Nice! - The features feel quite 3D to me, but the head feels a little flat. I think it would help to show that the face has a front and a side plane more clearly. It might help to first draw the construction of the head lightly, before rendering. - Richard Schmid mentioned something interesting in his book Alla Prima II. In chapter 5, on values, there is an image of a painting of some dolls. Schimd mentions how the hair was human like, and that he could see every strand of hair if he kept his eyes wide open. But if he squinted, the hair grouped into a single shape, with specific edges. That's what he painted, since it's much more manageable then thousands of hair strands. And since he put down the correct shape with correct edges, it looked like hair. This might be a topic that would be interesting for you to explore. In your drawing you seem to be showing the hair by drawing indivudal strands of hair, and it looks like hair to me, but it could be good to widen your toolkit of how you can portray hair by studying hair thinking more like Schmid, maybe by first doing a value studie; grouping the hair into a few values and shapes, then modify the edges of the shapes to give it a hair like feel. I did an attempt at this (though I used my imagination since I don't know what reference you used). If you're new to value studies, feel free to reach out if you need some tips. (or maybe this post suffices https://www.proko.com/s/PX9q ) Hope this helps :)

Hi @kotka, yeah, the robo bean is tricky, but I think you did a pretty good job with these👍 You show a good understanding of gesture and a box's perspective. "as soon as I start to put two boxes in relationship to each other, I think I start to second-guess and get distracted by their spatial relationship" - To get them in the right relationships, you could step out of the 3D mindset, and just look at how the different points of the boxes relate to eachother when thought of as flat 2D shapes. Then when you have things in the right spot, go back to 3D thinking. - It might also help to practice drawing the robo bean from imagination, to develop a mental standard reference to refer to when drawing from photos. I notice for example, that in the 010 robo bean, the hip box is too short, and the ribcage box too flat, based on what I think the robo bean should look like. When practicing drawing from imagination you could refer to the green robo bean in the lesson video (How to Draw Structure in the Body – Robo Bean at 04:57). Drawing the cylinder for the spine between the boxes really helped me keep the distance between them in check. Try drawing it from imagination, then check with the green robo bean to see how close you where. Notice what specific things you're off at, then redraw it with correct proportions, refering to the green robo bean. Then draw a new one from imagination and repeat the process. - To make spatial thinking more intuitive, it might help to activate your imagination and imagine touching the forms as you draw them. - It might help to start with a normal bean, then draw the robo bean on top. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!

Hi @Crimson The Kitsune, nice drawings. Good job simplifying👍. "Haven’t been consistent lately with my Art, as I just got back from my LONGEST Artblock. I really need some advice as I think I’m struggling to use the concepts Proko had told me." - Have you tried following the practice tips I attached in this post?https://www.proko.com/s/d9iy A big key to growing, is to imitate people who are skilled at what you're trying to learn, just like a kid develops by mimicking grown-ups. These drawings show an understanding of the gesture concept, though I don't see very much of Stan Prokopenko in them. If you want your drawings to look like Stan's, mimick his process. Follow the practice tips and post for feedback often, and I'm sure you'll improve👍Just be patient, learning a skill can take a while. - I noticed that you usually draw a pose over and over. I don't think I would recommend doing that. Sometimes, retrying a pose could be good; maybe you have a specific thing that you want to analyze and retry. If you don't have anything specific, move on to another pose. If you retry a pose without having something specific to work on, you risk blindly repeating the same mistakes, which you won't benefit from. - One thing that can help when tackling a concept like gesture, is to know what you're going to use it for. What are your goals? What type of work do you want to create? Do you want to draw comics? Anime? Or realistic portraits? Or maybe something else? Feel free to share that in your reply :) If your goal is to draw comics for example, I would highly recommend that you draw comics from the start, even if you feel like they suck XD. If you have a specific goal, your mind will be sharper when you do your studies. Maybe you drew a superhero that you found looked really akward and stiff. 'Something is wrong with the gesture', you might think. And as you do your gesture studies you'll be on the look out for the solution to the problem. I also find doing the things you want to create right from the start, makes the journey much more enjoyable. Doing the things you want is not a far-away goal anymore; you're already there doing it. Drawing exercises don't feel as much as obstacles between you and your goal, but more like an exciting tool that is going to free you to do the things you want even better. I was good at grinding exercises, but not at doing personal projects, which is why I'm so passionate about this topic :) It's great that you reach out when you feel stuck like this👍. Getting others input helps a lot. Keep on asking if you have any further questions :)

Hi @Arnaud BARBIER, nice drawing! I think you did a good job capturing the expression. - The likeness could be improved on, I think. Take a look at your carricature of Michel Vuillermoz. Notice how the shape of the eyes in your drawing is the same as the shape of the eyes in the reference. The same goes for his other features. In your carricature of Bobby Cannavale you don't really have this. The shape of eyes for example, dosen't resemble the shape of the eyes in the photo to me. In the photo I see a curved top and flat bottom lid, and a strong narrowing on the outside. In your drawing the bottom lid is curved down, and the eye doesn't pinch as clearly on the outside. I'm not an experienced caricaturist, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I think you would benefit from doing this: First draw the person without carricaturing. Try to get the shapes as close to the reference as possible. This will strengthen your eye, and your ability to capture shapes. Then once you have a drawing that looks like the subject, do a carricature on top of it. Use the shapes you've drawn already, and play around with them. Pull and stretch the shapes in different ways that you think represents the persons unique character. @Court Jones, what's your thoughts on this? - I did a paintover where I tried moving around and scaling the features. If you're working digitally you might want to experiment with this too. You could stretch and bend the features too. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!

Nice! I really think you captured the likness!

Nice drawing! I think you did a great job creating variety between the toes, and giving them structure! The anatomy and proportions look good too. - The bump on medial side (that shows the start of the metacarpals) could be shaved a little. - Notice how Stan's drawing has very clear planes, often based on the placement of the bones. This gives his drawings a really solid look. In the pinky toe in your drawing, I feel like the phalanges got lost a little. The toe feels too round. Cheers!

Hi @bjnaz, nice drawings! There is a lot of good stuff going on. I'll do my best to help you further: - For this exercise I would encourage you to simplify. Adding details is not wrong; you probably want that in a finished piece. But in order to add details in a functional way, you first have to be able to simplify. Much of the detail you've added in your drawings, dosen't support the gesture and ends up stiffening the pose. If you want something to refer to, aim for the level of simplicity that Stan has in his gesture quicksketch demos. You mentioned that you can "visualize the "flow"", and I can see that in some of these, especially the top left drawing of image 1. It would be interesting to see drawings, where you ignore details and just draw the flow. - I attached some practice tips of things that helped me when I took the course. Hopefully they could be useful to you too :) - If you haven't already I strongly recommend watching the video How to Hold and Control Your Pencil. Being able to draw from your shoulder is great to have in your toolkit, and gesture quicksketches are a good place to practice it in. - In the top left of image 1 it says "2 min? Not quite yet." I highly recommend practicing these under a time limit. Occasionally you might want to do one without, if there is something you want to analyze or explore. But rather than thinking 'I'm going to work on these until I get this quality down to 2 minutes or 30 seconds', think ' I'm going to work on timed poses up to this quality'. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!

Hi @Mori Luna, nice painting! Cool shape design! - I think you would really appreciate taking the Figure Drawing Fundamentals  course, as you learn digital painting. The things you learn in the figure course, especially structure, will strengthen your paintings. - I did a paintover where I did an attempt to match the values more with the reference. If you want to improve your understanding of values, this post might help: https://www.proko.com/s/PX9q Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!

Wow! What medium are they painted in?

Hi @Gian Amir Calibuso, nice studies! I can tell that you've put a lot of effort into them, and I really like the feeling of space in the last drawing. I'll try to look for things to improve on: - Both the boxes and cylinders look pretty good. But they feel a little off, as if there might be something lacking in the understanding of how to construct the box and cylinder. It would be interesting to hear what you know about them already. Would you mind doing a page that is like a tutorial of how you draw a box, and then a page that is like a tutorial of how you draw a cylinder, to show what you know? I could point out some things that could be fixed in the drawings above, but I think it will be more beneficial and easier for me to guide you if we start by figuring out what you already know. Looking forward to see your tutorials 💪

Hi @lahetkan, really solid work! The structure and anatomy looks really good. - I included a paintover of how you can double check whether you've drawn the pelvis symmetrically or not. The one in most need of this is the bottom left pelvis of image 2. You can read more about this in chapter 3 of Scott Robertson's book How to Draw. Hope this helps :)

Cool! This sounds like a lot of fun 🤩

Hi @Nikita Thakur, nice studies! - I think you would appreciate learning some measuring techniques, to help you with getting proportions correct. This video gives you an overview Measuring Techniques. - I understand that you're eager to add in the features, but I think learning to draw a simple loomis head properly is what will help improve your drawings the most. Much about the success in head drawings (or when drawing anything that is three dimensional), lies in having good structure. When drawing the head, try to think as if you were sculpting the head like a sculptor. You start with large volumes then break them down into more and more detail. You might appreciate this video Structure Basics – Making Things Look 3D. As you'll see further down the course, structure is also the key to drawing the features realistically. Hope this helps :) Let me know if you have any questions!

Nice work @eszter 👍 - When practicing line quality for figure drawing you most likely would want to draw the lines in a rather quick stroke; a single swoop (the line will probably be misplaced and at the wrong angle 🤪). With practice this can result in a really clean line. When you draw a line slowly it usually ends up wobbly, since you balance the direction throughout the stroke. It's a good idea to practice drawing both quickly and slowly. Try different speeds and see how it affects the marks you make. - I fell into the trap of grinding line quality exercises, because I thought "I have to get this down perfectly". But I wouldn't recommend doing that😅. If line quality exercises are new to you, it could be good to have a little bootcamp just to get started, but after that keeping it as a short warm-up is the better idea, in my experience. Line quality is something you'll always have to work on, and as you study more drawing, you'll be informed about what type of line work is required. Keep up the good work💪

Hi @Kalmon Rosenblatt, good start! I see some nice things going on here. My favorite is the top right drawing of image 3; it has a nice flow going from the head down to the straight leg. Keep on practicing these they are really worth your time. You can get far with one hour a day💪 - I attached an image with some practice tips. I think this is the most important advice I can give you at the moment. If you practice a lot and with those tips in mind I think you'll be able to improve fast and find the answers to many of your questions on your own. - SIMPLIFY! Try to use as few lines (C,S & I) as possible. As a rule of thumb, if you see a detail that you don't need to capture the pose, ignore it. Stan's example drawings are a good reference for the level of detail you should go for. A lot of details isn't wrong, but you have to be able to draw simply in order to add details thoughtfully. - In the end of the How to Draw Gesture video, Stan talks about how the contours of the body aren't symmetrical, but have a back and forth like rhythm. Try to look for this when you draw. As a rule of thumb, when you've drawn a line curving one way, you'll be drawing a line curving the other way next. This creates a flow that leads the viewers eye through the pose. You might appreciate watching the first 1 min & 30 sec of this video Drawing Demo by Glenn Vilppu. But again the practice tips are the most important, especially the part about following along with Stan, since his good habits will become part of your repertoar. Just keep on doing these and submitting for feedback. Hope this helps :) Looking forward to see more of your work!

Hi @Nai Rinaket, nice drawings! I think you did a good job capturing the gesture. The figures have a very nice, elegant flow. - I would highly recommend doing these with the time limit. Slowing down can be good to get time to analyze, but rather than thinking that you should work this drawing quality down to 2 min or 30 sec, rather work 2 min or 30 sec, up to this quality. The drawings won't come out the way you want them in the beginning, but that's ok! I think you learn 2 min and 30 sec poses, by doing 2 min and 30 sec poses. That's how it was for me. Eventually you'll get used to it and reach the quality you want. One thing that could help is to mimick the way Stan draws in his example videos. You'll absorb his good habits. - If you haven't already, you might appreciate watching this video How to Hold and Control Your Pencil. Drawing from your shoulder is great to practice and gesture quicksketches are a good place to practice it in. It would be interesting to see what your 30 second drawings look like. I think getting feedback on them could be really useful. Don't worry about the quality :) Just do a bunch and post them. Feel free to tag me @Jesper Axelsson in that post. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!

Nice! - Keep an extra eye on proportions and alignments, especially in figure drawings. Her head and shoulders seem too big in comparison to the rest of the body. In the reference the left contour of her head is in line vertically with the hip. In your drawing it's aligned vertically with the outside of the arm. -This might be wrong, but it feels like the obliques should originate slightly more in on the ribcage, in the drawing to the right. I like to imagine a line running through all the origin points. Hope this helps :)

Really nice drawings! - The butts feel a little bubbly. I think you're adding too much volume along the midline and bottom. Also consider the anatomy, and think of what's making up the forms: bone + muscle + tendon + fat. Think of it like you're building a machine. It's like the mannequinization exercise in the figure drawing course, but with a much more complex mannequin. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!

Nice work! - Something about the glutes feels a little off. I think you would benefit from doing some tracings of a model, to get more exact shapes and proportions, and to see how they react around the great trochanter. Hope this helps :)

Looks great! - I would keep an extra eye on proportion. Look back and forth between the drawings and the reference, and see if you can spot any differences. In #1 for example, the talus feels like it's too far down. - In #5, I don't think we should see as much of the bottom plane as you have shown. It starts below the tuberosity of the 5th metatarsal. Cheers!