Drawing is the making of a likeness — in pigment on a panel, in wet plaster, in ink on vellum — and the conventions of what a likeness ought to look like vary sharply by culture. Anyone can make marks. What the skill measures is whether the marks do the work asked of them: move a viewer, in the case of a picture, or tell the truth, in the case of a map or a plan.

The skill is also the executant hand behind other people’s knowledge. Setting out a coat of arms correctly is a Drawing (Heraldry) Success Value test — the herald knows what the achievement must contain, the draughtsman makes it legible. Copying an existing manuscript may be attempted as a Drawing Success Value test at −2 SV in place of a scribe’s, on the reasoning that a copyist who cannot read the text is drawing its letters rather than writing them.

Crafting

A finished picture is made by the common crafting routine — workshop, expense, test, result, masterwork rolls, repair. What follows is what is particular to the drawing board.

Expense. Four hours per square foot of finished surface.

Test. A Drawing Success Value test, read on the standard ladder.