Thank you for the kind words! The opportunity to make a video for Proko's channel was definitely one of the highlights of 2020 (I'd been working on it on and off from August into January, and then was waiting patiently for it to drop). The exposure's definitely been good, although perhaps not as good as I'd hoped - but with the new month rolling in, I suppose I'll really get to see how many new students I get.

I'm definitely glad to hear that you've overcome the challenges you'd been contending with, and that you're happier for it. Those kinds of injuries can really sneak up on us - and the whole "no pain no gain" nonsense can definitely cause us to make things way worse. It's good to hear that you've recovered.

One thing I wanted to comment on was that you mentioned the use of your sketchbook - I can definitely see why you hate it. Back in Lesson 0, I talk about what kind of paper one should use, and I cannot stress enough how much better it is to just do your work on printer paper. A perfect-bound sketchbook especially (as opposed to ring-bound) will impose all kinds of additional struggles, especially with the paper trying to fold back over as you draw. I totally get the desire to keep track of all the work and progress, but sentiment isn't worth making the exercises that much more difficult - and you can always get a stack of paper bound into a little book at the end at places like Staples, or other print shops, if that sort of thing matters to you.

Anyway, onto the critique! Your organic intersections are indeed looking pretty good - you're showing a good grasp of how they slump and sag over one another - I'll have to take your word on the lost pages being far worse. Do remember to stick to the characteristics of simple sausages though - it's not a huge deal for this exercise, but in general throughout the course, when we work with sausages, sticking to those characteristics will help them read as solidly as possible, even with minimal use of contour lines.

As a whole, your drawings definitely show a strong understanding of how what you're constructing exists in three dimensions, and your constructions do generally reflect a good grasp of space. That said, there are some hiccups here and there, and areas in which you're deviating from the instructions that do at times diminish some of their effectiveness as exercises. Overall you're still doing really well, but I will be addressing a few little issues where you stray from the lesson/course.

The first of these is simple enough - don't forget to draw through all of your ellipses two full times throughout the entirety of this course.

Secondly, I'm noticing something of a distinction between the different phases of your drawings. When you start out with your initial masses, your marks are visibly fainter and thinner, not executed with less confidence, but definitely less overall pressure. The marks that follow are then built up with more and more weight, breaking your drawing into two distinct elements - the core construction, and the "final drawing". The problem here is that it calls into question just how you perceive and treat those initial forms. It's very easy to fall into the trap of treating them like shapes, or explorations, but not real solid forms. Construction lays down these base structures in simple forms because it is simple forms which can be made to feel three dimensional most easily. We then build upon them, defining the relationships between every form we append and those initial masses. As long as the new forms are reasonably simple, and build off these existing structures, then they too will share in the illusion of solidity.

If however we treat those initial masses as being separate, fleshing out the space, so we can then build our "real" constructions around them (and not directly off them), we give up this advantage and end up with two distinct elements occupying the same space. For example, this horse looks pretty great, but the torso inside of it seems like a completely separate entity from the horse itself.

All in all, there's no need to build up your subsequent lines with excessive weight. Stick to the same pressure you used for the initial masses, building things up and establishing how every new structure wraps around or relates to what already exists in the space. Line weight is something you can add towards the end, specifically to clarify particular overlaps, and limited to localized areas rather than reinforcing entire silhouettes throughout the object.

To that point, establishing the relationships between a new form and the existing structure all comes down to how we shape its silhouette. While we're still aiming for keeping those silhouettes as simple as possible, we are allowed to include some complexity as long as that complexity is itself defining the relationships between forms. One thing that helps with the shape here is to think about how the new mass would behave when existing first in the void of empty space, on its own. It all comes down to the silhouette of the mass - here, with nothing else to touch it, our mass would exist like a soft ball of meat or clay, made up only of outward curves. A simple circle for a silhouette.

Then, as it presses against an existing structure, the silhouette starts to get more complex. It forms inward curves wherever it makes contact, responding directly to the forms that are present. The silhouette is never random, of course - always changing in response to clear, defined structure. You can see this demonstrated in this diagram.

This all comes into play quite a bit in examples like the hindquarters of this wolf where it yields a far better result to mind how the new mass's silhouette wraps around the torso and the mass at the animal's hip. If you compare this to the original drawing, you'll see there the mass you'd drawn was more general, just a blob slapped onto the structure without as clear of a relationship tying them together.

Continuing on, another minor, but still meaningful point - don't forget to draw through your forms, constructing them in their entirety, and avoiding the temptation to cut them off. For example, with this octopus' tentacles. You did note yourself that you were too focused on "2D replication" - perhaps that's what you meant.

Looking at fur, there are two issues here - firstly, you're being a bit too liberal, allowing your addition of fur to accomplish two things at once. Not only do you modify the silhouette, you actually extend way off the existing structure, creating new masses in the process. Secondly, you have a tendency to approach the tufts a bit erratically, focusing more on randomness than intentional design. To both of these points, take a look at these notes from the lesson. Note how, first of all, the fur is built right off the ball form, modifying its silhouette, but remaining tightly bound to where it was originally. Secondly, note how every little tuft is drawn and designed intentionally - I'm not letting my brain zone out into autopilot. I'm thinking about how each tuft balances off the one before it, avoiding repetitious patterns. This takes time, and focus, although the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Right now you'll need to be very conscious of it.

That just about covers it. Honestly, despite the slew of issues I noted, your drawings are still really well done, and your constructions are extremely solid. There's definitely variance throughout, and your earlier drawings are much more erratic as you noted yourself - but body constructions like this horse show an exceptional grasp of space and form, and head constructions like this kudu capture fantastic structure and solidity, breaking simple forms into complex planes without losing their believability.

You're doing a great job, so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep it up!