>>3767490To develop confidence, and to focus what you're drawing. If you're just doing exploratory sketches, it's fine. But you should develop a drawing past the "chicken scratch" phase, to develop the form. The more confident you are, the less chicken scratching you'll need to do. Especially cartoonists, they're so familiar with form in that context, they can probably get close to the final line first go, with some adjustment in the final.
Another think to consider is flow. Contour lines, especially on the body, should flow from region to region - it's one of the beginning steps in figure drawing, to see the S curves and implement them into the form, so the parts of the body flow. And, when defining a contour, especially in the body, like on the butt, chicken scratches break up what should be a solid, flowing curve, and it distracts the eye from the curve itself.
A lot of drawing teachers say "Own every line". That's the thinking here. Some people "carve" on paper, trying to find the form, and use chicken scratching to get there. It's common. But it's a bad habit, when you should be training your eye and hand to see curves and contours, not small, random, broken lines - and making decisive, purposeful lines.
Make sense?
It's especially important in gesture - gesture is hard, if not impossible to capture with small, indecisive lines - which a lot of beginning students do, and the teacher (if they're any good), will break them of that habit and use long, flowing, expressive lines instead.
