Hi Joseph, great job on this. For a first time, you're on a really good track. You're understanding the information objectively, and executing it well. I would agree with @hunt4animation on everything he said. Something I might add is to start trying to do more complex poses. Objectively proportions are very simple to understand. The information "a figure is 8 heads tall" is easy to apply to a standing figure, but hard to know intuitively when foreshortening or body variation is involved. You can study standing poses all day and get really good at them, but I'd imagine that's not your goal. Learning proportion intuitively becomes a lot easier when doing more difficult poses because you can no longer rely just on the head rule. It can guide you, but you'll have to start solving drawing problems that can't be read in a book. Once you develop your own shorthand for drawing, those rules become less important and you can start developing your own style. Another thing I would add is to take better photos of your artwork. It's not that important at this stage where you're just trying to learn, but it's a good habit to get into when sharing your artwork. When presenting an image, everything is part of the presentation. Where it's posted, the resolution of the image, the quality of the photo, the lighting in the photo ect... If you get into the habit of treating everything you share as something that is important to you, my personal belief is that it makes the art better and makes it more fun. Good luck!

I think the biggest thing in regards to proportions is making sure to measure and check how how big certain body parts in relation to one another. From the reference you gave we can see that you need shorten the width of the shoulders and stretch the neck and head vertically a bit more. Its a good first attempt though!

Hello Joseph, The best thing is to study proportions from books and then practice with your own drawings. Reconfirming that the proportions are true or realizing the differences. Andrew Loomis is a great one to start with and there are PDFs available for free online. Currently the pose you have is easily translatable to guides that are available. After many many Many hours of study you may find that you have a different criteria for proportions and will be able to make your own model sheet. Based off your drawing here some areas I immediately see that can be worked on 1. Head is too wide 2. Neck is too wide and too short 3. The breast should be lower 4. Abdomen needs to be elongated a bit 5. Legs could be lengthened and more narrow 6. Don't neglect the feet :) For a first drawing it is a great start! I would focus less on any kind of shading for now and fill many pages of drawings. Using the time in drawing and learning.