Tried a different approach on these 3 studies, being less concerned with line accuracy and more focused on finding the point of interest in the piece. I find that outdoor pieces with a lot of organic things are way more difficult. I also tried to zoom less, drawing all over the piece rather than focusing on one area at the time.
The first term has been a lot of the basics, pen-control, perspective, getting used to the medium and daily gesture drawing. The fun parts where when we got to do copies of characters that we liked, as well as some of the design challenges (your dream house, your sci-fi/fantasy room etc.)
When I started term 1 I was on vacation and had a lot more time to dedicate to drawing, and there's a significant drop in output once work started again. (I stopped doing studies for fun, like all the bugs I did the first few days.) I try to do daily gestures regardless, but during week-days I commit maybe 2-3 hours per day.
I had to extend term 1 with one week due to a business trip, during the trip I only did gesture-drawings.
The most important thing Term 1 has given me is a structure and a routine where I prioritize drawing over other things, even if some days are more productive than others, I put stylus to tablet daily. It's also really nice to have a community around you that are also working towards a similar goal, seeing posts both here on the forums and on discord is really motivating.
For the next term I will try too focus on applying what I learn on my own drawings, even if it means It'll slow down the term. I think the people over at Draw a Box call it the 50% rule. That's something I lacked in Term 1, only really drawing for myself during week 7. I think this will reinforce the 'why' behind the skill even further.
10th Dec 2024 -> 9th Feb 2025
I still don't think I "get" gesture drawing, but here's a before and after 8 weeks. First one is only 1m, the 2nd one is a bit of a mix of 30s, 1m and 2m. I can see some improvement in these, even if I still have a long way to go.
Some of the things I did outside of the course and or for Week 7
Was on a bit of a Bloodborne kick, The left one is a study of "Vicar Amelia" by Maria Zolothukina and the right one a friends OC in the gear/pose of Maria of the Astral Clocktower.
"You Died"
Hey there
I really like the way you use construction on the figures and that last piece is really cool!
As for gestures, for me, two things that made a big impact were to understand that it's kind of a feeling the flow kinda thing XD like, you really need to get into a mindset of feeling the flow of the pose, rather than imagining it is a 3D object, imagine it is like "forces" moving around and balancing eachother I dunno, that kinda meta thing, the other concept is shapes and line
So one way to go about it is simplifying everything you see into C S and I shapes. Where, the more curved a C is for example, the more energy its holding like a spring, or maybe it's moving somewhere, the more slanted a line, ( I line), the more dynamic, like out balance, falling, and maybe something is counteracting that or maybe not. The straight lines give a feeling of structure and solidity to organic things which usually don't have many straight lines, and curves give more feelings of softness, wobblyness etc. So I pay a lot more attention to where I see curves, where I see straights and what the angles are. It also leads to recognizing shapes that are pleasing to my eyes over time and then just through repetition I keep finding and drawing them
Oh, and when drawing gestures, the bigger the surface, and more upright, the better. All shoulder work
As for term length, I dunno man, I arbitrarily told myself each term would last me a good 6 months or so XD. Don't think there's a strict rule on how long it should last apart from that weekly planner that came in an update. I just like taking my time, really understanding everything as best I can before moving on to the next term, but hey, I'm in no hurry so YMMV
cheers!
For gestures, I know the best ones I've done It's done with confident flowing strokes, but getting into the mindset can be a struggle, especially doing them after work. Going to keep doing gestures while I go through Term 2, they're a great warmup if anything. But I'll try to pay more attention to the flow rather than the form.
14 days later
Studies from the last two days. My Term 2 started with me getting ill for a week straight, back at it now though. These studies come from doing Marco Bucci's class on "Understanding & Painting The Head" where he breaks down the Asaro head.
I decided to skip the Photoshop for Digital Production as it's not really aimed towards what I want out of the course. So I jumped into week 2 almost immediately.
I've mainly spent the week drawing the construction of the head, I tend to make the chin too short and narrow. 
Week 2's "draw 10 faces" assignment really got me out of my comfort-zone but I'm happy that I pushed through it. 
I've also been keeping up with my gestures, they where getting a bit stale so tried to mix it up a bit with a rougher brush. 
I've noticed a clear lack of focus lately, I think it has to do with the amount of information that goes into the anatomy of the face and I don't really feel like I grasp the concepts. Next week we get to study the individual pieces of the face as separate parts so that might help with my understanding.
Been getting back into the swing of things! Discord user BigBlueDreams gave me some great feedback in terms of how to push my gestures, which made them really fun to do. It's become less a matter of capturing an accurate pose, but rather seeing how far you can push it until it breaks. I can really see the change comparing the first set with the 2nd set. 
Some studies of facial features I've done this week.
These are my 5 heads from imagination for the week 3 assignment. Tried doing hair for one of them but left the rest bald cause I have no idea what I'm doing. I also noticed I tend to make the faces way to wide in a front facing view, also the curvature of the face makes it really difficult to picture how to place the features in a 3/4 view.
Quick drawing of my OC in a Fallout-esq/MadMax setting, watch your kneecaps!
Drawing for fun between dailies
Some mouth studies and week 3's portrait. Onto week 4! 
Great studies! You’re putting in the mileage with the quantity.
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