Yep, I did as well, as I have no plans to expand or continue work on 3D either, and just getting Zbrush was a bit of a hassle. Pretty expensive too. You could use blender, most people seem to switch to that.

Granted, I had previously learned 3D studio and Maya, so I was familiar with working with 3D space, and even if you don't dedicate your career to it, I have to say becoming familiar with a 3D tool does help improve spatial awareness.

Still, to each their own, we all kinda follow the course in different ways. In that respect, I don't remember if you mentioned it, but are you following the Study companion? if not, I would recommend to try it out, as it expands on the course significantly, and though there is some repetition, I've noticed it has helped me improve considerably than if I had only followed the course videos and basic exercices.

I would also recommend taking a peak at how some others have tackled some of these exercices and references, some have done some truly impressive work, and seeing how others do it also helps take tips from them for your own work.

Exercices look good so far, anatomy is quite a challenge, but also a lot of fun.

Those tweaks really helped! I see you also added some highlights for the light effect.

Something else that has really helped me with poses, gesture and anatomy, like, a lot, is to use my camera (I have a simple desktop camera), set it to 10 seconds, pose myself in the exact pose I'm looking for, then crop it use it as a reference to draw the basic gesture, and exagerate features as needed. Sometimes if I have props or a towel I'll pose it as well to get reference for basic form construction.

same lol i figured well if i wanted to learn it down the road, i can just go back n watch it later

Nice work! Though those swirly magics had a certain charm to them. Sparkly effect look pretty cool! I see you also trimmed your lineart for this one.