Hey, @Christopher Lehn! I’m onboard with @Steve Lenze’s notes, and I’m glad to know you found his feedback helpful! As a complement, here’s the video where Stan talks about “drawing from the shoulder”: How to Hold and Control Your Pencil - Thought you might like to see it in case you haven’t. Overall, I get a feeling you might be berating yourself a bit too much, and I’d like to encourage you, as much as possible, to soften your “inner critic” a little more. You should find artists of all levels here at the Proko site, from students to pros, from “day one” to “highly skilled”, each one learning based on their own individual needs, capabilities and interests. So, especially, try to not judge yourself badly by comparing your stuff to other people’s - not even Stan’s. Don’t worry about making your sketches look like his. People draw in various different ways, so assess your outcomes by simply considering if you’re applying similar concepts, ideas and techniques, even if adapted into your own manners. Learning often means taking risks, experimenting and making mistakes - all of that is fine and also necessary, and staying in “learning mode” (I love this, Steve!) should allow space for it. Through trial, error and overcome is how we learn, grow and, eventually, “get good”. By the way, there’s this other video where Stan discusses a bit about other styles of approaching gesture: Q&A – Gesture vs Contour and Scribbly Lines And you might also find it interesting to google quick gesture sketching videos by other skilled artists such as Glenn Vilppu, Mike Mattesi, Glenn Keane, Marshal Vandruff, Alex Woo, Hiro Kawahara… etc. Other than that, just keep up the good work and feel free to count on this community for feedback whenever you need!

Nice! Just a passerby wanting to follow and watch your progress :)! Goodluck!

Hey Christopher, Congrats on picking up drawing again. To help with the fear, stop thinking you have to be good or compare yourself to other artist right now, you're in learning mode. The first thing you need to do when working on gesture is try to use your whole arm when you draw. Also, use the edge of the pencil and make soft gesture marks. Next, find the "S" or "C" curve that describes the pose from top to bottom. Even if arms or legs or whatever gets in the way, just follow the gesture all the way down. The arms and legs will also have their own gesture. After you can do this a few times, you will begin to see gesture in everything. After you get how gesture works, then you can start using structure to build a more realistic figure. I did some sketches to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)

I am new to and just starting browsing. Everything Adam mentioned is great. To add my 2 cents: I have constantly stopped and restarted drawing for many years. I was exactly in your position and was too scared to draw in a sketchbook. Mainly due to feeling inadequate and the thought of, "I would only waste the paper with my lack of skills." My work around was to simply use the cheap, standard printer/computer paper and emotionally feel that they are meant to be used as scrap paper for my practice sessions. A tablet was easier for me as I could just simply erase/delete/trash anything I felt. The best way to overcome your fear, is to just trick your brain as it is meant to be your practice paper (or trash/cheap paper depending on your perspective). Once you start purposefully drawing without the guilt of preserving perfection, you will naturally become comfortable to use whatever media to work on. It will also progress to the point where you will think in terms of your overall progress and begin keeping everything as a guide to look back on. Edit: I forgot to add. This is all psychology and dealing with conflicts within yourself. You are not slow. You are not weak. You are not bad at drawing. You are at a level where you can progress. That is simply it. Work on being confident with your drawings and focus on improvement. Ask anyone and they will be willing to help/guide you.