Hi again! Thanks for the replies. I decided that I'm going to write some thoughts and observations as I go along, as well as progress pieces. This way I'll have something to refer to in the future, and who knows, maybe it'll help someone else somehow. Comments are still welcome of course.

I just finished my first day of studies. It's the weekend so I have a bit more time. (I work full time and have a home to maintain so time is precious.) I watched the Visual Communication 1 class and found it really informative. Even though it was less than an hour long I still managed to learn some new things and can see how the ideas introduced will be really helpful in the future!

I figured I'd breeze through the pen control exercise but holy crap, my lines and circles look like I'm palsied and inebriated! Therefore it must be good practice. I've been drawing for quite a few years so I know I can draw, but I rarely do unassisted straight lines, and that is the point. I'm looking forward to seeing my progress through the week. Onward and upward!

Here's a quick sketch as a benchmark to show what a basic character sketch from imagination is for me. This was done in less than an hour and isn't very polished but shows a starting point.

Day 3 check in: Having watched Visual Communication 1, I have also now watched Photoshop 1 except for the last two assignments. It was surprisingly interesting and informative. I hadn't expected to get a lot out of it, but I was pleasantly surprised. I've never been a Photoshop person. Most of the tips were very relevant to Clip Studio Paint however and quite a few were even relevant to Krita!

Regarding the daily pen control practice, I am pleased because I see improvement after only doing the exercise three times! This is better than expected and I'm glad I didn't skip it. Even though I have had a tablet for quite some time, and this year upgraded to a display tablet, I am still not as comfortable as I would like to be and this has helped quite a bit. My lines are still wonky but they are LESS wonky.

I feel so good right now, finally doing something to realize my dream. I actually got a university degree in interdisciplinary visual art, but I was very foolish when young and really didn't get everything out of it that I could have. Now, nearly 25 years later, I can tell that the content in these courses is very solid and I intend to put everything into the assignments that I should. I like learning what I need to know, not that plus a distribution of stuff I don't need.

Day 6 check in: I've watched all the Photoshop 1 including assignments and am almost done with the assignments. Have gotten pretty close on all the exercises except the final one which I'm still working on. Have watched about half of Nude Figure Drawing. I am not doing a full week on all the basic exercises. Marc said we could skip some of the basics if we didn't need them. I am not skipping everything but may not give some of the ultra basic stuff a full week. However, I may go back to those pesky vertical lines periodically so I can get a temperature check on my pen control.

I continue to do most of my practice on the non display tablet, since I know that my control automatically will get about twice as good when using it so it's kind of like a stress test.

Day 8! I've made it a whole week! I was having a surprisingly hard time finding good free stock for doing the nude gesture drawing but I thought of a few places that will have high quality images and aren't behind a paywall. (So far I've been subsisting off samples from paid image packs.)

Exercise and martial arts guides! You could use yoga, calisthenics, pilates, any number of different ones. Many of them will have a ton of images of people doing the different activities in very tight clothing so it's almost as good as a nude. It also might be less embarrassing if you have to share space with a family member or non artist. And the martial arts ones will be great for action poses. Anyway, once I had the idea I figured I'd share in case this helps anyone.

I'm struggling a bit with my graphics tablet because it's kind of a pain to set up the display tablet, so I usually end up using the non-display tablet as mentioned before. I keep telling myself, it's good practice. Today I had very low motivation so I used my clutch pencil instead, on actual paper. That feeling of touching graphite to paper is just so darn satisfying. Even though my primary goal is to improve fluency with digital art, I will swap in traditional stuff now and again. The really funny thing is, my traditional and digital practice all seems to help each other and I want to stay good at both.

Sample coursework, a basic proportions sketch. Probably need to measure my boxes better when I do it again.

Day 8 check in - finished watching all the Nude Figure Drawing 1 lesson and started doing gesture drawings. I also finished 2 more Photoshop assignments - I do better with a variety of topics at one time. Felt pretty good about the aging manipulation, less so about liquify. I think my chosen software (Clip Studio Paint, the older version with perpetual license not the new one that requires Windows 10) has a less effective liquify tool than Photoshop does, though I could be wrong. Anyway, here are the two newest Photoshop assignments. Yes, I couldn't resist giving the actor snake eyes, and changing the color on the alien. I only altered half the face as I was getting really tired of dealing with the ineffective liquify tool.

Confirmed: For anyone keeping track, Photoshop's liquify tool is a whole set of 12 different options while the Krita or Clip Studio Paint is basically one option. Hence the problem. I'm using the old perpetual license version of Clip Studio Paint, they may have improved this in the new, subscription based version.

Good to know! The Photoshop version still seems to have a lot more options unless 2.0 changed a whole lot. Which it could have. However I don't think it's compatible with windows 7 and I haven't swapped over to Linux again - yet.

Here is my "Photoshop" final project for Term 1 - all stock is royalty free from Pixabay. I used four images, considered a fifth but didn't end up using it. Not totally happy over the lighting but had fun with the concept. For a little extra light and shadow I used a top layer with hard light and a soft brush. Been paying attention to Marc!

Doing my perspective class - the last one from Term 1. Have done all the explanation and am working through the assignments. I'm not all that inspired by one point perspective so my room is not nearly as cool as Marc's is.

Final Perspective assignment for Term 1. I had a couple challenges. One, it was kind of hard drawing something where both vanishing points were actually on my canvas. Two, I kept wanting to convert to three point perspective. I still did something recognizable and then had a blast with the colors. As usual. I was going for a "buildings are basalt, floor is lava" type vibe for some reason. Of course the shop is a smithy. I should probably do this exercise again, or a version of it, but I really don't do full close up environments all that often. it's still a great skill!

Back to it! I may not do quite as much practice in Term 1 as prescribed but there are some fundamentals I've done quite a bit. For years. So what I'm doing now is trying to translate my fluency with things like ink and graphite over to the tablet. Display tablet on weekends as a treat. (It's harder to hook up.) Here is my first sheet of primitives (Life-changing drawing practice number 1) and a sheet with a 1 minute pose and two 2 minute poses. I did others but am just putting this up as none are that great, I only want to have a benchmark for the future. Right know I could knock any of the basic exercises out with ease but the tablet constrains me a bit too much as far as the mobility of my wrist and shoulder, as my desk ergonomics are kind of bad.

Thank you Lightning_Flower and Mitsuki-Youko! I kept imagining some type of rugged lizard-man living in the town and shopping at the smithy.