Let’s talk about tracing (me just read, you guys debated :3)

silverraven0 · Feb '19

I just watched this video :

"tracing art = using reference" nice try holly brown but no

about some drama in the art community a few months ago and kinda want to know what you guys think about tracing. (keep in mind I know nothing about who they are)

I remember I created a topic about tracing for commission before, but want to know more since I currently doing a half tracing (?) on my wip (that I didn't really do good since s*it is blurry).

In my defence I would say that I did this because 1. It is hard to find a right reference of the one I'm doing right now. 2. My screen is small and I can't really see the reference image if I put in in there.

But if you ask me will I do it in the future when after I got a better screen and doing thing more professionally? The answer is if it is some building, etc that need accuracy to draw, I would say yes for reducing the time I need to waste for measurement and the other, but I definitely won't be copying them 100%, since thats not ethical in my part except some real life buildings or structure, but in the limitation, I gotta get permission from he photograph owner or buy the right (or the like), or simply take the pictures myself.

And with that I wanna know more and stuff, so I made this topic (though my explanation is very messy, sorry about that). *plus the wip I'm doing is intended to be some sort of reward (?), so I'm just asking... ^w^ *

The wip I'm talking about :

The reference pic :

This sunflower field is murdering me. :v

onichan · Feb '19

some things are okay to trace some are not.. i think inanimate objects or even Alfonso are okay to trace if its just for the sketch
a field of flowers is fine i think, some people would just put the actual photo as the background haha at least you are putting an effort in

poses can also be okay to trace if you just draw a stick figure and not trace the actual body shape of the character(or person) but don't use poses that are "rare" or like from a famous movie scene or whatever, i don't do this myself, but i actually learned how to do it when i was in fashion school.

Wumbl · Feb '19

There's a big difference between tracing a drawing line by line, and tracing over a photo in your own art style.

silverraven0 · Feb '19

I also watched this (from the same channel above) :

color dodge the issue - rossdraws tracing without credit

Dude tracing picture of the model but didn't gave credit and that's something. But since it is human and animate object I guess it's more severe.

Btw, the link below is the thread I made about tracing before. Just gonna linked it here if you guys feel like reading them :

nathanKmcwilliams · Feb '19

I only trace as a means of learning new techniques. But I believe it to be essential in growing as an artist.
But don't trace and say you made it. Come on.

BloodOgre · Feb '19

I think it’s fine to trace/paint over real life things as long as you make changes and render in a style of your own. If you start tracing someone else’s art then that’s when a real issue arises. But yeah vis dev and big comic studios trace all the time. Hell even concept artists trace. The stigma against tracing is out of hand.

Klaustasya · Feb '19

i believe that tracing at first to learn the shapes of something you're totally unfamiliar with drawing is okay. i had many friends who once tried for the first time to draw a body but they didn't know where to start because it was their first attempt in doing it, so this ex-friend of mine told me that she took a picture of real model and traced it then analyzed the shapes and tried copying it again but without tracing. She tried this method a couple of times then left tracing because she was more comfortable with it so i think that tracing is good if it's kept in the limit of "just using it to learn something at first" while of course i don't agree on tracing something totatlly from scratch and making it pass as yoursm but this is another thing.

revisionstudios · Feb '19

Whether you can trace or not depends more on ownership than anything else.

If you took the picture yourself? You can trace it. Example: If I'm struggling with a hand, I would often just take a picture of my own and trace over it for my comic. After enough times, it actually taught me a lot about their structure and I don't do it as much anymore.

Now, if the content of the photo itself is owned by someone else (a model, cosplay, or an art piece) you have to still get their permission to trace it. Same goes for photos that you didn't take. I recommend either taking your own photos or seeking out stock photos with a creative commons license (though you may still have to credit them in your post).

Any time you trace without asking permission and crediting the owner, it is theft. If you want to do it for your own practice and never post it anywhere, that's one thing, but don't use something that's not yours to get attention or money.

From an artistic stand point, you definitely shouldn't rely on tracing, even if you do own the asset--tracing a body part, cool. Tracing a background element/prop, cool. Referencing, cool. Making a hodpodge of different references for one piece, awesome! Just don't rely on it like a crutch, otherwise it'll stunt your progress.

DokiDokiTsuna · Feb '19

Okay, maybe I'm biased because I watch this guy on Deviantart, but I take offense to that accusation.

How does one "know" it's traced?? The proportions and hair strands don't even line up, because he drew the lady in his own style. So how can you be sure he traced over the picture or just decided to draw someone he saw, like artists have been doing for hundreds of years? And even if he did draw his version right on top of her face, if the end result is that different, why the heck does it even matter??

Maybe he should have credited the model in the photo. But to accuse him of "tracing" when all he did was draw inspiration is just mud-slinging, plain and simple. =_=

graveweaver · Feb '19

I trace some things for certain comic pages. For example, this desk:

1

Here's the image I traced, taken in my own home:
1

A lot of times, tracing is an option because you just don't have time to set up perspective lines and block out a desk for a scene that's going to be scanned over in 1 second. However, I think, you must have ownership of the photo being traced for this to be ethical. There are places online where you can buy commercial rights to entire photo packs, and most people have a camera/phone where they can go outside and take pictures. If I need a certain scene, I'll go to a location with that scene and pull out my phone and snap some pictures. If it's something impossible for me to get easily (like maybe some ancient ruins) I'll go buy the rights to a photo pack.

It's also important to note while I do trace some aspects of my comics from photos, I could absolutely draw them by hand if I needed to. You should be able to, too. I use tracing as a method to speed up my process to get those frustrating 40-60 pages of webtoon out weekly, not as a crutch because I don't know how to draw a desk.

BobbyjoeX · Feb '19

the faces of the drawing and the photo match perfectly, if you watched D'angelo's video, you would have seen that. as for the credit, the model herself had been going after him for months til he finaslly put her insta in the description

as for me, i use those 3d models on clip studio, makes the page making process faster

DokiDokiTsuna · Feb '19

Did they use another picture in the video? Because the one on the thumbnail clearly isn't the same. For example, the real person has hair behind her neck almost reaching her shoulder, while in the drawing it only goes halfway. And the shading pattern in the hair isn't the same either, let alone the orientation of the strands...

Also, her face isn't as wide in the drawing...it really just looks like a carefully-referenced copy, not a trace.

BobbyjoeX · Feb '19

whatever, not going to fight with you

silverraven0 · Feb '19

Me being me I'll still say that it is tracing. Since he put the model picture on the layer itself and draw from there.

I'm here on the ground zero because I did say I don't know any of them or how they work, but it is fair to be biased, and I made this thread for a healthy debate, so let's debate, but don't go overly severe. ^^

DokiDokiTsuna · Feb '19

Hehehe...okay~

In that case, I think we need to establish a definition for what tracing is.

I see tracing as literally copying someone else's work, line by line. You don't do anything except follow the strokes put down by another artist. That's what makes it dishonest. It's like re-typing someone else's essay and putting your name at the top: you put in the physical work, sure, but none of the skill.

The fact that someone else's work was involved in your product, however, is not dishonest in and of itself. Referencing the information in someone else's essay is okay. Quoting someone is okay, as long as you credit them. And even using someone's essay as a scaffold (following their organization to help your own words flow better) is okay, because in the end the words themselves came from you. Whether you need to credit them for that or not honestly depends on how deeply the scaffold is buried.

There's a lot of nuance involved in this topic, and I don't like how people pretend the issue is black-and-white (either the art is 100% yours or you're a tracer) in order to shame and defame decent artists. =/

silverraven0 · Feb '19

Hmm, that is true enough. Maybe my understanding about tracing need to be upgraded.

Anyone want to educate me a little bit more about tracing?

NickRowler · Feb '19

This is how I feel...

If you are a noob and you are tracing something for your own personal use (like putting up on your bedroom wall), that's fine.

If you are tracing stuff and posting it online for free and giving credit, I guess that could be a grey area. I think it depends on who created the source and posting rules on the site you are posting.

If you are posting stuff for profit or on a site with strict rules, you should not be tracing unless it is your own photo or you obtain credit for a photo or image you are using (like those site where you pay royalities for images) even then, it is still good to give credit.

Jenny-Toons · Feb '19

Might I bring up the topic of Master Studies?

Now...Master studies aren't exactly tracing in the sense that we use it now. It's more involved than simply tracing over a piece of work. You actually have to do your best to replicate what the artist did with the original piece. Moreover, the idea behind these master studies is to work on topics like shading, lighting, structure, etc. You break down the OG piece to its foundation and then try to rebuild the same piece again.

Master Studies are examples of replicating original works; maybe not tracing, but it felt relevant to the example of this artist drawing that model. They're more of a higher example of when people do re-draws of their favorite screenshot from an anime or a show.

Of course, the difference with Master studies is that there is more credit given to the original artist, and you can kinda tell the replicate artist didn't do the OG piece because most of the time, they're out and about saying "yeah, I did a Master Study of this piece by -insert artist-"

I do feel that if there was no obvious credit given, it should've happened, and I do feel that if you're making money from traces or replicates, you ought to be giving royalties to the OG artist. But, if it's just for learning or just showing fanart, like in the case of Master Studies, it's all good. Just show credit (even if it's as simple as "oh! here's a picture I drew of these people I saw downtown!").

JeanGuillet · Feb '19

Copyright law & the standards of fair use, particularly the definition of 'transformative' is the guideline, whatever artists feel about the ethics of the matter. and some of the court cases in the US have been brutal. every artist needs to check out the law.5

bonus link: Pixabay4 is an great source of royalty free stock photos.

BlueDragon · Feb '19

Yeah, I remember in my art classes, the professor made it very clear when we were doing these, we HAD to write "Copy of _____ by ____" on the pieces we copied. One made us also print off the original and set it side by side (that was one class.)

I tend to think tracing backgrounds of things you photograph, or royalty free with credit (for backgrounds) would be okay if you're in a hurry. Or stuff you have already drawn. But..I also think at some time, learning to draw those on your own is important. I am still trying to fix backgrounds of older versions of my comic to be all hand drawn...just to avoid copy right issues...and make the backgrounds fit in better with my style (it's jarring, I've found, to have a beautiful background, and the characters don't mesh XD )

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