Hello,

I'm pretty new and just started with RTK1 a few days ago.
I already ran into problems though. I want to ask you guys for hints!
While I have no problems at all to reconstruct/draw the kanji with all the components at their right position I completely fail at proportions!
Do you have any tricks how to remember that e.g. the sun is thicker and longer than the mouth in this Kanji or that the ten is very long here, and the sun very thin etc.?! I guess you know what I want to say.
Is there anything else apart from writing each kanji a thousand times to get it down right?
Also I have problems with the stroke order from time to time.
I'm kind of tired of always browsing back in my book and look it up again.
Apart from this site I'm using Anki to review, so if you have any tips for me, that would be helpful.

Thanks a lot in advance

Prepare your paper.
Use paper with square boxes. Try to fill the whole box all the time. Even for simpler kanjis. With practice comes perfection.

I would have to suppose there are specific rules somewhere, but I don't know them. I haven't had to think about it too much, but general observations are as follows:
The primitive on the left is pretty much always the one that gets the most squashed horizontally, as it's kindof the grounding primitive. The right primitive tends to dominate. Of the primitives on the right, they typically divide the vertical space pretty evenly. Exceptions abound, I guess, but usually with specific primitives (like the flower primitive), and it's all kindof on the order of 'whatever makes for the best aesthetics,' so it's kindof common sense rules.
The stroke order doesn't typically need to be memorized on a kanji by kanji basis. They all follow the same rules, with minor quirks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order#Basic_rules
You get a feel for it pretty quick if you keep your eyes open for it. I believe the book also explains the basic ideas somewhere.

Also for stroke order install this font http://www.users.waitrose.com/~potato/index.html and set it as your display font for the kanji field in Anki.

Thanks a lot for your quick help everybody