The Worst Type Of Art In The Art Community: TRACING ART 

*_what is your biggest pet peeve as an artist?_*

In my opinion, tracing is a great way to start your journey on being an artist, you can learn many from it. The only thing is, never consider it as an original piece, or get bombed by ten homing missiles.

As a comic artist, I have definitely traced over poses and items to save time. It's especially important with deadlines to not lose sanity. But I only ever use assets in the clip studio store that are provided for me to use I don't think there's any harm in using tracing as a tool, but tracing other's artwork and/or lying about drawing illustrations from scratch is a big nono

People who find any kind of tracing (even 3d models) as cheatinf are fonna have a heart attack when they find out 80% of art in WEBTOONS arent even hand drawn and mostly premade assets and tracing models. We have to make 55-60 colored panels a week, no human can do that with JUST their hands

I have been tracing a lot of poses in the past months form photos made purposely by models for artist. I got insanely better and understand way better where things are meant sto be. People shouldn’t be ashamed to trace photos.

Tracing is mixed for me. It can help with learning to break up the body and learn to draw shapes but posting it is where it turns everything around.

The video is great … BUT THAT MIGUEL O’HARA ART YOU DREW HAS ME FEELING ALL TYPES OF WAYS 😍

I watched a documentary once on how the manga GANTZ was made. They used 3D models and then traced over them, then fleshed out the characters based on that. It allowed them to break a lot of new ground in terms of complex poses and special effects. If it's good enough for a professional studio, it's good enough for you. Don't let the clueless online art community dictate your workflow because of their arbitrary and stupid "rules".

When I was 6 or 7, I did copy art from my favourite comics, and I was really proud about it, because I achieved in doing something pretty. I never pretended I did them from scratch and was always really happy to say "it's from that comic cover". While it didn't teach me how to draw, it helped me with how to use a pen and small useful drawing habits, also with being patient and precise. People who just steal another artist art are bad, the rest is a nice tool for progression.

For me personally, I only feel comfortable tracing my own photos/drawings. This is mostly for copyright reasons, but I also believe that tracing my own work is harmless because I’m literally the one who made it. It also helps me identify issues in my work when I go back to trace old art and see my past mistakes. I don’t think tracing other people’s photos or art is okay unless for practice, so if you really want to trace just trace something you own lol

Iconic of Mohammed to draw the ✨SLUTTIEST✨ men as physically possible

As part of my master's study I shadowed a few professional fantasy illustrators and part of the process is actually tracing photo reference. They would create a collage made of photos and quick doodles they do in photoshop (like eyes from one model, mouth/nose from another, etc) and would then trace it as a new layer. Then print the line art, mount it to a canvas under a few layers of acrylic medium and oil paint on top of that line art. Their work was stunning, but one thing they made clear is that in a professional setting and when you're dealing with deadlines, shortcuts like that can shave a day or two off production. That's a day or two you get to rest in between gigs. They always said that only art students argue over this stuff.

I never experienced tracing myself, my art teacher, who I was close with professionally, said to “follow with your eyes” and ever since then I’ve learned how to look for negative space and such. It’s not easy as tracing but it helps build confidence.

Feels like the real problem is just people being honest.

for me tracing is like use other people's code, it may work, but don't use it without understanding how and why it works

For a traditional and digital artist like me, tracing is a part of my art process when digitalizing an artwork (since I usually draw sketches traditionally). So, when I want to digitalize a traditional art I made, I just take a pic of it and draw over it. Tracing over your own artwork is okay, especially when drawing is a just a hobby for you, but when you start drawing over someone else's artworks, that's where the problem starts. At some point you have to start working on improving your art process/style and doing less tracing. Do not be afraid to change certain aspects of your ideal art style because reaching a point where you are satisfied with your art style is not instant. It can be a slow/fast process depending on which artists you are and you can use tracing to help you improve faster or stagnate as an artist.

Tracing to me is a learning tool. Wether you’re practicing deconstructing, trying to get the hang of perspective, trying to emulate a style that inspires you that you can then try to replicate on your own It’s just as much of a tool as anything else. As long as credit is given to the original creator and it doesn’t become a crutch

Tracing is on edge with me. I feel like it’s good to “trace” BODY references. Not drawings, but actual people who model for a living. Tracing other peoples art is what’s really on edge for me. If you really just trying to practice poses and breaking up the different body parts, yeah, thats cool. But TRACING, TRACING. Like line for line on the hair, eyes, clothes.. and then just recoloring it. I use to do it a lot. Trace FNF sprites and recolor them. I wouldn’t post it anywhere though, I just did it for fun. “Tracing” so you can get better at drawing is good, but tracing is… eh..

I feel like as someone who's just getting started drawing again tracing should be fine. Especially when it comes to using reference; I trace over them to practice getting a layout of how that character is drawn. Especially when it comes to drawing Pokémon and Transformers since they can be very complex and complicated. But there's a difference in tracing reference work to get a feel for the character and tracing out of laziness. You'll never find your own style if you keep tracing. You'll use it as a crutch thus be exposed and driven off by the community at large for good reason. No one likes liars and cheats

Mohammed, I missed your commentary on you drawing art so much 💙💙💙💙✨✨ you drew Miguel so well!

I'm a webtoon creator and I use 3d models most of the time, trying to update weekly while also working on a portfolio (and a visual novel that will also be a part of the portfolio) is really exhausting so I would definitely go crazy without the models lmao

idk, I recently saw a dude with hundreds of thousands of followers on instagram that self described as an 'art director' and he meant that he gives prompts to generate art with an AI tool and he was uploading 5-10 pieces of 'art' a day. I'd say he is the personification of the 'worst type of' anything in the Art Community.

When I was younger I thought tracing others art and claiming it as mine was okay, soon enough I learned that it wasn’t okay but the tracing I did help shape my art skill and style. I’m against tracing others art and claiming it but using it in private can be helpful! (Just don’t post it or claim it)

I find tracing to be extremely relaxing and I do it often but I never publish those works

ALSO, LORD those shapes in your miguel artwork are so good omg

i genuinely believe people who trace, they hate drawing but they love painting. I had a friend who was tracing and it was taking him hours upon hours and so much effort to finish a project. Of cource it wasn't an original, but his work was top notch.

I don't mind tracing for quick anatomy learning, but MAN do I hate tracing every little thing, trace the pose, fine, but following the same line art, or not contributing your own art style into it. You cannot trace someone's art and call it your own, I don't care how much you change it. Don't get me started on realism, they say artists from centuries ago used to trace, that's wrong. They used grids and still looked at a REAL person

As a kid I used tracing as a way to build up muscle memory and to practice drawing straight lines, using it to learn and to figure out how to draw is fine if it’s not advertised as their own work, honestly stealing art isn’t worth it, you’ll get found out eventually and it’s easier to just practice your own style lol

Thank you for making this I saw that first TikTok on a Facebook reel I had so much to say but then dropped it . Your video was absolutely amazing thanks again

For me, tracing helps me learn anatomy and different angles of drawing it. I have a hard time with proportions. Then I use that to dissect how the artist drew it and draw myself a mini guideline. Most of my drawings are front facing drawings of characters head so I sometimes use it to expand and be more dynamic.

I agree with what most everyone is saying-tracing can be good for beginner's practice, but it crosses the line when it comes to posting since it's technically a copy of someone else's work. However, I still think there's some exceptions. For example, in the first video of the lady tracing and watercoloring actors, the point of lady's art is not the subject but the painting style. She's turning a realistic photo into a watercolored painting. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But training someone's original work is different.

Maaan, i absolutely agree with everything you've said. And your speedpaint in the background is truly amazing😢

I’ve honestly been scared of tracing, even in private! 😅 I’m glad this video has taught me tracing is ok as long as I’m not taking credit! I will definitely try tracing out to learn proportions. Thank you :)

Loving how you keep drawing men with DUMPTRUCKS And I'm ALL HERE FOR IT

I learned to draw by tracing when I was 7. Drawing directly over those thick-lined coloring books. Did that for about two weeks. Then, the next step was drawing the same pictures without tracing. And to my delight, I was drawing. I could only draw what I saw. Imaginative drawing or drawing from life was non-existent. Fast forward 23 years and learning to draw again using the fundamentals. I can now draw without tracing. It's much better, imo, but tracing as a beginner is not cheating if that's where you start as a means to an end. I'm definitely against presenting a tracing as "yours" and not giving credit to the original artist or phoographer.

Ive recently started to cut up photos of animals and paint over them, using the colours of the photo to recreate extinct animals. They are just in my personal "no one sees this" sketchbooks but they are pretty helpfull so far. Pretty different to tracing as such as it can be way too much

my only experience with tracing was in my pre-teens, me n my sister used to trace anime characters and chibis from several Christopher Hart books, mostly to study Manga styles. now, I study figure and anatomy in highschool, so when I use pinterest refs I just measure them. I'm also a sucker for dynamic poses so I'm not really attracted to the stiff, traced look

With the raise of AI, I have a hunch that tracing will become more prevalent, and tracing will easily fly under the radar. It's a match made in heaven for less skilled artists or even those with no art skill at all.

I trace as a part of the studying references process, to break stuff into shapes

Your videos are bangers, glad I found your channel. Tracing is okay to start but it's going to hold you back in the long term.

For me its like training wheels. I have trouble visualizing when i first started and don't get me started with anatomy. Tracing helped me get some insights how form and proportions work. When i feel that i'm confident enough i slowly moved on to practicing freehand.

Tracing, among the uses for practice and beginning art, can also be a way to have a fun "coloring book" outline. You can experiment with colors on a form you didn't draw. Just don't pose it as all your own, because the linework is still a large part of an artpiece.

The only time tracing is good is when you are tracing your own art. For instance, you messed up the coloring but really liked the drawing that's when you trace

I love your art style - the linework is so nice and I definitely don't think it's stiff

In my opinion if it is for anatomy training purposes, It's fine, but other than that I feel like It's cheating. Observation is also a skill that an artist should have and develop. It feels to me like people who trace want to be good artists but not put the work for it.

Generally, my process is to find 2-3 references with the pose (or part of the pose) and then make a super rough sketch. Then, I start refining, and if I notice things are looking wonky while doing that, I'll shrink down the reference to thumbnail size and trace the area I'm stuck on. I'll take that traced bit, size it back up (so it's nice and blurry), and put it behind my sketch and use it as a guideline. I find that helps me to avoid some of the stiffness that can come from heavily referencing or making a wire trace (I have no clue what the real word is for this, but it's like a stick figure with the joints marked) especially since I tend to not stick to realistic proportions. Honestly, what's helped me the most with my art is not sharing it all of the time and doing style studies where I find one aspect of another artist that I like and try to figure out why the heck I like that bit so much. Then, I mimic it in my sketchbook, first directly copying, then playing art telephone with it by drawing it over and over without the OG reference so it blends with my own style. I've found this has helped me notice so many more anatomy quirks than directly tracing.

I am here for your drawings and your commentary 😊 I have only used tracing for anatomy purposes. I am not great at drawing shapes and use 3D models to trace over for sketching. I am now learning more how to use different shapes and different methods like the bean method for body torsos. And the loomis method for face shapes. I think thats fine. Its when its the exact same drawing and then just different colours to hide the fact that they traced others that I dislike.

I legit could listen to you talk about anything all day … like I have no idea about anything concerning art but I have binge watched your videos for like 3 hours now 🤯🤯🤯

Tracing is a tool for learning, not a crutch you can pass off as your own work entirely and monetise and people need to learn to credit references.. thats just my perspective and opinion

The only time I ever “trace” is when I’m doing shape studies of character designs which I think is an okay way to do it! I use a thick red ballpoint brush to block in the core shapes of designs that I like so I can take away the original art and see the shapes alone, these will never be seen and are often deleted after a new days once I’ve done them! That way I can use similar shapes in designs without taking anything district from the original artist and it never comes off as something trying to mimic them and instead taking inspiration and reference c:

as an artist it can rlly help as a beginner tracing over bases to understand it helped me a lot.

I LOVE LISTENING TO YOUR VOICE ITS SO CALMING AND NICE😻😻😻

I love watching your vids for not only the perspectives you have but also the half naked men, they're kind of iconic and my favorite. But yeah. As a mixed artist, I trace occasionally but I also don't really post my artwork online except to friends. I rarely take commissions, and when I do I have the prior education and experience to not need to trace things. I think a lot of the people on tiktok that say tracing is their way of life or use it dishonestly, I think they're just at an immature stage and unfortunately there isn't a whole lot we can do about this. Its up to them to grow.

i think tracing is okay if you use it to practice and learning anatomy, for exaple, or when youre meeting deadline, or youre comic artist, or cant get pose right for long time. otherwise i think its bad, because it doesnt make you learn anything if youre relying on it always. and its what i see on tiktok commonly, that people are tracing poses just because they dont know how to draw them, instead of trying to learn. in my expierience with tracing, i couldnt draw any pose without tracing because i wasnt learning anything from it, my art looked very stiff, but when i started learning anatomy and using tracing to break pose to shapes and then drawing it myself, made my art better and not stiff. plus i could draw lots for poses from my mind

The lasso tool and liquify are my go to after tracing a 3d model, by moving things around and exaggerating them with liquify it makes them look a hell of a lot less stiff.

i remember growing up and tracing old anime style 'how to draw' pages when i was still new to fullbody proportions and understanding stylization. this had to be back in 2nd-3rd grade [ 11th grade now ]; i did it to make gifts for birthday buddies, and i remember having a ton of fun with learning curves and tracing the eyes lmao overtime, it helped with not only my line confidence but with limb placement/movement as well! eventually kid me realized i wasn t going anywhere anymore though, and began drawing by hand again. but even with that small blip i felt the improvement and where i could continue to grow on my own, so i completely see how it could be so useful to beginner artists. tracing is absolutely a sharp tool in the shed, but should be used with caution; you can hurt yourself and hurt others with it 😅

I drew a bit as a kid, and at a point I was starting to get real serious about it. I drew a lot, and most of the drawing were tracing. Some drawing were original, but were really lacking. So I tried to improve bit by bit. After a while I stopped drawing because a lot of people kept telling that tracing wasn't drawing. I lost all motivation and stopped drawing completely. Now I don't like drawing anymore.

I started my art journey by tracing art, knowing it was wrong and never dared to post it or claim it as my own. And it made me learn so much, fast skipping to the point where I had some solid bases of anatomy and from there I started doing my own. So I consider it something as a tool for artists, but the use of it is what really makes the difference

Love the way you drew Miguel O’Hara! He’s my favourite spider-man and I love seeing fanart of him, gave me a good laugh while also being very impressive.

I love the double lines in your drawing and Miguel

I’ve always seen tracing POSES as an alright thing, especially when just making a rough armature sketch for the anatomy and proportion. It makes it a lot easier and I tend to get discouraged when I can’t get a dynamic pose for a character of mine, and it ends up looking bad. Tracing other peoples’ art is a big nope from me, but I personally think tracing stock images of people in different poses/situations is alright, especially if your art is stylized and you’re not copying directly. Hell, I barely consider it tracing when I’m just blocking out shapes. To a degree it’s the same, but it leaves wiggle room for creativity and stylization which is important to me. I’m still working on breaking free from this and getting more comfortable with fullbody poses by eye of course, but sometimes it’s nice to sit back and draw without worrying about focusing on every detail. I do it as a hobby, so I guess it’s not as high-stakes

A few years ago i traced more often but solely for the structure. I had this one tiktok post i made where i was tracing a screenshot from a video game trailer because at the time i struggled to eyeball structure. So i traced the image and included it in my time lapse. Someone saw this and said because i traced for the structure i was by default a bad artist. I happen to know that this is not true. After i traced i modified things and even completely changed the style to fit what i drew at the time. It just confuses me why people see this situation and decide they have to try and make me feel bad for the way i draw. Now if i trace for a drawing and i record it for a tik tok i start at my complete sketch or lineart rather than at the stage that i would be tracing just avoid people needing to be jerks about the small portion i traced for

I love your lineart technique!!! tryna get like you 😭

the art in the background you’re making is 🔥

As a person who graduated from art school, I can say that it's hard for me to create a pose in my mind. I draw on paper and sometimes I trace poses from photos on pinterest, bcs it helps me not make anatomy mistakes

Personally I think if you’re a beginner artist or you just want to try something new, tracing is a great way to learn about the art style you want. As long as u don’t claim it as a completely original piece. 👍

Your voice is so pleasant & soothing.

I used to trace a lot when I was younger, and to some extent, I think it helped me. I was really bad at art as a kid, but I loved to draw. And since I was taught shame at a young age, I was never confident in my drawings. So, I would trace some speed paint art on a piece of paper, and it made me feel accomplished. Now, I think my art has greatly improved as an adult. Do I think it was because I traced? Not entirely, but I think tracing helped me understand the layout of body shapes and how to even out my art. I’m still learning and developing my art style though.

i started my art journey as a kid by tracing over anime lol but now i make my own art that i dont trace and im proud of :D

i used to trace a lot back then - did it help? no. it made it very difficult for me to figure out my own artstyle, plus made it extremely hard to figure out right anatomy and proportions. im glad im out of that phase, and i wish new artist would realize that too. yalls art is amazing the way it is! i know everyone says "keep practicing" and i know it gets annoying, but its the truth. all the talented artists have been drawing for years now!! and if you keep practicing you will eventually get on their level as well :) good luck!

i only started getting into art recently (literally got a drawing tablet last week and started to just mess around for the 1st couple days) and have been looking up tutorials, tips, references, etc. obviously i still don't know the 1st thing about anything when it comes to bringing ideas to paper (or screen, i guess). but i recognized the importance of certain things; and when i say certain things, i mean EVERYTHING! proportions, anatomy, scetching, coloring, shadows and an endless list of literally everything. anyways, i found an artist whose art i loved and started tracing with the following plan: 1) trace the entire piece 2) trace it again but make changes in places and ways how i'd like to draw once i get good. assuming i'll fail at all of this, make mental notes why it failed. if i can't identify it come back at another time 3) draw the original again but only from reference, instead of tracing it 4) step 2 but reference instead of trace again 5) draw a similar piece from imagination 6) try to identify parts i'm most satisfied with and actually invest in learning how to improve at it. for example, general anatomy looks terrible but eyes & hair aren't too bad. ignore the anatomy for now and focus on solidifying eyes and hair. when i've worked through this with a couple artworks, in my mind, i should have a foundation solid enough that i'll be able to draw things from imagination and identify the most egregious problems without having to rely on other's works and be able to focus on improving those skills. now, i have a couple questions about this. is this a good or bad idea? if good, are there some alterations the steps that could improve it? i have a limited amount of time but are there any other things i should focus on while also doing this? i was thinking about waiting to step 5 before sharing it all online as an example of what i did, my progress and if/how it worked or didn't work and what i learned in the process. i'd obviously give credit to the original artist but is there anything else i should be paying attention to when doing this? alternatively, should i just not do this at all, since it's such a hot topic?

man the reason i started drawing really good is when i started trying to trace a bit of the head and the body, and i started to change it to referencing. It really helped me to have the motivate to draw when i started tracing a bit of the body and the head

Kinda off topic but I'm honestly so tired of seeing all of my favorite artists getting called "problematic" every single weeks, that word pissed me off so much. It's sad that few of them got hated so bad on Tiktok (always this stupid ugly app) they have to delete they account and never return. It's not that hard if you can just block them and minding your goddamn business instead of slandering them too many times in a row. Absolutely pathetic and annoying. (My English kinda ass but at least I try my best)

I used to be a tracer and traced art because I thought that was a good thing back in 2010's. However, I stopped during those time since I felt ashamed and wasn't really an artist. So I decided to became an artist by learning and tracing my own art or self when it comes to anatomy since I rather not repeat history of being a tracer.

The point is learning. Tracing could help people study and feel how to do things the way they desire. That can encompass basically anything, incoherent shapes to real poses to others art. But to post those for others to see regardless of appropriate credit ain't it. But it can work in case, again, if you're in doubt of your study and learning (w/credit). That's sort of it. Otherwise tracing things permitted to be traced or just public domain stuff to save time could make sense, though it may not help your skills if you're in a hurry, but it's not bad either.

I love Miguel in your art style so much 🩷🩷

1:10 no not the o'hara cake 😂

Fun fact: There are 647 definitions of the word run.

I think one of the best videos I ever saw about tracing was Laovaan's video about using 3d models from a few years ago. Even when tracing 3d models (which is perfectly ethical), you still can't trace the pose exactly. To prevent it from being stiff, you need to create a gesture over the 3d model so that you can still create the pose in your style.

Man, I love the guided access function on the Ipad for tracing. I use it at conventions for commissions as I am mainly a digital artist. I do my sketches on my ipad, trace the sketch onto the paper/into the conhon and refine/finish it there. It just saves so much time and spares the paper from getting erased to death :'D

I saw a video title where an artist was tracing over AI art? Like damn not only are u tracing but u are copying the other team🤣

My sister used to do that back when she was like 7 lol, it actually helped her a lot to make her own drawing style. Now she's actually amazing (no she no longer does tracing) I can understand people not liking others copying x or y art for monetary reasons, but there's still merit on this type of drawing for starters. The "art community" just sounds like a bunch of gatekeeping twats most of the time frfr.

I am starting my art journey, and to understand better face proportion and guide lines i look for a real human reference picture on internet, then make the circle and guidelines on top of the picture of the face (digitally) and then i follow the guidelines and the sketch while i draw in traditional way 😢 i dont know if thats like a bad thing to do, but its been truly helpful to make me simplify shapes and it improve my understanding

as i started of drawings with learning how to draw faces from tutorials on yt, i have never considered tracing in my entire 4 years of drawing. from the early practices of tutorials i got the muscle memory to draw faces in every angle and any expression i want so until i saw this video, i never rlly understood tracing that much considering i've been drawing for more than 4 years now lol

My rule is: If it is someone else’s art, DONT TRACE IT If you do trace a photo PUT A DISCLAIMER! I trace photos to get proportions and shapes correct, but I never post. And if I do I say I do.

I always tell beginners to start off tracing to learn basic shapes and how artists create their works but you should never go beyond using it for studies. You can get in actual legal trouble, especially with Japanese IPs, if they catch you trying to sell something you traced from their IP

It's a bit like playing a Quizz using Wikipedia or completing Doom on IDKFA, copying a text and changing the character names. Theres tons of reasons of to why you might need to have to resort to a shortcut at your job to achieve a certain thing because you're getting payed to deliver and solve proplems but as an Artist the battle with youself is the whole point. The journey towards your goal is often far more important than reaching the goal itself.

Beautiful art piece you made m8

As someone who has traced in the past and still does for practice, I think it’s perfectly fine to trace as long as you never claim it as your own. When I was very young and stupid I traced and put it online without credit. I regret that decision even though the post was taken down a few minutes later because I realized my mistake. Now I only trace for practice and all of my art pieces never use traced material. I made a stupid decision as a kid and had to live with the consequences so never trace and claim it as your own, you don’t wanna experience the stuff I did.

I have traced poses before to understand anatomy better. My biggest struggle is getting head size correct but I never post them. I'll use the trace overs as reference for head size since it's easier for me to get proper proportions if it's somewhat in my style.

I use tracing in these certain scenarios only 1. Tracing over my own art, I was working on a series before and my art style is a bit more complicated so sometimes if a character had to had there pose repeated I would trace over their old art 2. When learning a new art style, I’m learning a new art style and it’s complicated so I use the 3D posing apps to help me learn and trace off of that

Well for beginners, tracing is a great way of learning how things are actually done and practice it for their future artist career... Well i have been drawing for like 5 years now and got a problem drawing anatomy. And i am trying to fix things through drawing(or tracing) different poses /hand poses (you gotta learn first yk, just what works best for you)

Let's be honest : Ok, tracing can help you learning or drawing quicker. But really, drawing isn't only about the final result, if you're unable to draw correct anatomy or proportions, and you use tracing as a way to hide it, then your drawing is a fraude and don't represent your actual capacities I personally enjoy a drawing because of the hard work behind it and the skills of the artist. (And I mostly love the artist itself, not only a piece) Like, if you're tracing for an artwork, it will look good, ok nice, but it does not mean you as a person are a good artist. (Sorry if I made some mistakes, english isn't my native language)

idk I use tracing for things I really have difficulty with. I use it to help me with my weaknesses example: I have trouble drawing a nose and trace the forms of it, try drawing it and copy paste the tracing on my drawing to see where I could better my skill. IMO tracing should be used as a tool to check your proportions!! I used to trace only and that weakened my sketching while I was faster when it came to rendering. Now I use it as a tool to check if my proportions need fixing (put sketch on the go pic)

I used to trace, got over it then starting thinking of my own poses, then got inspired in some poses, then started dressing up in clothes that I'm going to draw and take pictures of myself to find the right pose I wanna do, it really help especially with anatomy

I used to trace other people's work for practice, never ever posted a single one of those drawings. And slowly I started to draw my own stuff and now I don't feel the need to trace anything at all :) so yeah I think it's pretty great for starting out

Whenever I start to lose faith in artists because they justify the weirdest things I’m so happy you make a video about it. I had so many artists recently weirdly try justifying tracing out of the blue. While I get that it isn’t a black and white situation I hate how artists deem any way you make art morally correct because honestly at that point I can’t see how it is much different to generated images anymore

I think at the end of the day , what upsets most people about tracing is laziness (?) While tracing is a step above something like AI generation ,both are seen as lazy because they forgo the learning process. Tracing is like getting a fish instead of learning to fish. So I think tracing is only a problem if it's used as a crutch long enough to reasonably ask ,is the artist trying to "avoid learning" said subject matter? I think it's healthy to trace and post it as original work but every time an artist traces ,what should happen on the side is a bunch of deconstruction and learning, the idea being " I shouldn't have to trace this next time". on the other hand ,For career artists -- understandable have a nice day, get that bread.

As an artist who still haven't mastered anatomy, I trace some part of my reference but sometimes I also do a breakdown of the reference into blocks/pieces, it really helps me to learn how to draw bodies

I’ve been trying to learn how to draw by tracing. I never upload online or anything or share it with anyone, but it has helped me a lot. I even trace photos of myself more often than not.