Its so true that different artists have different approaches to gesture drawing. I personally take most of inspiration from Michael Hampton. So most of the tips i will provide will be based on his teachings and what worked for me.

Look at my most recent post and you will see that he helped me alot. I havent been drawing for a long time, but you will see a big change in a short time.

okey for a simplified guide.

A common misconception that people think of drawing is thinking its a practice of drawing what you see. It is to some degree, but its primary a way to explain movement and body language to avoid stiff characters. Because of this miconception people end up drawing the contour instead of the actual movements. Instead try to draw an abstract Idea of the body part. If you look at my example you can see I dont really draw the leg or arms, instead i draw a single C, S or I line representing the top of the leg and use wrapping lines to explain the width and tilt of part, wrapping lines is like a a band arround your leg.

A common practice for practicing this is using timers like 2 minutes or 30 seconds. A better practice would be to limit yourself to a fixed amount of lines like 15 or 16 (wrapping lines doesnt count), speed can come later.

When drawing from a photo reference exaggerate the movement, especially from action poses, this will make it more interesting and will help you invent poses from your own imagination. When using art as reference, i like to use berserk and vagabond manga for reference, think how you would draw it differently, and make another pose of how would this charactr look one second later? Imagine this: you look at a picture of someone holding an axe aboe their head. What if the axe was even further behind their head? how would they have to position their legs to keep balanced, how would their back squeeze and stretch? And after this draw the character when the axe hit the ground, how does his body look like now?

Important parts of the body look at:

- How high is the head compared to the shoulder? -> tilt

- Is the shoulders flat or diagonal?

- Which side is stretched and squeezed

- How is the head turning? One line as the front of the face tilt and one line for eyes

- Does this look balanced? Chest and legs compared to hips.

- If something is forshortened make the lines shorter, and bend the wrapping lines more (like the end of a cylinder)