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Tracing and referencing? Is it bad?
9 years ago
This little topic has been bugging me for awhile.
When is it tracing, and when is it referencing in context of digital drawn art?
Like, there's a line where art becomes art theft/bad?
Let's make it clear, if you're actually copying or tracing someone's work, they can take legal action because it's plagiarism.
But anyways, I believe referencing is an okay thing to do, and also tracing to an extent which I'll explain below.
Take for example, this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNHqnDVzm9M
While he isn't talking about my topic, he begins the video by tracing a stock photograph. However, he adds some of his own content on top of it. It's much like YouTube videos how people are allowed to take another's work and do something that typically falls under "transformative". You still use the material of another, but you've changed the entire meaning so that it is now different. I might be dodgy when it comes to legality, but I believe it's something similar here.
There are other praised artists out there such as Vincent van Gogh who did the following painting: http://i.imgur.com/zeVQKrg.jpg
While this is his own work, this falls more under tracing. Would this be bad? He's not entirely ripping off anyone, I guess most would call into question of his artistic merit. I think it's an okay thing to do, it's his own photograph and drawing, and he has a certain art style he changed the photograph into.
To be honest, I'll come clean, I took photographs of my own hand and traced it for some of my artworks as seen here: http://i.imgur.com/DVEhaO6.png
Source picture (NSFW): http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16223985/
I don't think doing this makes you a bad artist.
But what does is if you just traced and add nothing to the picture. You should probably be /honest/ and credit the source art though. Honesty is keyword here.
Referencing in my opinion also helps you build an art library in your mind, developing your art skills so that eventually you'll one day not need to use references.
What do you guys think? >.>; I feel like I'm going to get crucified for this.
When is it tracing, and when is it referencing in context of digital drawn art?
Like, there's a line where art becomes art theft/bad?
Let's make it clear, if you're actually copying or tracing someone's work, they can take legal action because it's plagiarism.
But anyways, I believe referencing is an okay thing to do, and also tracing to an extent which I'll explain below.
Take for example, this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNHqnDVzm9M
While he isn't talking about my topic, he begins the video by tracing a stock photograph. However, he adds some of his own content on top of it. It's much like YouTube videos how people are allowed to take another's work and do something that typically falls under "transformative". You still use the material of another, but you've changed the entire meaning so that it is now different. I might be dodgy when it comes to legality, but I believe it's something similar here.
There are other praised artists out there such as Vincent van Gogh who did the following painting: http://i.imgur.com/zeVQKrg.jpg
While this is his own work, this falls more under tracing. Would this be bad? He's not entirely ripping off anyone, I guess most would call into question of his artistic merit. I think it's an okay thing to do, it's his own photograph and drawing, and he has a certain art style he changed the photograph into.
To be honest, I'll come clean, I took photographs of my own hand and traced it for some of my artworks as seen here: http://i.imgur.com/DVEhaO6.png
Source picture (NSFW): http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16223985/
I don't think doing this makes you a bad artist.
But what does is if you just traced and add nothing to the picture. You should probably be /honest/ and credit the source art though. Honesty is keyword here.
Referencing in my opinion also helps you build an art library in your mind, developing your art skills so that eventually you'll one day not need to use references.
What do you guys think? >.>; I feel like I'm going to get crucified for this.
Is it to learn, to improve, to analyze, etc? Totally okay. Many people will try replicating anatomical wonders like da Vinci in order to improve.
Is it tracing purely to turn around and claim your own, or to sell? Not really okay, given how you're using someone's work.
I think in your case you're totally okay! It's purely for you development, and you SHOULD do it to improve
And of course, I feel like newcomer artists try too hard to draw from scratch and get turned off by it. But they should also not get carried away with referencing, potentially into the realm of tracing. They should /learn/.