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stop-tracing β You're Doing It Wrong.
Published: 2008-08-30 03:15:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 87774; Favourites: 1093; Downloads: 32081
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Inspired by the posters everyone has seen by now. Took the photos myself of course.
Are you against tracing? Join the club!
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Comments: 344
"Are you against tracing, if yes join the club"
Are there actual people that are for it on DA? I think it would be ok for personal use, you know to learn how to draw, but not trace and upload the drawing claiming it's yours.
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Lol if they want to draw awesomely so badly, why not ask an artist to teach them? I love teaching people how to draw! But tracing...tracing?? I used to do that when I was 4, now it's just silly.
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LOL,I remember I did that as a little kid when I learned to draw 
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That poster depicts the inappropriate and ridiculous. I love it.
Tracing itself, however, has long been a useful and accepted artistic technique. I have long believed that with much study, one would find that the likes of Da Vinci and other masters would (and likely did) make use of it. Any well equipped artist's studio has what is called a light box or even a projector.
Professional artists use tools and techniques that are designed to get images to a surface efficiently. Fine and commercial artists both use opaque projectors and light boxes...And not just to duplicate their own drawings. Photos are also projected & traced very commonly. I'm afraid an artist who does not learn to accept and use available tools and techniques is cheating their self.
One can argue that an art student should refrain in order to develop skills. Personally, I have been a professional artist and art teacher for many years and I have even introduced some proper tracing procedures into my lessons. When used properly, I have found that student actually benefit artistically from this instruction and practice. I always begin by countering the impression students have been given that tracing is always bad. Of course, tracing (or even freehand drawing) another artist's creation and passing it off as your own is never proper.
I've also heard the point that "If the person is attempting to deceive, then they are in the wrong." But, in comparison, if one uses a grid technique and then conceals or removes the grid, does that make it wrong? Certainly not. Although, I have met artists who believe that grid drawing, a technique used by DΓΌrer, Van Gogh, and Da Vinci, is "cheating" and should even disqualify students from competition. This, to me, seems as ridiculous as tracing Zelda graphics from google images.
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I think what he means is people who trace images, recolor them and present them as their very own WITHOUT noting the work they got it from. I'm a half way decent 'artist' and the last time I traced was when I was seven, sure I've looked at existing images to give me a feel and understanding of dynamic poses and proportion but I never had to trace them, if anything I think tracing for many is just a crutch, unless they are purely using them to learn how to draw on their own.
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GAH! I hate it when people do that!!!
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I don't see what's wrong with tracing your own work. Since you created the base from the start, there's no art theft involved.
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Tracing your own or just for reference is A-OK.
Tracing and showing off that you did it, BAD!
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Lol too true. Tracing's fun but it's not art. I can't even remember how I old I was last time I traced something.
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lol! It's soo true! Luv it!
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haha! I agree. but tracing can be so much fun.
granted it doesn't exactly constitute as art, but its still alot of fun.
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THANK YOU!!!
the only exception is if you are tracing something that YOU have originally drawn for re-modification purposes. that's it!
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outstanding 
i agree, tracing wont make u learn anything.
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I HAVE THAT PRINTER.
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How inspirational! Pff.
I love this so much C:
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Thank god you did this I hate tracing >n<
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tracing dosen't help you draw. but this one time when i was little, i traced circles. XD
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Of course, this shouldn't shy people away from tracing paper, extremely useful tool for pencil artists.
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Tracing never helped me learn to draw. But for a lot of my pictures I do use references. I don't reference fan art just actual screenshots from the show. I've actually drawn two of my dolls once to see if they would be hard to draw.
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What about when people use photographs as reference for realistic portraits?
It's not tracing, but heavily referenced.
Personally I think there's a point where the artist should try to make variations of their own work to make it original, but if ye want realistic you usually need a good reference.
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That involves artistic skill because you arent going over previously made lines.
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I dunno, that's part of how I taught myself to draw...if I couldn't get the feel of it down I would find a good picture and trace it until I thought I could do it right (I still do that sometimes xD)
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Tracing is a very sad thing. It's like copying someone's homework. Maybe you'll get the praise and the A, but it won't really be earned, you will get caught one day, and you don't truly learn. In other words, it's not worth it to trace.
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I like the picture. I also don't agree with tracing but I do admit I have traced the outline of a person before and filled it in with my own face and put my own clothes on it and such. I am not good at people ( I have been trying for years to perfect it) but I did not post it but it did give me a feel for drawing certain aspects on humans. I do think in a way tracing can be good practice, it can give you the feel for something but it's not right to steal some ones work so keep up your work!
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amazing, the picture quality isn't grainy. (:
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you got to learn somehow..
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When I was younger, I used to trace and I didn't learn crap.
But know, that I'm a little older and started referancing, I feel like I've gotten a lot better. (Not like..."awesome best" but I do feel pretty proud of myself which is good, I think.)
Thanks for posting this. ^^
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Besides...I can't even see through the damn paper
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Tracing never helped me learn how to draw. It never taught me proportions forms and perspectives, just being anal about outlines.
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When I was younger, I had this Anime Drawing guide book thing, and I couldn't draw heads, out of everything I'd trace, that's it. Just the head, cause I couldn't do it, obviously I'm much better now but XD Yeah
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I'm not against tracing (since I did it before for practice), but I'm against claiming that you drew something yourself if you didn't.
I think tracings of pictures should only be done for private use and shouldn't be uploaded to the internet.
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I really like how you delivered this message. cool stuff.
But at the same time, tracing photographs of animals is how i learned to draw them from memory.. So I'd say tracing in the context of simply for duplication is only what im against..
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I think tracing isn't so bad when you are starting at drawing, always you keep it for yourself and don't post it or show it as your original work. Of course, if you are always tracing and tracing and no looking for anatomy references or other helpful references, you're not going to grow as an artist.
Personally, I never traced a picture even in my childhood (though my mermaids were horrible). I hope people who do this open their eyes and stop doing it.
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I don't understand why people think tracing is a good way to learn. All tracing does is make you better about tracing. You'd be far better off practicing your own sketches by hand.
Of course, you'd be far better off learning traditional realism/anatomy before doing any anime at all, but that's for another day.
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I think tracing is good practice. XD I think it's a bad idea to try and pass it off as your own work.
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