General
I'm so tired of this dumdass mentally that tracing makes some artist inferior to those who don't need to trace
This is like saying using references for you art is bad, am I now a bad artist cuz I have to my hand as a reference. It's such a dumb take ,cuz why would I need to change they way I like to draw to fit the way you draw. The worst part is the guy never brought up why he thinks tracing is bad besides "oh your 10 if you trace" which is like why even start an argument if you have no good points to say why your right and the other person is wrong.
I'm not knowledgable about drawing whatsoever but isn't the reason people recommend not learning by tracing because you DON'T learn how to do it through that? Afaik drawing while looking at references: good, tracing references: bad. At least for learning. Also 3D models perhaps aren't great for learning anatomy because you can't learn how skin behaves from them. Like sagging or stretching in some poses.
As said above, it’s complicated. Tracing is a tool. It can be used to learn some specific skills, like tracing an illustrators shapes to figure out how they design hands/bodies/cars/mechs etc.. and the thing a lot of online gatekeepers don’t want to admit…a lot of professionals trace a lot.
Animators trace model sheets to get consistent character proportions. Comic artists have been found tracing cars, buildings, all kinds of set dressing. Because they have deadlines and it doesn’t make sense to design an entire car for a background/establishing shot.
Now, if you’re doing commissions and you’re tracing, it’s basically scamming because you are being paid to design the entire piece.
well tbf pros trace so they can hit deadlines. they definitely still learned the skills the old fashioned way.
honestly i really think beginners shouldn't trace at all. when you're learning, drawing from reference is just an invaluable skill that'll help you so much more. it helps you actually get a feel for the proportions and gestures and perspective of what you're drawing. when i started learning and i traced, it barely helped, because you almost always use the trace as a crutch.
and don't forget, pros who trace are usually using what they're tracing as a guideline. you can see that in the post, the artist doesn't follow the body too closely and mostly just uses it to help inform the perspective and form. but because again beginners don't really have these skills figured out yet, they tend to trace really closely, and then it doesn't look quite right as the proportions seem slightly off and the gestures don't look right, since they put more effort into following the trace closely than actually communicating the form (since they don't yet understand it).
point being if you're still asking if you should trace, don't trace. it just doesn't help with learning the same way reference does.
The answer to that is, its complicated. Because tracing can be useful when learning to draw to a degree, like if you want to learn how to draw faces, tracing over faces can be helpful to get a feel for the shapes involves and the motions needed to make them. This is especially helpful if you are a more experienced artist and are trying to get the hang of drawing something you don't normally draw.
But it is also true that when learning to draw you can overuse tracing, at which point it stops being helpful and starts being a crutch.
Yeah i like to box out what i need over an image, trace it over the boxes, then redraw without tracing. Nothing traced actually gets into the final product, its just to force my brain to see the curves and shapes right.
The limitation with 3D models is that they aren't perfect models of anatomy, cannot demonstrate proper musculature and skeletal mobility (unless specifically designed to do so) mostly they will provide you with construction shapes in correct perspective.
It's why pros can abuse them without hampering themselves, they study enough to know where the 3D model begins and ends in their own rendered work, often breaking parts of the model to actually make it believable.
But to come out and tell beginners not to use them is asinine and gatekeeping behaviour. The twitter art police have no reason caring about some kid choosing to hinder themselves by hard tracing forever, unless they're charging someone money for it.
Tracing helps learn early on but it loses its utility quickly and can become a crutch, its mostly only recommended for people who have trouble with forms and line consistently. (Or when studying a pose you are having trouble referencing)
Technically, yes.
It's tricky.
If it's for a style study, it helps. (Helps you see how they stylize everything) And if you trace by simplifying the body with geometric shapes, it's beneficial. Meaning, you draw over it and maybe make your drawing off that. There's also more detailed 3D models with defined muscles and lighting you can adjust. But an example like we see here (and what I'd like for it to be the case) is that the artist uses the base to draw clothes/practice clothing folds and how they act with foreshortening.
absolutely doe. you can legit argue with someone enough and Gemini will use it as a source. I already met a dumbass using AI as a source that linked back to my post
Its a tool you can use to learn. I learned to draw as a child by tracing, I imagine its just as useful for 3d art. Don't put too much value in to what a bunch of ass blasted dime-a-dozen twitter artists think.
for real like half of the industry professionals use 3d models as references and it is hilarious watching people online act like using tools makes you a fake artist
Using references for drawing =/= tracing. References are great, they are pretty much the main way you learn, by looking at how that thing looks and trying to copy it. The way you do it is that you have the reference near, not have it to trace over
tracing it over can still be useful as practice though. for example, i can trace a model over for a basic outline but add in smaller details or shade it for practice
in fact, the original artwork actually barely traced the model, instead estimating where the clothes would appear above the model. this is, in effect, the same as drawing the body from scratch and then adding clothes on top, then erasing the body, but removes the step of drawing the body so the original artist could go straight to working on the clothes.
tracing builds another part of muscle memory, it's a valid way to learn how to draw. as long as it's not genAI, it's genuinely fine. esp because the person tracing the model is a tool within Clip Studio Paint. like it's encouraged that you use the tools within the programs you choose to draw
honestly i'd argue that tracing doesn't really help muscle memory, esp if you're a beginner cause you focus more on tracing exactly and you don't get a feel for the proportions or gestures since they're right there. i speak from my experience at least, one of the big parts of learning to draw from a reference was always experimenting with lines until i could get them to look right. being able to draw something wrong and then look at the reference and tell what you need to adjust is SOO invaluable.
also fwiw the og artist def isn't tracing to learn, they're just using the model to help pose and figure out the perspective quicker.
everybody learns differently ofc, it's still a valid way to learn certain skillsets. hell I've been drawing for years but I'm considering going back to basics to include my elbow and shoulder due to finger and wrist pain
I still wouldn't rely on tracing to build 'muscle memory' though. It will only help with line weight and accuracy skills in any case. But when it comes to understanding the anatomy and getting it down, it won't help you in the long run. It's definitely helpful in other ways, just not in that kind of way. It's very tricky and very easy to start relying on it and then draw a blank when you want to apply whatever you thought you learned. I'd reccomend that if you are to trace one, split the parts of the body into simpler shapes and action lines to understand how the anatomy works in that specific pose. Especially if it's one in perspective, you'd want to focus on foreshortening.
The person on Twitter also said they don't respect industry professionals for "pumping out art every week", so I'm not sure what they consider actual art.
They don’t respect professionals for having a 9-5? hitting art director’s expectations? Having a good workflow? How long do they think any movie or video game or illustrated book is gonna take to make if every painting took a year 😭
I've held this opinion for years, but artists are OBSESSED with placing arbitrary limitations on what they can or can't do with art. I think a lot of us can personally attest to believing that using references and not drawing from imagination as beginners was a bad thing. Theres people who refuse to use certain tools (such as digital ones) because they believe making things easier equates to cheating.
These people would call photoshopping cheating. Its genuinely a plague in the art community because they act like they're somehow better than you for not "cheating" when the reality is they're just making their lives harder. They want everyone to play by THEIR rules, and because they see people doing something they took a long time to learn how to do without it, and act like this somehow dictates the "rules of art" when there's literally none at all.
I did the exact same thing when I started and it catapulted me far ahead of the learning curve of my peers. It's a fantastic tool. All I am saying is that it's not the end goal and it's supposed to be something you move past.
Agreed. I really wanted to be an illustrator as a kid but even with practice I just couldn't get it. Now in my mid-30s I'm trying to pick it up again not for any professional ambitiona but just for me and my friends to enjoy
Tracing is only cheating if the point of your art is realism technicality. If youre not trying to show off your realism skills, it legit doesn't matter that youre using a 3d model for a pose
Not needing to trace does make you a more skilled artist, BUT it doesnt make you a better person or a "real artist" compared to those who trace, anyone who thinks people who trace arent artists has never seen someone with no skill trace cuz theres a huge difference, plus tracing is very useful for learning
This is gonna feel like shadowboxing but fuck it. I'm in a mood today.
There is 100% a cognitive difference between tracing and drawing from observation. One is requires way more skill than the other and that's a fact. You can also do either one. So who cares?
As an actual artist, screw everyone that say is bad, a lot but a lot of professional artist use 3d models for their art, because is easier for them or so they have a good reference, and isnt like they trace everything, they use it as a base to get and idea of how every part of the body would look, only stupid people dont understad that, and is even worse knowing that the first rought sketch not even the final art, is going to still have a lot of changes.
Hmm, I guess its possible. I'm not in art education so I can't really say, but as an occupational artist, I feel like it teaches you to look at form as a silhouetted shell, rather than teaching how the body and muscles work. But, if it gets a person into art, I'm more than happy. My favorite artist, Henry Darger was never trained classically and all of his illustrations were traced from collaged advertisements. The idea of skill is subjective, and so is the value of it.
WIT Studio did something like that for projects like Ranking of Kings. This video about 3D in 2D anime around the ~2:05 mark explains what you’re describing exactly and the final scene looks gorgeous from what I remember. So from a certain point-of-view, tracing does help.
People seem to forget that drawing isn't just tracing the outline. You have to master the shading, the texture, the depth, the highlights, etc. Tracing the outline, the shadows, and highlights are a good way for a beginner to practice.
This. Doesnt mean you should be ashamed that you trace. It is a tool to get there and it is also just a tool. I don't think it makes you any less of an artist though, I'd rather see people tracing models and learning than using AI tools to generate images.
I was in an art community when I was a young teen that preached constantly about how using references or tracing for the sake of learning was wrong and it severely negatively impacted the way I did art for years. Only recently have I really been able to shake most of it. My art would’ve improved so much faster if I’d used the tools available to me earlier and not gotten so scared of being “cancelled” by online art purists whose opinions are reductive and frankly stupid, in my opinion.
Tracing and referencing is an integral part of drawing and people have been practicing it literally since art became a thing. Painters even used things like the Mirror Obscura to trace live subjects before the invention of photography.
I do think it’s good to disclose if you’ve traced someone else’s work if you’re doing commissions and whatnot, and it’s wrong to trace the art of other people for commercial purposes and not getting their permission or giving credit, but that is a very different thing from just using a 3d model as a rough guide or putting a picture of a person posing next to your drawing. That’s not plagiarism, it’s using references for their intended purposes.
There's currently only one immoral way of creating art and I think we all know it.
I use tracing and I love composing the images with different stock photos referenced cut and put together almost as much as drawing them, feels like a puzzle.
I said this once before "Don't care about what anyone else tells you, do whatever you need to do so that you can create the art you desire to make."
The only time tracing is immoral is when a big studio does it with their animation, imo.
You can try PoseIt. It’s an app on IOS (I’m not certain about android), and it’s nice in that it doesn’t have ads. It also has a lighting feature, which is a game changer for me
a workspace changes the whole layout of the cps paint window. paint.sai was the old art program i used to use. i was used to the way it was set up and looked. it's very easy to understand and see everything.
once you have a workspace downloaded go to window tab on the cps paint window> workspace and you should be able to choose the downloaded workspace and the layout of your cps will change.
I mean that's kind of a major element of pop art, print making and collage. Taking what you want from pre-existing imagery and using it for your own purpose, including tracing has been around forever as a legitimate art form
You're ignoring the part where I said "presenting it as your own"
People who sample stuff typically don't claim to be the original creator of what they've sampled
No, but they are the original creator of what they did with that sample. Ready-made artists like Duchamp for example. No he did not literally build a toilet, but 'Fountain' is still his own work of art
to be fair, that’s not exactly tracing, either. That’s replicating or copying. I imagine most of the instances you’re thinking of aren’t tracing, which is where you are drawing directly on what you’re seeing.
Not sure of the importance of that distinction, but many respected pieces are traced as well. Roy Lichtenstein for example, is famous for tracing comic book panels and blowing them up into a large scale
professionals have been tracing forever! the masters even. but they also understood construction, and if you always rely on tracing an outline, it'll be harder to develop that skill
Someone with zero art skill and zero art background with zero art education could trace. Like, am I crazy here? Tracing in itself is no skill, I dont see how you can tell me otherwise. Give me a picture and ill trace it for you.
If you’re straight up tracing a finished artwork and saying you drew it that’s not skill. If you’re only tracing a model as reference for your art, and draw a character on top of it, you use your own skill to know how to clothes fold, the hair physics and whatnot.
Besides, when artists trace a pose, they don’t always trace it 1:1, they make their own adjustments that they see fit because they already have some skill/general understanding of how it should look.
Don't people just make 3d model do whatever pose they want and trace it? I don't see why there would be any adjustment, beside adjusting the 3d model itself before you trace?
It’s the ability to see where the model isn’t good enough and improving upon it. Ie. models are very bad at simulating fat/muscle groups correctly + models are very rigid by nature. Many professional artists model the entire scene and light it then finish the painting by hand, and there is definitely a lot of skill there beyond ‘tracing model’. (See WLOP, Jaime Jones or Tyler Edlin)
people who do art casually (or just don't do art at all) will place the most arbitrary rules on art. Just wait until you hear about artists taking reference photos/videos of themselves and tracing over them.
If that was true we wouldn't be able to tell people just trace things because of how bad the lines are. There are other qualities you cannot grasp on tracing alone. If we give you a model to trace your lineart will likely give you away.
Most people who do trace over models or s reference will often add their own things.
I don't trace models a lot- no shame in it to me- but every time I do it's usually a complex pose and I learn more out of it and can take away from that and can do more on my own.
And I'll happily admit to using a model who gives a fuck I just draw to have fun anyways. Whether I pull it out of my ass or use a ref to copy and/or trace who gaf!!
The tracing shown in the image isn’t just “tracing” it’s just tracing over a pose. You still need to have art skill to actually draw the picture, unless you just wanna draw a blank 3d model.
Anyone can trace but it’s hard for people who aren’t experienced artists to actually make it look good. It’s pretty easy to tell who’s using it just as a rough approximation of the shape they’re trying to get at and who’s leaning heavily on the shape of the photo to make up for their lack of experience.
At least it is to me. Amateurish shading, shaky lineart, and shapes that don’t convey filled space in a believable way can all be easy giveaways.
If you're tracing over a picture of a 3d model or real life photo then you don't have exact lines to follow. It hasn't been translated into 2d in the same manner yet. It's a lot easier than drawing from looking at a reference but it's not super easy.
If you can only trace then you're limited to only drawing things that you have a picture of.
This would be an interesting one to do. You don't need to do color but put an effort in to show how their clothing folds and drapes using lines.
i mean i get what you're trying to say, but like not exactly? like first of all, line art itself isn't exactly simple. knowing where to put certain lines, what line weights to use. not to mention line quality, and even if you're tracing you need good gestures (meaning essentially how the line bends, it's a really subtle thing but it makes a huge difference in depicting 3d form).
now obviously tracing means you don't learn as much. using reference is much more helpful, you'll learn proportions and gestures and perspective and be able to improve so many fundamentals.
however, i don't think the original artist is tracing because they don't know art. it seems more like a tool to save time. i know like especially webtoon artists will do this to save time in complicated poses like this. they're not tracing exactly either, they're just using it to help figure out the perspective. doing this manually would involve lots of boxes and guide lines and just take much more time, so i don't have a problem at all with experienced artists doing this to save time.
I feel as if that's a very arbitrary line. You could also say, "Drawing from still lifes is cheating - you should be able to draw from imagination only," with equal conviction (and just as little merit).
Tracing is a tool. Just like using a straight edge is a tool, or using an eraser is a tool. Sure, it's better to be able to put every line exactly where you want it every time, but there's nothing wrong with using tools to help when you can't.
Imagine if we said every driver on the road had to be able to manually tweak every part of their car in depth, the way an F1 driver does, or they weren't really qualified to drive on the road. That isn't exactly an impossible standard, but it is pretty unrealistic and hostile. Drawing isn't a competition sport - there are no rules here.
The whole point to tracing to learn, IMO, is building the muscle memory for illustrating lines and curves at certain perspectives. And so that when you're freehand drawing and get stuck, you can think back to the strokes used in similar perspectives.
Like damn, it feels like we're only a step away from "learn to draw books don't make you a real artist"
Back in the deviantart days... there's many "bases" for people to use for free. And I assure you, it's very apparent when a skilled artist vs a complete newbie use the exact same base. I want to see how a complete newbie can even add the hair and clothes properly 🤣
Tracing is not the end all be all to learning to draw but it does help you form muscle memory especially if you’re work is going to be centered around a specific thing
There shouldn’t be shame in the art community for mediums and techniques. Tracing takes less skill than making your own outline, but you’re still making art for the purpose of enjoying and being enjoyed. If you try to pass it off as 100% original then yeah you should feel ashamed for lying. I feel like most of the comments in here are just misinterpreting each other and arguing for no reason.
You can do whatever you want. But it’s an “if then” situation, a give and take. For example, these 3d models don’t weight anything, their bodies are not affected by gravity, so a habitual tracer may have a harder time communicating weight in their art, or soft contact points of the body.
Tracing from photos may fix this issue, but when illustrating a crowd or a group you add a lot of time finding/ taking reference images.
On the issue of time, tracing may seem like a shortcut, but long term it is much faster to develop an innate sense of posing and anatomy. In the commission world, time is money.
So sure, you can trace, and you can collage, and you can photo-bash in different context. You can make art for your own entertainment. The anti tracing advice is for people that pursue it professionally, or for self-improvement as fine artists.
And even for these exceptions it’s not uncommon to trace while doing a master study or an anatomy study. Like with any skill, just know why you are doing what you are doing.
I mean bruh tracing is good for LEARNING because it forms your muscle memory. While it's not self sufficient method you would certainly need a lot of this to be able to draw from head.
well mindless tracing is but that doesn't mean any tracing is useless. If you reduce the opacity of original art significantly and actively process what you are drawing it does help
The vast, vast majority of art online is not a technical exhibition. People aren't drawing to show their physical skills. Thats reserved for very few contexts. Art is about expressing a concept, relating to other people, or joy. Tracing takes away from none of those
As someone who draws only for fun I don't understand this discussion. It sounds so silly for me. I guess I'd understand if the person is selling their art or exposing it as someone they did from 0, but honestly? Who really cares? Specially because this person is tracing from a 3D model, and not from someone else's art. Let people have fun
It's kind of cheating? Like, at least from a technical level. Maybe my art education is too classical but I don't see why, as an artist who aims to do better, you would trace your drawings.
It, too, was considered "cheating" back then, so Renaissance artists didn't like to admit to it. Buuut we know quite a few of them used it! lol humanity truly hasn't changed that much.
Because tracing and heavy referencing isn't new, and it's kind of funny to imagine anyone saying some of the most significant artists in human history need to do better.
another artist who thinks tools are cheating. Digital tools would scare you. Next thing you know people are gonna start claiming the resizing tools are cheating.
theres absolutely no "Cheating" in art. Even with the issue of tracing other peoples art, "cheating" isn't a thing. You're not competiting against other people in art. Even in an art competition, cheating would be cheating the competition, not the art.
Besides, comparing this to cheating is like saying photoshopping an image is cheating, or that photographing something is cheating. Cheating at what? whats being cheated?
i agree, art's expression and digital tools can help with that. ofc if you want to learn and improve, it helps to be less reliant on those tools, but if you just need to make something those tools help so much.
Deadline, certain poses can be very intricate and hard to do correctly and thus using models (Real, digital, hell even action figures) was something that mangaka started doing because they have to do 20+ pages a week of art, intricate combat being the main draw and just happens to be rather difficult.
And if you know anything about Manga artists and their infamously harsh scheduling, this is just a great idea for also fast, rough blocking at times.
I always suggest that artists learn anatomy and draw from reference without tracing like this early on, but if you are already good and just trying to speed up a workflow / project, then this is perfectly fine thing to do.
But like cheating on what or who? We don't need to assume it's a student nor a project dedicated to pushing the artists' personal technical skills. (Personally, my fundamental technical skills always were improved much faster by exercises, not my artworks, anyhow. At least as a layperson.)
The artist here is not plagiarizing nor disengaged from the artistic process.
Now perhaps some students and the OP may be using tracing as a crutch. Though frankly it's fine for the hobbyist - why would I dog on someone who chooses to create something themself, *especially today*, and likely wouldn't have the resources for formal training? And it allows them to engage with other parts of the process they also likely haven't mastered and express themself. Such a person just needs to be aware of what learning some fundamentals may offer them, if given the opportunity.
Tracing otherwise is a tool to be used at the discretion of the skilled artist for their work. It has its advantages and drawbacks for sure - as with all techniques and mediums. And post-modernity says you can't invent anything wholly new anyhow -- thus in a sense all artwork carries with it some sense of replication. That was at least the discussion and conclusion in my very limited arts education. Do you have a different one?
And it's not paint-by-the-numbers or AI - both of which I will admonish as they *promote* disengaging from the artistic process and severely limit control and self expression. More broadly, I gotta pick my battles : P
Trains being able to make the line you see. If you can't trace a drawing, how would you possibly finish a sketch. It trains your eyes to become accustomed to the proportions of the drawing, it's one thing to study an art piece, it's another to draw out the proportions, useful in adapting styles, or learning proportions. It provides a simple way to practice every part of art that isn't imagination.
When I was in middle school I loved to first trace then later, loved to copy drawings of characters I liked into a notebook. my artist friends said it was fake and lazy. so I stopped. I wish I hadn't, it was genuinely a good method for learning. but it's been 15 years and I haven't tried since
I'm a 3D artist before a 2D artist.. so i use to trace over my own models, and actually learned a lot that way.
I don't need to do that any more, and now days most of my models start out as 2D concept art. Tracing helps if you let it and don't completely rely on it.
Edit: Granted i had an understanding of anatomy before hand. It mostly helped with linework.
Tracing has some merit as a learning tool, especially for beginner artists, but it can quickly become a crutch. Artists will improve more quickly if they push themselves just to reference the image instead. You can periodically pull the original image over the drawing to see how you are doing for optimum educational value.
As a beginner artist, not tracing has been one of the best decisions ive ever made and when people see my art they cannot believe ive only been doing it for a few months and I believe my diligence and refusal to take shortcuts helps me greatly. At least for myself, I know I would not have developed my eyes and coordination nearly as well if I ever traced. References ofc are a completely other story, ofc u should use references
This is like saying using references for your art is bad
Just two days ago, I saw that exact same sentiment (that using references was bad) on Twitter and it's like... Where are upcoming artists supposed to learn from? The astral plane???
I feel like A) there’s levels of tracing and B) tracing is at very least a wonderful learning tool. When it comes to stuff like this, I don’t think tracing’s that big a deal because you’re mainly using it as a template to put the things on top, and it’s different than just straight up re-drawing something else. I do think it’s a good idea to practice not using this because they’re good skills to develop for art, but like. it’s not that deep imo.
Trace, eyeball to "copy" it (idk how to phrase this because I can mimic poses without tracing, not being rude), try to grasp where shapes are. It's all apart of learning and even high profile artists trace poses. This mentality is just the crab in the buckets at this point, dragging others down because you can't get ahead. I want artists to thrive damn it.
The commenter is a bit out of line for saying that but also the original artist is still saying that they don't feel like using the model is working for them. Maybe the original artist themselves isn't happy with tracing a mannequin and instead wishes they could be constructing a figure from scratch. It's easy to jump to conclusions about what other people mean without looking at the original problem.
the worst part about this whole thing is that, when you look at the actual video, the guy didn't trace MOST of the art, they only did it for the body, and even then, they stylized the hands and fingers, and adjusted some pose here and there on their own, while most of the work itself was original and not traced at all, its just the base body and head to speed up their process.
Tracing is an inferior show of skill than referencing something, which is an inferior show of skill than drawing it without a reference. It is what it is.
This has sadly very common in animation and art through the years. Even within the industry you have people like that who do not consider certain things valid. There was a whole debate about digital art itself way back in the day
Tiktokification (and youtube) of art has set many many many artists down a path where they will never improve. They will never learn. They will draw shitty art, and call it their style.
You need skill to successfully work with 3D-models, too. Just tracing them is not gonna look good if you don't know how anatomy and like... depth work.
I’m an artist. Tracing is a technique that most professionals use! The key is how you change it from the original. Though it’s not the best method for beginners. The tracing debate is stupid as is anyway. I’ve traced in some artwork. People forget that you can adjust the tracing and draw it to your style. Also, you think tracing is going to help me color better? No. The online art community is weirddd
Just like I've heard and agree with; tracing isn't good or bad. It's a tool, not a shortcut.
Tracing can make the drawing process quicker (for comics and such)
Tracing, when used a certain way and not just tracing the outline, can help a person learn anatomy and how to stylize it, as well as how foreshortening can work.
Tracing also helps as a base when a person is trying to have various angles and draw clothes. Aka: for studying subjecta conveniently by focusing on the subject and not the entire picture and its errors.
Tracing can also be used for easier collaborations (by using bases for multiple artists in one canvas, or immitating styles)
It, of course, should not be used constantly for every piece or every drawing. If it is, that simply isn't your actual style nor your full skillset. It can become a shortcut one relies on and then without it, cannot commit to anything at all or make anything look 'right'. This shouldn't be the case, obviously, but to each their own if they don't care.
Just do not expect the highest praise since, if you think about it, art is a language. There are several layers to it to become fluent in it. Anatomy, color theory, lighting, foreshortening, rendering, etc. (and languages have reading, writing, speaking, and hearing). Using tracing as a shortcut rather than a tool, then posting it with all your pride is like claiming you're fluent in a language without knowing how to speak it because you can handle the other areas.
TL;DR: We shouldn't bash an artist if they trace every once in a while for justified reasoning, but we also shouldn't praise them if they trace for every single piece and can't work without doing it. Every skill in art is learnable, and if they got as far as to be able to do everything else except style or anatomy, than they can learn that too. They just need a confidence boost.
Tracing is inferior, the last time I did it was when I was in second grade. But using references is alright. I don't think I'd be able to draw anything without references.
Literally what?? Using references, whether real life or 3d are heavily encouraged. When did this change?? Popular artists on twitter have shown their speed up videos using themselves as the reference and tracing over the outline, how is this not the most time saving and innovative solution to this?
I mean, it's kinda true though. But if you're using it as a method to learn how to draw without tracing, then who cares. Like yea, tracing is easier, but that's the point. Ya do the easy stuff to practice to get better. Learning is badass.
sure, but being able to execute something that is more difficult than you technically makes one Inferior even though that would be a wild way to state it socially, sometimes people are better than other people in a certain context
I never understood the mentality behind being against tracing when you're drawing when I first started learning how to draw that's how I learned that's how I learned to draw example I used a little strong dragon Ball characters I used to print out the characters I want to draw and then I will trace it I gotten so good with it that I don't even Trace them no more and then I started going into ins and outs of drawings like poses shading etc
Elitist bullshit or claims of 'cheating' aside; tracing is just terrible for learning so new artists are only really hurting their own progress by doing it.
Bashing together different references or using real physical references (still life, models) is generally always a better way to learn and create.
Imo the only time tracing is fine is when a pro artist is on a tight deadline. A novice doing it is just sabotaging themselves longterm.
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u/SCP_FUNDATION_69420 5h ago
Gatekeepers when you try to learn a new skill and it doesn't automatically spawn in your head