Hey Bfizz! @Liandro has a great response to your question. To add on to what he said, the goal is to focus on the flow of the drawing. I know this is difficult if you're not quite comfortable with proportions yet, but once you do it'll feel completely natural. Don't be too hard on yourself! This stuff takes years to learn, and you feeling like your drawings aren't what you want them to be is totally natural. If you'd like to recreate what he's doing I'd recommend to keep going with the course. The way it's meant to be done is that you do each section to the degree you're able, and then you go back and review it again and improve every time. One more note, I think it's important to consider the sort of art you'd like to do in general. Do you want to be a fine artist, with more academic realistic proportions, or a comic book artist with more extreme anatomy and posing, or anything in between. The sort of art you'd like to do definitely could answer the question on what to focus on when studying. An exercise to get better at flowing in a drawing I'd recommend is @Tim Gula's Meditation for Artists – The Automatic Drawing Technique. This sort of thing is important for artists of all levels, and really gets you warmed up for some nice flowing lines. Hope this helps!

Hey, @bfizz23! Here’s my take on attempting to answer your questions: —- Q: Am I supposed to be trying to get the body proportions correct or just focus on drawing the flow? A: In gesture quick sketches, focus on drawing the flow. If the proportions go off, you may adjust them later if you want. If you feel you’re able to keep some awareness of proportions while still maintaining your focus on the motion, good - just don’t let proportions get in the way of capturing a good gesture early on. (By the way, Stan does talk about proportions later on in the Figure course, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves!) —- Q: Is it okay to sketch using multiple lines, or should I be using one solid line to draw each part like Stan does? A: It’s okay to sketch using multiple lines. Stan has his own preferred way of doing things, but there are other valid methods. For example, when we watch @Glenn Vilppu drawing, we notice he handles the linework in a different way compared to Stan. And, in fact, some artists, such as Brazilian illustrator Hiro Kawahara, openly advocate for a more intuitive and somewhat “messy” approach to sketching. Stan shares some thoughts about other methods of approaching gesture in this video: Q&A – Gesture vs Contour and Scribbly Lines. Also, over time and practice, you may find yourself become more economical with your lines as you evolve your skills - as long as you practice mindfully, this often comes naturally, so there’s no need to stress over it. —- Q: Have you found it more helpful for you to do the 30-second pose before seeing what Stan does, or recreating what he does? A: Neither. In my experience, what worked best was to just watch the example first, without drawing; then try it on my own without watching; and finally, watch it again to compare my work to it. This is what I did when I was taking Proko’s Figure course a few years ago (I’d had some drawing experience before already). In general, my approach to practice may vary: if I have no familiarity at all with an exercise, I find it more helpful to copy first; but once I’ve done it a few times, I like to explore to find my own way of doing it, and then use the examples as a reference to compare my results with and make adjustments if needed. It’s good to keep in mind that copying is not wrong - we just gotta try to keep our minds set on using the copy method to learn something instead of copying just for the sake of “replicating a good-looking result”. —- Hope this helps! Please keep in mind that my answers are subjective, of course, and you may find other artists might have different approaches and opinions. Good studies!

I feel like your inspired and curious and a bit insecure but ready to learn. Id say your heart and mind are in the right place. How you start isn't as important as picking a place to start, imperfections and all. Here you're able to get feedback from other professional artists, students, hobbyists. Use that to the fullest. Stan, like most professional artists and teachers have developed an order of operation when it comes to their learning curriculum . Proportions one of those things that's considered through every step of the creation process. Its something you want to keep in mind at all times more or less. The exercise is gesture drawing that's your focus, When you ask for a critique the focus is only on what you're trying to accomplish which is creating a quick sketch that has energy, you're learning to do that so you'll need critiques specifically to help you progress in that. Proportions are often exaggerated in gesture drawings, it helps give energy to a pose so no need to worry to much about proportions. Maybe you're still attached to the idea of getting perfect form. If so continue reading, if not then stop here. For a moment imagine you were doing the foundation of a finished work, you do a bunch of quick sketches to try to get the right feel for the finished picture. Say you got the pose just right after 20 attempts, then you start blocking in while keeping an eye on proportions without trying to make it perfect, then work on form and lighting or whatever the picture needs, also keeping in mind proportion, anatomy, and more details and readjusting proportions in relation to new details. you get the picture.

For your question about sketching with multiple lines, if you’re working on gesture it’s best to try and use afew long lines vs a lot of little ones, and attempt to get each line on the first shot. This is hard at first, and it’s okay if you don’t get your lines right on the first try. The more drawings you do, the better you get. You can also practice drawing straight lines and circles to get better at controlling your pencil. for longer drawings though, you can use as many lines as you want. @Adam Wiebner explained it well when he talked about under drawing lines. as far as drawing before or after seeing what Stan does, what I find most helpful is doing both. The first drawing let’s your brain practice Interpreting the model yourself, and the second drawing teaches you how Stan interprets the model.

I wouldn't worry too much about proportions right now, especially in the 30second exercises. For me 30 seconds was too fast in the beginning. My brain needed some processing time to even see the gesture ;). So I started with 60seconds. Maybe that helps you too. Also, I found the following steps helpful: Draw at the same time as Stan - Compare - Watch him draw - Draw at the same time again. And also just have fun with it :). Hope that helps.

A lot of great questions and here’s another fellow traveler’s opinion to consider… Focus on gesture now in these exercises, proportion will become more of a focus later in course. Its too frustrating to learn all concepts at same time, so tackle it in pieces to start. Its most important to search for and see flow, then draw the flow. Try constraints like if i had only one line to draw this pose, what would it be- a C, S, I, or maybe a Z. What if you have 2 lines? Then limit to 3? 5? Do these exercises on scratch paper and throw them away. They are meant for tuning your perception to flow. Do lots of these practices. It is ok to use very light light, sketchy UNDERDRAWING lines to help you find your choice of final singular confident line. The underdrawing is technique designed to disappear in the final drawing. The objective is to build a habit of seeing gesture by repeating the seeing and decision making over and over and over till it becomes second nature. Copying someone else’s drawing to create a nice looking drawing is not the objective. Copying others techniques can reveal technique secrets, and for now care more about what Stan’s teaches you about C, S and I and Z flows. i hope that helps.