That line about following along like a zombie is what got me. Here's the thing though, most of those copy along courses are meant to do exactly that at the start, and the real learning kicks in when you close the video and try to build the thing from memory. I get the anger about paying 180 bucks for doc reading, that part is fair, but following along isn't the problem by itself, it's that you never take the training wheels off on your own. Try this with any course, free or paid: watch a lesson, then shut the laptop and rebuild it from scratch with no video, and when you get stuck look at the docs yourself. That gap between watching and doing is where the money you spent actually turns into a skill, and no boot camp can do that part for you.

Seven months of daily pages is no joke, most people quit around week three. I read a thing from an illustrator a while back where she said she only posts the rough stuff because the polished pieces get saved but the messy ones get replies, and that stuck with me. That Hollow Knight fan piece probably got shared because people already love the character, so your line work just had to ride along with that. Nothing wrong with that at all, it's how the whole thing works. I post both, but the studies are the ones where people actually talk to me in the comments.