[togusajr]

I'm really curious whether or not people here believe tracing is a good alternative to using that piece of scrap just as reference. This is bothers me because i see people praising work that is obviously traced badly from photographs and not making any obvious improvements to the source material. To me, it seems like an obvious lack of effort or skill on the artist and also an immature eye on the part of the artist giving the crit. Don't get the wrong idea and think i'm again trazing. Great artists like drew struzan or norman rockwell have used forms of trcing, but in the end, they improve the photographs and also have a strong foundation of life drawing.

What do you think?
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"Anyone can learn to draw, you've got to be born an artist" ~ PHAIT

[Captain Scurvybeard]

[HushTP]

just my opinion,

Too much is being made of this, and I think that the people who get the most upset at artists who trace feel like they have been cheated in some way, as if art was a game and everyone has to play by the same rules. Tracing pictures is not on the same level as swiping someone's artwork, and it should not be treated as such. It shouldn't be the end of the world if someone traces material into their painting because a piece of art should be judged as a whole, and not just by its parts.
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[AndyT]

3 first posts in this thread? Hi guys

That's how I see it ...

[cheney]

I agree with Andy. If its for practice only then nobody else should see it, so it does not really matter what you do. That is why its called practice rather than publish.

But for finished art you should be capable of creating everything you need. If you cannot freely create everything you need then you should not be creating such art, or you need more practice. This is why I don't do tradition painting styles.

I trace and use previously created art in some of my art, but with great exception. The art I trace or reuse is only art that I created for pervious projects. You can trace or reuse parts of your own art for newer projects, and I do not consider this cheating.

There is a second exception that I have only attempted once. The exception is a multi-artist collaboration where more than one artist willfully contributes to the intended project under expectation of naming writes for all contributing artists.

Everything else in my opinion is strictly cheating, and usually in defiance of ethical copyright law.
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[Socar MYLES]

It really depends a lot on the context.

I mean, if someone who just doesn't understand facial structure, say, traces a face in order to make his job easier, I'd have to say he's cheating himself by avoiding learning the things which would make the painting of future faces easier.

If, on the other hand, a professional artist is making a movie poster, and is asked to paint such and such an actor from a certain shot, there's no ethical reason NOT to trace, if it's going to save some time. Obviously, the difference here is that the professional artist knows what he's doing, and will probably improve on the source material (getting the lighting to match the rest of the picture, using optimal colours, and so forth.)

As for cheating the viewer, well, seriously, unless there's copyright infringement going on, if the final product looks good, who CARES how it was made? Artists who trace because they have problems drawing on their own are only cheating themselves. Unless they are infringing on somebody else's copyright, a la Jay Fotos, it's nobody's problem but their own.
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Dignity isn't important. It's everything.

www.gorblimey.com - art

[spline]

[togusajr]

i dont believe what he does should be called painting and drawing... well aesthically, hes not improving on whats in the photo he traced from and he uglifies girls faces... terrorifying

[HushTP]

Ok, I came up with a great analogy. If you can understand it, great, if you can't, what-EVER.

Let's say art is like food. If you go out to a fancy restaurant, pay $60 for a dinner, and were very satisfied with a meal BUT! You find out that the chef used canned tomatos. Now, does your stomach start to churn and do you hurl onto the table in front of your gf/wife? It depends on how you feel about canned tomatos, but if you're normal, you'll probably just say that the meal was good, but could have been great if the chef sliced real tomatos. Maybe the chef can't slice real tomatos, maybe he has a hook on one hand, but he can still be a good chef by using canned food. The chef can cook, he uses pre-made ingredients, but the food he prepares is still yummy. Don't hold it against the chef if he has to use that canned shit, judge his food based on the final dish.
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[Lunatique]

You guys do realize that some of the people accused of paintover/tracing, are actually painting stuff from scratch, right? They just happen to have very very good eye/hand coordination--to the point where if you overlaid the reference and the painting together in Photoshop, they'd probably line up. Of course, the question then is, why would you want to copy a photograph exactly identical, other than for practicing rendering skill?

[oDD]

another discussion on this topic....

the biggest problem in digital art community is not people who tarace but people who trace and act like they didn't trace. i seriously don't care anymore if a person thinks there is nothing wrong with tracing/color picking, if you want to trace for the rest of your life go ahead but every time you post your picture say it you traced. Why ? Because people (especialy the ones that don't know too much about art) assume it was made from scratch + aditional studies.

I like that food analogy. If there were two cooks and both of them would serve you a tomato soup that would tasted the same, but cook nr1 used a canned soup and nr 2 bought all the ingridients and made the soup from scratch. Now after eating the 2 soups at first you would treat them(the coocks) the same but then if you were introduced to the ways how they work you would start to treat them different. In art we got our heros, we judge other artist in our heads, we create some image of them and I want that image to be true, for me this is where the cheting occurs. the cook nr1 labeling himself as cook nr2.

all the immatures tracers , who trace because "the professionals trace" are hurting themselfs. If you don't know how to swim you don't jump in to the water like the professionals cause you would drown.

all comes to this, as long as you are true with yourself and with others its all good. stop making something you don't feel good about or something you have to come up with theories to justify that actions.

i never traced and i'm happy with my developement as an artist.
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[iandredd]

Continuing on from what lunatique was saying, I don't trace and barely use ref because I just find it excruciatingly boring reproducing something that's already been created by an artist/photographer. I really could do with drawing more from life though cause my art sucks. I don't see that it matters what technique you use if the image is good, but acknowledge your sources like oDD said.

[amichaels]

I did enough forced reproduction of referrence material in my high school art classes that I don't ever want to have to do it again.

[bearsclover]

Wow, there's a similar discussion going on over at eatpoo, which I've already contributed to. But since I am long-winded and type very fast, I'll ramble some more here.

I agree with the others who say it's "cheating oneself." It's no skin of my nose of someone else wants to trace, but I reserve the right to hold a lesser opinion of it.

Also, I've told some habitual tracers who are very annoyed by my negative opinions that they are in reality making those of us who can draw freehand look even more like "freakin' geniuses." When more people trace, they make those of us who don't trace seem so much more remarkable by comparison. It's warped, but it's true. I've already had it done to me. ("So, where's the photo you copied to make that artwork?" "I didn't use a photo." "But how did you copy it?" "I didn't copy anything, I just made it up out of my head." "But how did you copy a photo?" "I DIDN'T COPY IT, I KNOW HOW TO DRAW FREEHAND." Some people just can't fathom the idea of drawing freehand anymore! ) I am sure if enough people get accustomed to the idea that "all artists trace" (fortunately we haven't gotten to that point yet) then they will be even more awestruck and amazed by those of us who draw! Hey, cool!

I also like the baking analogy brought up here. I'd like to elaborate upon it and say that if a cook is using pre-made food or canned food and everyone likes it anyway, that's fine as long as everyone knows that cook's limitations. Because if the canned-food cook allowed everyone to believe they could do it all from scratch, then maybe these people will expect the cook to make more elaborate dishes in the future, and these people will be disappointed when the canned-food cook can't deliver such dishes.

So the key is honesty and not allowing people to make false assumptions about their skill level. And that goes especially for potential art buyers, employers and associates of the artist. The artist's skill level and the way they did the art is important to these other people in some cases.

Some buyers value a painting if they know the artist did it all "by hand." That's why "by hand" works have selling value. I make pottery, and I know that people who buy my pottery are more impressed that I throw every piece on the potter's wheel rather than just using a pre-made mold (like you use for the mugs you buy at K-Mart). Some people will pay more for the more time-consuming intimate touch. Others may not care as long as the end result looks nice, but some will, so honesty is important in this case. Same with employers�they may need an artist who is capable of sketching out roughs or comps and if an artist can't draw all that well (even though their traced work looks great) well, that's an issue. And as for associates or peers�I don't think an artist "owes" their peers the whole story as much as they do buyers or employers, but still�it's pretty pathetic to present a work to peers under false pretenses.
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[kirikaxchloe]

I'm interested in what people think about copying style. I've noticed some people start stealing other artists' style. The way they color, the proportions, etc. Personally I dissaprove of people copy style because it's not exactly original either.
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[Drunken Monkey]

If in the end the picture is interesting without baring too much resemblance to the original(s) from which it was traced its all fine by me. You have to be a certain kind of artist to do something like that however. I would rather slit my wrists than trace.
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[Drunken Monkey]

[kirikaxchloe]

drunken monkey:
Well, I was talking about the ethics of it. Which is wrong. If a person was trying to learn then I wouldn't find it wrong. If a person was doing this for a job i would find it morally wrong, because they would be deceiving people since that particular style isn't theirs.
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hi.... @_@...

[Drunken Monkey]

kirikaxchloe: i see. maybe its wrong but certain styles (that are exceptionally good) get so popular they become naturally demanded as norm. you have to do it in similar fasion or you wont get the same money or any work at all... i could be wrong but thats how it seems. Those who are really successful all show similar stuff. Campbell was copied non-stop after his Danger Girl. And Syd Mead style is everywhere. Everything is derivative.
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"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity" - Sigmund Freud

[saturnfive]

I think there's a difference between art for learning and art for a living maybe. The thing that drives me to produce art is to further myself. To trace something, unless for a specific excercise seems like you're doing it to satisfy others (cos you're not going to make yourself happy with a traced image, are you?) which seems fundamentally wrong.
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[kumod]

Hi first post here hope that it is alright for me to join in here. What are the ethics of tracing well I wonder how many of you know of David Hockney's theory that Ingres and other great masters must have made use of optical technology -- mirrors and lenses -- as tools in their work. HOCKNEY
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Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted

[togusajr]

people like bringing up norman rockwell in conversations of photos/tracing. here's comething he says in a book on my shelf that basically sums up my own feelings. Don't worry, i'm not trying to change this into a Wayne Johnson type thread.


"Painting from photographs can be a wholly creative performance if the artist himself is creative. To 'copy' the form, tone and color of a photograph print certainly is not creative. But one can be creative by modifying drawing, value, and other aspects of the photo to realize the creative needs of the subject. The camera is no substitute for those creative factulties of mind and hand which have always produced art-and always will. The artist who can't draw and paint will never get anywhere trying to work from photographs. An unskilled artist, using photographs, can easily develop absurdities, such as the sun shining from two or three direstions at once, or one object incorrect in size relation to the whole, or perspective convergencies at variance one with another." norman rockwell- norman rockwell, illustrator, by guptill
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"Anyone can learn to draw, you've got to be born an artist" ~ PHAIT

[Germ01]

Art is like religion, its a personnal experience and means something different for every individual. Never in the history of man was there a rule book to how one should go about creating art and what not to do. (Maybe there is one but I've never heard of it).

If some people believe they try to stay away from using ref is going to make them a better artist so be it. Who am I to say any different. In the end what are we trying to obtain...some higher level of artistry? eg. I can do the best painting in the least amount of time without using ref? Is this what were trying to get to? What does it all mean?!! Or who really cares? We get some people on any given forum just waiting to anylzing someone else's pic to see if they ripped it, traced, filtered or whatever to it. THEN!!! The they take that picture put into there Photoshop do there forensic dooda on it, then they go back to that any other forum, make a big post saying that particular artist is a hack or whatever and the basically killing that persons rep in every corner of the internet regarding "Cool" art. I mean who are we to judge? And is it really that big of a deal? When this sort of thing happens do you like discuss this with your friends and family when your monitor turns off? Its kinda funny in a way. Can't we all just get along!

Anyways, like I said, in the end its a personal thing and as long as your not literally taking someone else's work and saying you did it, that just wrong.
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[togusajr]

germ01 - we're discussing tracing rather than art as a whole. and no one ever said that using reference was bad. i encourage it, but tracing or blantantly copying your reference makes no sense unless you understand a lot of the foundations everyone knows to be true... You should understand that tracing and reference imply different things. i can use a photo of a completely unrelated topic as reference for a design i am working on and that is the nature of it. However i wouldnt be able to trace the same image to get the same effect. This is what i said about undeveloped eyes in art... some people are mature enough to see nor understand how amateurish traced art looks so bad and it also begs the question of photorealism in art, how is it any better than a photograph?

[bearsclover]

[Germ01]

[kumod]

[antx]

Two things I have to say:

First: About that sample of a traced image that was posted on top of this page, I really can�t see anything wrong with that. It�s the way to do it IMHO. He obviously needed a skull of a horse (I belive it�s a horse, is it?) for his picture and was probably looking for reference and found this photo. If that thing comes in so perfectly fitting his needs and matches the perspective and pose so well, then why the hell not using it? It�s not a horse skull we was going for its the whole thing he did, the idea he had and wanted to bring to a picture. Art is not about "look everybody, I take a pencil and draw all lines by myself". And that leads me to the other thing I wanted to say...

Second: When I see people complaining about others to trace and calling that cheaters, I get the feeling that drawing and painting is nothing than a huge competition or a game with strict rules for them. Come on, that�s crap cos how you make something doesn�t matter. The result is what counts.
Those people who trace from photos and then show of with their great sence for form and shape are annoying, okay, but why bother about them? They just fool themself and even if they get lots of good critics for their "art" they still know deep inside what the truth really looks like (which must be a very unpleasant feeling). What does this change for others?

[togusajr]

antx - you do have to admit, the photo traced at the top of this page isnt very flattering to the photo. the lines are sloppy and do not show off the changing form, all lines are equally emphasized and do not have any taper, and once it was painted, it was flat and lacking in any local colour. Beyond those simple points, with art, there is a simple thing called craft and finese. craft is the quality to which something is done and the effort and pride in making it. finese is the practice in mark making that you can see in simple strokes.

of course the results count, but i dont see very many quality results here on sijun nor on the other forums. there are few artist that share work online that i believe have sucha great understanding of their craft and would get away with tracing in a good way. of course there are the malachis and the others that impress those with immature eyes, but i guess since they number in the tens of thousands and there are only a few people at the level of a mullins or lemen or chen, traced rubbish is ohhh'ed and ahh'ed at.

[Chthonic Divinity]