People like to bitch a lot.

/thread.

Lmaaao

I used to trace when i first joined DeviantArt, but when i saw drama about tracing on DA, i deleted those traced picture.
Sometime, i use a picture to reference for background.

Yeah like, see o: that kinda thing! When it comes to photography tracing I dont think it's bad: it's just using it as a reference for anatomy and perspective you dont know how to work with. And it's easier to understand when you use the resource directly

I trace porn photos sometimes, because no-one looks at gay porn photos but then the lines look weird, so I edit the proportions so that they feel comfy/believable. This mostly happens with pics were a character isn't plump enough.

I do the same ´w` it helps a lot with hard poses! Specially multicharacter ones

There's a mindset where people assume all art is done through imagination. These kinds of people don't actually know the real process is art, and instead see it as an artist machine producing art. You're studying from life and stuff

That's...actually a super good answer <3 You're right! while imagination helps a lot, it's super fucked up when it comes to trying to put it in paper, what with perpective and all
And I guess there's always gonna be peeps like that, huh <:I Im surprised a lot of them are artists, tho, you'd think they use the resources they have near, and yet

yup like the above comment, artists wants 100% no help from that type of referencing and has to be completely done from scratch. that's why i used to be so against using references, which was extremely silly of me, even though tracing was a bigger problem. because tracing is a cheat. all the curves and figures are there instead of sculpting it yourself. i think that's why a lot of artists are so against it.

But it's not a cheat per se; I use it to learn how to do certain poses and perspectives and it taught me how to correctly draw knees for example, or how to make clothefolds a bit more realistic o: it's not that you dont sculpt them yourself -- I take and add from every picture details that might or not look good or wrong -- but it's a bit like using training wheels for learning x)

It's useful to gain a better understanding of things, certainly, but that's all it should be, practice. When you're actively tracing something then there's really nothing of yourself going into it.

But when you get the pose and figure right, you can still trace over some lines you cant quite get right; clothesfolds are one of my bigger problems, or weird bends. I 'unno! I still feel like, even after practice, it can help a lot.

For me, when you trace as a way to try to understand how to draw, so much of what you're trying to learn gets lost in translation. Unless you're dissecting the drawing into skeletal parts, (like hands) then I guess in some ways you can see how it is the way it is. I never did that sort of thing though, as I paid more attention to life drawing and references. I did lots of quick sketches of various photos and angles of the subject I'm trying to study for around 5 minutes or more, and then work on a nice finished picture of the subject. But as for the reason why people hate tracing so much, you can check out all the various sonic and anime screencap traces on deviantart and even become aware of the fact that deviantart actually has no rule against recolors or traced art. (as long as you put it in the fanart section!)

What I forgot to add about that lost in translation thing is that if you just do that without really observing the artist's technique from an analytical point of view, you're not going anywhere

Oh but I didnt mean tracing art, I meant photography, as in using a realistic model from a photo to get abetter hold of how the body looks and works. But yeah, I guess part of the skills you'd get get lost in translation ;w;

Oh that makes more sense! Especially when you dissect it, you could understand it even more off of photos, than off of art (which is more stylized)

Yeah 'sactly! ´w` Although I -have- taken the barebones (yknow, the balls-and-squares-thingy) of a pictures before because the pose was awesome, but couldnt find a photography which had the same one. Then again you need more references on the side for -that- because you gotta place the musculature'n shit correctly and stuff

Graphic designers trace. A lot.
Comic book inkers traces pencil work.

Nuff said.

True that <3