Whenever it comes to drawing or illustrating my art on any platform (including my Wiki), I generally get a question nagging in the back of my head: "Why do I trace?"

And for everyone out there who's asking to yourself: "Why do you trace?"


It's been a subject that I have been temporarily researching online, and there are some positive and negative aspects behind this art method. I call it a method because I myself find it quite accurate to what how I really want to shape my art but at the same time, I actually did draw without any guidelines or any other method that perfects my style.


We all had sloppy art (and handwriting) when were younger. Unsymmetrical lines. Mis matched colors. Annnnd coloring outside the borders. For me, I thought I could be a perfect artist, grabbing an array of crayons and whoosh! An set of random squiggles across paper. Heck not only was I trying to perfect my skills on paper, I also did it everywhere. On the walls, in the car, around the house, heck even in my dad's notebook. lol.


As time grew by, I felt out of touch with art and suddenly drove myself into writing. Though I still didn't understand the concept of copyright (this was before I was hooked on Dragoma, my original video game series), I felt as if published fanfictions for profit should at least face the shelves in bookstores, libraries, and other sites. Though I was young to understand this whole bizzare world of copyright and trademark, I ended up creating something that was highly inspired off of another game or movie I was a fan of. Knights vs Dragons (thanks to Fantasy Name Generator) was created because of Fire Emblem. Dragoma was created thanks to the 2018 Beyblade World Championships in Paris, and major bits of Final Fantasy combined.


After taking one final art class in 9th grade in the year of 2012, I started to think: "Probably I should go for it one last time. See how things pan out."

And wala! Thanks to the trending internet growth of drawing reference poses, I finally got to illustrate my characters and items! How?


Well, it's a completely different method of how I upload and illustrate. Most artists tend to directly draw digital while other hand draw in their desired format (oil pastel, marker, water color, ink, pencil etc.) To prove my digital art as a copyright exclusive proof, I first create the art on a piece of paper (Trace with light pencil, create major elements, trace again with dark graphite pencil, scan, re- stencil art with ORR (Online Rapid Resizer), then digital art it. Paint.Net for the Basic line connections and bucket color / gradient fill ins. Krita for expert shading / other artistic elements / textures. This way I have the ability to show that the art (just incase it's stolen by someone else) is created by me (thanks to the pencil scan) and not by someone else. Plus, I ALWAYS write out the copyright and wordmarks on the edge of my art. It gives out ethnic credit and displays as to whom it was drawn by. Plus a fancy background I create with Krita also shows ownership and style. I sometimes submit art without any background (but I always write out my username with a CR) or leave it blank (for fanart only)


Most of my art consists of original drawings from Dragoma and very little fanart of Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy, or Battlebots. Shout out for the Battlebots Draconica series I'm soon gonna create! :)


Whelp! That's all! Plus, if I had a time machine, I would travel back to 2000 - 2005 where I would revisit my memories in Florida and even attend a live Battlebots event in San Francisco, CA. Secreting myself in the bathroom stalls of the All American Sports Park, typing away on my hidden I- Phone SE (2nd generation). Keep it hidden at all times out of public eyes and cheer on for my favourite Battlebots fighting to thier way for the Giant Nut. Otherwise I would get bombarded with these awkward questions:


- What is that?

- Is that a new wallet?

- oooh! A Palm Pilot from the future!?

- Splendid! A futuristic Blackberry!


Commence facepalms....


Tour around backstage where the team builders are gathered around their respective tables, maintaining their Battlebots. Geez, I would glomp them for sure but that would yet again be a little awkward. So I just would whistle around, acting casual around my faviourite builders and crew members. So much excitement and bot awful glory. Soda cans and water bottles dotted every team table, tool boxes and bots stationed either underneath or on the tables. I even managed to spot out several bulky DELL laptops with Windows 2000 OS on them. Shucks, how time drastically evolves..... Annnd there I manage to also find Diesector placed next to Minion, the super heavyweight bots looking splendid as ever. As much as I wanted to meet them, I just had a feeling it would be awkward for a 25 year old girl to talk to her faviourite role models from the year 2000.


Then again, I also had to do one more thing before time runs out and I rush back to 2021.


Find out in this weird RPF fic I'm gonna write soon. Geez, what a long journal!


Until next time!


Falco276 :)