/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>6823728
There's no need to ditch it, just don't make it a crutch in spite of everything else.
You can use shapes of value to describe the form, easy way to confirm you actually understand it, it'll push you into looking at ref or anatomy books, go slow, if you like drawing women then that's a safe start for practicing, use ref in black and white not to be distracted by color.
If you feel iffy about it, try using those contour lines as your underdrawing or sketch, then lower the opacity and focus on blocking those shapes of value, some people even trace their ref just to learn this, but if you want to integrate it to your process you can still use both for your final pieces, there are artist who like painting and rendering for their characters, others like that the lineart still shows in the end, look at this video as an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2hm544loqc&ab_channel=Laovaan
Shapes of value+edges
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTYGWfiZnMA&ab_channel=MarcoBucci
Even if you eventually go for the soft edge+airbrushy style for anime this is what you should see in your mind first.

>>4716892