Help! Question about Term 1 Measuring Tool, when drawing digital

[crazychrisx0]

So I'm a little confused as to what is and isn't allowed when it comes to using measuring tools when drawing digitally.
In the course, Marc says to use the technique where you hold out your pen and use your thumb to measure if your referance is live in front of you. But he says that if you're on digital, you could do something along the lines of placing your pen on your screen, and measuring that way.

I'm wondering if it's okay or not to do something like just drawing straight lines horizontally, from a few points on on your referance image as a guide for drawing. This way you'd obviously know the exact heights of certain points on the drawing.
It's just kind of unclear to me from the video as to what's an "allowed" method of measuring.
I don't wanna use the straight lines digitally if it's cheating somehow, you know?

I feel like whether i literally drawing straight lines across from the referance, or if I measure it using my pen on the screen, they both have the same effect. So is there more to it than just simply measuring that I'd be missing out on if I used the straight line method?

[Vonschlippe]

I'll be quite frank, Marc's video is the only place I've ever seen the thumb/pencil method explained for digital art. It's really a vestige of the traditional art and drawing from observation, which is something you would learn if you went to an art college. As a result, it's included in the videos because they're intended to be a complete art education substitute.

In reality, a better exercise in my opinion is drawing freely from observation, perhaps with the reference on a separate screen, then when you're done, overlap your drawing with your reference and see where you've missed the mark.

Doing this over and over again will increase your observation.

Finally, one last thing, there is no such thing as cheating when you're learning. Use every dirty trick you can come up with.

[crazychrisx0]

Thanks for the rapid reply
The exercise you suggested does sound like a good option, though cus of your note about dirty tricks I don't know what to do now xD
If I were to use lines drawn straight from the ref, would that hinder my learning compared to just drawing freely from observation (while of course using the tips about line relationships & negative space and stuff)?

[Vonschlippe]

So it really depends on what your end-goal is.

Some artists never outgrow tracing from a carefully photo-bashed reference. Maybe you want to be able to sketch on the go, or you want to develop speed, or line confidence? Any way you go about it is not a bad skill to have, but being able to draw freely from observation without measuring actively is very liberating.

The quickest way to learn is through volume, not perfect accuracy. Do more, fail a lot, and that should keep your learning curve at an optimal progression.

[crazychrisx0]

Omg thank you so much.
Like I'm genuinely smiling cus that was just such a helpful yet brief run-down.
That really has helped me a lot, and I'm sure I'll come back to re-read that several times in the future.
Thank you very much