Welcome to Gaia! ::

1.
Always, always..do what works best for you, and what you think gets the best results in the end, or what other people like if you are working for a client. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to work..it's just that some people have build up phobias of sorts or their own sort of artistic morals that may be completely ridiculous. Like, I'm always going to button every button on my shirt because it's the 'proper' way to dress sort of thing, ya know?
If you achieve the best results you can with how you work now, then keep doing it. If people give you suggestions, go for it and try it out but if you don't get good results from it go back to something that works for you.
Another typical artist argument especially for digital artists would be the never ending argument of the infamous burn and dodge tools. If used correctly you may not be able to tell they are there, but a lot of people solely rely on them as a crutch for faux shading so a lot of people shun their use completely.

2.
If you do something enough, it usually does get easier. Practice makes perfect, right? :) I took a life drawing class in college a few years back and it was my first experience doing the whole live nude model for hours at a time sitting in front of you. But yea, it did get easier, especially after the initial shock, and just feeling comfortable to look at something like it needed to go on my canvas somehow with shapes and lines. I totally agree though, it is one of the things that I struggle with too, I used to draw my floor mates at school and some of the drawings would look nothing like them...but now when I go back to the sketchbooks I see a particular few that I really spent time on to make it work from looking at them (as they sit there and complain their limbs are falling asleep, haha) I can honestly say, oh wow. I totally remember that day with them sitting on the couch, there's Natalie and Ali, just like they were then. As for objects, it's a lot more easy to make it convincing with adding colour, unless of course it's a special surface or texture. Glass and metal have always been difficult.

I hope that was helpful or at least enjoyable to read my ramblings a bit. Don't get discouraged and keep drawing. :

The no eraser idea is a little similar to drawing directly in ink. It comes from the fact that you have to force yourself to visualize what it is you're drawing instead of putting lines where you "think" they should go and then correcting them if it doesn't work out.
It's something that should work for everyone, not a one off comfort choice some people make.
Teachers in art school constantly nagged us about not erasing, and at some times we had to use ink pens and no pencil at all.

If you're familiar with photography it's like learning to shoot with a film camera instead of a digital one. You have to think and prepare your shot before you take the picture instead of taking the photo and then adjusting (like many people have a tendency to do on digital)

ie: it forces you to think about what you're doing and concentrate on it. Erasers, ctrl-z, etc.. have a tendency to take away from this

I tend to have a no eraser policy myself since I liked drawing in pen, and it tends to be rather sketchy anyway.

However, an eraser can be used as an artistic instrument like graphite or ink, it just depends on what you're doing. When taking figure drawing, we would shade the entire newsprint or bristol with graphite at a medium to medium light shade. We would then draw the darker shades of an image and use the eraser (kneaded or putty, usually) to "draw" out highlights.

If you're merely drawing hard outlines of everything, going back, and erasing just to draw over it again, I can see why people would see that as ineffective use of your medium.

@ bubbles

I usually start with just an ouline of the body, start building a better body shape, and then start outlining where the clothes are going to be. So I erase all those extra line, details on the clothing I dont like, reposition parts of the body, and most of all.. faces.. ^^;

Thats how I usually use my eraser.

@ spoofete

I usually use a ruler for my straight lines, I honestly dont see that, or using erasers as cheating though. I will continue to use these tools xd

Thanks ^^