop drawing. You could try getting a big newsprint pad and some vine charcoal, and draw with your arm, so that your wrist and fingers don't have to do much work. It's probably all the little detail work you do with your fingers. Check if you're spending a lot of time doing other stuff that might hurt your hand, like playing video games or typing on your smartphone. Maybe try doing Yoga (yoga with Adrienne on Youtube) or look up Physical Therapy exercises/recommendations for carpal tunnel on youtube. Other options: draw with your other hand, do sculpture, do 3d modeling in Blender, learn photography. If you REALLY can't draw, figure out something creative you CAN do. Creative people gotta create or we go crazy (in my experience)

Are there going to be any new model references? If so, will they be in another model pack deal? (Any skinnier male models soon?)

This is a great start, as another has said, I think you might want to practice a bit more before you start placing features. This portrait's proportions are a bit off, mainly the nose is too big and the placement of the right eye is off. Otherwise, it's turning out to be a good portrait. The good thing is that you're already improving from your last artwork. Keep up the great work!

Your painting looks amazing, but the main difference between your image and the style you are trying to copy is the detail and shadows. In the reference painting, the shadows are much more light/ not as contrasted with little detail placed into hair and muscles. I think that's what gives it the more dreamy look you want. I understand that the reference photo has dark shadows, but to make it looser you might want to lighten it up. The hair and other features (muscles and clavicle's) are also much more detailed. I think something else that might be holding you back is the proportions, the neck looks very thin with the dark background infringing on the space, the overall shoulders seem a bit too narrow compared to the head so it looks more cartoonish than the drawing reference you want to copy. I honestly like the painting you have on its own, these are just some tips to make it more like the reference drawing, but I like the style you possess! Hope this helps!

Love the study @Anfissa Pruitt. So you pointed out that you enjoy the way this artist uses patterns and gradients in his pieces. I think one thing that really stands out about their work is that the way they organize their detail is kind of opposite to the way most painters/illustrators would. I think the 'normal' way that artists organize detail in their pieces is that they keep the areas that are not supposed to be the focal point relatively simple, then they add a lot of detail in the areas that they want the viewer to look. This artist kind of does the opposite, there's A LOT of detail and noise going around the piece, with few areas of rest. It's a really interesting effect to look at. Looking at your study, it looks like you organized your detail in the 'traditional sense', you saved most of it for the focal area, and simplified the rest. If you wanted to take another go at the study, you could try adding noise/texture/detail/etc. to more areas of the drawing, and save areas of rest for only 15%-25% of the page. Would love to see how you would tackle this design challenge. Other artists that I think you would enjoy would be: Yoshitaka Amano (artist for Final Fantasy) Nicolas Nemiri (works under the same company as Kim Jung Gi) Boell Oyino (don't remember where I found him but his stuff is really cool) Hope this helps!

I can definitely relate to this challenge as well. For me personally, I definitely think the pictures i draw as i study the course will be more valuable time-wise than words written/ copied down from lectures.

Hiya! I’m also new and studying the anatomy course just like you, and have been for a while. If you want your notes to be more legible and easier on your hands to have for later, I would suggest typing them on a document or google slides. That way you can highlight and bold important things without it messing with the info that you’re putting down, plus, it’s more organized. That’s what I personally do and it works for me :D

These are really nice! I can see on the first drawing that the breasts are very low, even though they can sag, the start of the breast seems to be lower than it should. Another thing I see on the first drawing is the indent of what I am assuming to be the elbow. From the turn of the hand, you would actually see more smooth/ bumps on the outside of the shape, since the bone/joint is on the other side of the arm. The foot in the first drawing is pointed a bit outward, I'm not sure if this was intentional, but the toes that are on the other side should become less visible when they are away from where you are looking (in the current state all of the toes are equally visible, creating the look as if the foot is pointed towards the camera). For the second picture, the thumb wouldn't be visible if she was trying to use it to hold the shoes, the fingers gripping them should also have a split (two on the right two on the left) to show that she is holding both shoes. The way the arm goes out so much is a bit awkward, I'm not sure if the reference was like this but it seems unnatural with the shoulder blade in a neutral position while the arm is so far back. The last thing (for both drawings) is that you might want to push the gesture a bit more just to give the poses more expression. These studies are amazing and I hope you achieve mastery at hatching!

That's a lot of notes!! You will not be able to absorb everything about anatomy quickly, but you don't need to. Start prioritizing the information. For example, you don't need to know the difference between proximal and distal to draw people. Those terms are handy directional terms (they are used a lot to name bony landmarks), but it is not critical for drawing figures.

@Anfissa Pruitt Did you see the Draftsmen episode where Stan talked about using a Zettlekasten? I read the book he mentioned HOW TO TAKE SMART NOTES by Sönke Ahrens and it helped me.

I've found that the best way to understand anatomy is by copying plate diagrams, and then redrawing them from imagination afterward. Cycling between copying and redrawing without reference until I understand the material. And then doing a figure study where I can apply what I've learned. Sounds daunting but each drawing should only take 5-10mins, and limit yourself to <1 hour for the figure. Also don't spend the whole day doing studies. Set aside an allotment of time for studying and then move into personal work.

This is an interesting drawing, the expression is very clear. Some things that I'm noticing about this drawing is the proportions of the face. It seems as though the forehead is very large and the eyes and nose are scrunched together. The eyes are a bit big and the ear is very elongated. The nose shape looks great, but the mouth has an odd shape (it looks unnatural). One more thing is the shading of the beard is a bit too blended, there is no visible texture, but the hair on top of the head is very nicely detailed! I would recommend studying the skull, landmarks of the face, and the Loomis head. All of these things are available on the Proko youtube channel, or courses if you want to draw portraits. I wish you good luck with your art aspirtions!

Hi Anfissa I feel your pain - I have been through this - feeling like every nugget of info is super important, and making sure that nothing is missed. I have filled whole notebooks this way, before realising that I could be using my time better - something your post suggests you are beginning to realise yourself. The depth of your notes is impressive - it shows your dedication to the subject. The unfortunate thing is that the human body is unbelivably complicated, and the course is very dense, so there is no way you will remeber everything the first time round - even if you do note everything down. But that's fine! And also, time you spend taking notes is time you could be drawing - and that's the best way to learn the subject - not by trying to recycle the information. The good news is that more drawing, not more note taking, will probably help you learn more effectively! My advice would be to take it easy on the note taking - this is how I usually do it - I watch the video, and do my best to remeber as much as possible - THEN, when the video is finished, I take notes - this forces you to use your memory and actually makes you remeber things better. Then, at the end of the day, I write what it is I learned that day - this just reinforces any nuggets that are still there (and is a nice motivation boost). You will forget a lot of what you see in the videos - it takes years and years to learn this stuff - even the very best don't know all the theory off by heart - but that's also totally normal. Just practice whatever subject you are on, and keep rewatching the videos! A lot of people do the courses multiple times even. I I think that this would be a better use of your time. I wish you all the best!

Hi! Firstly - what neat notes! Yours put mine to shame. I'm sure it's really worthwhile making such thorough notes, but make sure you break it up with lots of drawing practice. Maybe don't go through the course so quickly (or even each video?) so that for every page or so of notes, you spend a couple of hours just drawing and practising from different angles, or from different references. I would have thought even that might get exhausting, so take a break from 'learning' drawing and just chill out with some gestures or something more relaxing or something you find easy every couple of hours :). Keep up the solid learning - it'll pay off!