The ultimate goal, which I have come to believe will be a life long journey, is to be able to draw any expression of the human body in any angle without relying on a reference.
I am following Stan Prokopenkos (proko.com) figure drawing tutorials. He says the gesture is the most important thing to study at first and after a lot of frustrating personal experience at trying to draw the human figure without gesture by just making slow and stiff constructions or copies out of thin air, I completely agree with the gesture being the most important thing.
Without the skill of getting the gesture right it is difficult to make a slow study where the individual pieces do not fall apart. The gesture is what ties them together creating a believable expression of the body where everything is just in the place where it belongs and where it feels right.
I am not capable of getting the gesture and the proportions right yet (I feel I am getting closer), so I first need to train that skill before I can move on to constructing simple volumes around the gesture which will be the next step.
