Uncomfortable

2021-11-12 16:40

It depends. General use of reference is not a problem, and is perfectly fine even when following the 50% rule, but specifically copying a single photograph as a study - that is, with the intent of doing it to learn and improve your skills, or doing it to improve your chances of having a pretty end result, is not appropriate for the 50% rule. The former is an exercise, and therefore falls under the same 50% rule as Drawabox and any other courses, whereas the latter is a contradiction of the 50% rule's main purpose, to focus on getting comfortable with the idea of just drawing for its own sake.

A good rule of thumb is this - who has made the choices? Did you make the choice of what you wanted to draw, of how it ought to be posed, etc. or did you find a neat photo and decide to replicate it directly, allowing it to make all the choices for you? If you're making the choices, then reaching for a specific reference image to help you solve a specific problem in a particular section of your drawing is totally fine. If however you're allowing something else to make all the decisions, and just following along blindly, then that doesn't fall under the 50% rule's guidelines.