@mitsuki-youko Thank you! I like to use those little pudgy looking silhouettes as shorthand. I think I stole the basic idea from Ryan Church to show proportion in an image without having to create a lot of detail.
@br00dley That's a great idea. Sounds like drawing the same thing for 3 months would be a challenge in-and-of-itself. I have a clipboard and mechanical pencils that I throw in a bag when I know I'll have even a few minutes of down time. Taking a sketch break is a great way to reset to trigger a second wind.
I hope everyone has had a great couple of months since my last post. Life has been busy for me, but I have been working on my art and a number of other life things (including losing 30lbs.+ over the course of the year and getting back into a regular spiritual practice). I have been in the Art School program for over a year and I'm overdue for sharing my progress, so I'm posting up a bunch of stuff.
Week 5 (November)
Figure Drawing (5 minute poses)
I was really surprised at how much you can layout in 5min. Some of these seem like they are done to me. I had to take a week long break or more while working on these and at least one session felt rougher/harder than the others.
Perspective
In my supplemental studies, there is a conflict between what Marc states is 4pt perspective and what Jason Cheeseman-Meyer describes in "Vanishing Point." For this one, I went with JCM's version because it presented something substantially different than what both sources defined as 5 Point Perspective. JCM more-or-less defines 4 Point Perspective as curvilinear 2-point perspective, and 5 Point Perspective as curvilinear 3-point perspective. From my understanding MB's 4 Point perspective is essentially 5 Point Perspective, but without defining the fifth point - but that's not really the same thing. I dunno, man - I'm just a student. I'll point it out and let others fight it out… lol
Head Studies
This is what took me forever. And I feel like taking forever was appropriate and really helpful. Looking back at them, I see lots of issues. Things that I should have fixed before calling it done. But I think I was just wanting to get them done because I was intimidated and lacked confidence. It wasn't until the last head study and the portrait study in Week 6 that my perspective on some of this changed, as I will discuss in a moment. 
Also, I was pleasantly surprised when I managed to get what I felt the essence of each head within a short period of time.
30 Minutes:
20 minutes:
15 Minutes:
It wasn't until the last head study that I felt proud of what I had drawn. This was analog with a mechanical pencil Like everything I had been practicing finally paid off. Not perfect, but my god am I proud.
Week 6 (December)
Figure Drawing (1 minute poses)
I was pretty happy with all of these. There was a bit of a shock moving from 5 minutes to 1 minute though.
Hair
These were fun and definitely something I need to practice more. This is a definite weak area for me.
5 Point Perspective Person
This was… interesting. While I was working through it, I had the distinct feeling of "being in school." I was like, "dude, when am I ever going to use this?" But then I started seeing it EVERYWHERE, especially in the anime and manga that I enjoy most. There's a dynamicism that is generated with noodle arms as a powerful force is distorting things - like an elongated ball being bounced or hit. It wasn't until I had finished this exercise that I realized that and will revisit this in future works, especially if I do some comic work.
Portrait Study
It was during this work that I only had 10-30min blocks of time to work. While I wasn't working on it, I still had it viewable on my display so I had time to process what we wrong with it. And I took the time to fix it, each time. Until I didn't. There are at least three things that I would work to fix if I hadn't decided to move on: eye size/placement and her left jaw line (which might also require a tweak to her mouth). But with all the extra time I did spend pushing pixels around, I was really proud of this work - until those imperfections got in my brain and now that's all I see - but I'm not willing to go back in and work on it more… yet. LOL.
Extra
This was a doodle I did expressing a bit of frustration with AI, computers, and cloud-based bullshit. Plus I made an alternative logo for a friend's band. These were fun and I just wanted to share.
Week 7 (January)
Because I had set a goal for myself that I wanted to finish Term 2 by the end of the calendar year and I was already behind on that deadline, I had thought about just using Week 7 as a catch-up week and basically move directly to Week 8. But I decided not to, as that's what I did in Term 1 and I wanted to take the time to create a personal work to capture my progress outside of the main course work. I am REALLY glad that I did. This started as a random sketch from a previous week and I decided that it would be a fun piece to push around. This is basically my gonzo take on what takes place during an amped-up Serpent Moon, inspired by my friend's band Serpent Moon Overdrive. There's a couple things that could have been handled slightly differently, but I'm pretty happy with it, plus the band is pretty receptive of what I did - sounded like they might want to use it as an "album" cover. Cool. 
Overall, I am very happy with my progress over the course of the year. I'm finding a lot more patience with myself and the process to create a piece of art. I'm also finding a home in where to stop working on something, as it seems like there are a near-infinite possible number of passes/iterations over a painting. It more of an intuitive thing for me right now. If I can have a piece on my monitor for 2-3 days without getting a sense that something is wrong or something annoys me, then it's probably okay enough to let it go. I'm looking forward to finishing up Term 2, as I'm wanting to do some digital sculpting in zbrush/Blender. I'm not sure if I will ever have the kind of time I would really like to spend on a daily basis, at least not while I have a non-art-related career, but I am dedicated to carving out more time and ways to maximize the time I do have without burning myself out. As an added bonus, thanks to my delay in progress and taking my time to enjoy the process, I also have a larger set of goals that should be helpful as I continue throughout this course. I want to go through the process of developing an intellectual property as fully as I can. I've done this in bits and pieces, but what I want is a fully actualized artifact that will have a long-lasting impact on my art and life.
Well, that recap took pretty much all morning. Hopefully, over the next couple days I can make the rounds and catch-up with all of you wonderful forum dwellers! I hope you all are also getting results that you want. And if not, please take the time to calmly and respectfully ask yourself "Why not?" I did and I discovered that the answer was inside of me, all along. 
May you all be well,
-Jim
