Well I never traced anything (I think), but I have got a question. Tracing is, as far as I understood, defined as a copy of any original.
What about Harry Potter or House MD portraits drawn by very talented artists- is that tracing or not?

But apart from that, I think it's not a crime to use originals for improving your skills, or taking them as reference.

Sorry if I didn't get the tracing thing, I went though the definitions so far and didn't understand it yet.

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I'm so awfully glad I'm beta.

Lots of people don't seem to know what tracing is... Well, it's when you take a piece of paper (or perhaps a new layer in an art program) and put it over somebody else's work, so you can see the lines, and draw over them to make an exact copy, which they may or may not make a few changes to later.

Copying freehand is not the same as tracing- that's eyeballing. That's when you just look at someone else's art and try to copy the lines.

You can tell a trace from a freehand copy because when you overlay the trace with the original art, the lines will match up perfectly. A copy won't, though it will look very similar to the original.

The celebrity portrait thing gets tricky, but I'll tell you something I told someone else- that's when referencing comes in. Referencing uses multiple sources instead of making a copy of just one picture. You look at them to get an idea of how to draw something, but you don't directly copy just one thing.

Also, tracing will not significantly improve skills- at least, not in ways that can't be done better with other methods. Copying will help you improve, and drawing from life will help you improve the most.

The bottom line, however, is that making an exact copy of someone else's art is a copyright violation and we don't think that belongs here on deviantART.

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_{REJECT deviantART's faulty policy on tracing.
Anti-Tracing and Vectoring Without Permission Petition}

well, it's a translation problem.
insert 'tracing' and you will get the german word for 'copy'- one word, two meanings.
But tracing obviously does not mean copy.

Actually I never recognized tracing here (maybe because I evade fan art), children love to trace and when you grow older, you are switching to similar copies.

Thanks anyways

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I'm so awfully glad I'm beta.

Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were from Germany! *is a dumb American*

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_{REJECT deviantART's faulty policy on tracing.
Anti-Tracing and Vectoring Without Permission Petition}

Deep in our hearts we're all.. dumb.

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I'm so awfully glad I'm beta.

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_{REJECT deviantART's faulty policy on tracing.
Anti-Tracing and Vectoring Without Permission Petition}

I totally agree! >_< So many effin' deviations that you can obviously notice they took a screencap and used a program to like color ontop and say its theres. D: Or vectors. ;_;

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~DigiChan~

Total agreement

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"Bide your time, and hold out hope" ~Gankutsuou

Gah >-< Tracing is a lack of creativity and character! If people want to draw something, they should use their imaginations!

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I support NaruSaku/KibaHina BETCH!



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