Grid technique - Cheating or Acceptable.

[LutiChris]

I generally look down on it since i try to not limit my self to that technique however look at it this way: a bad artist will use the grid, his or her drawing may turn out more proportionately accurate. But a good artist can use a grid and still have better proportions while maintaining that high quality workmanship the artist's possesses.

What you could try to do is use the thumb-&-pencil technique
usually this applies to real-life-time scenario references but you can still try to do the same with online references