Do Professionals trace?

I talk about the practical usage of tracing, which is also practiced in the professional work environment

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[misterprickly]

Another good reason for tracing is when you need specific information, regarding what it is that you are drawing.
When Alex Ross paints a Batman poster, he needs to know more than just light and shadow; he needs to know how the light will interact with batman's skin, costume, gadgets and background.
It's an argues task that pays off huge!

Filmation used it for, pretty much, all their cartoons.
Bashki used it, to an amazing extent.

My problem is, when it becomes the *only* tool used.
When it stops being a guide and starts being the leader.

[TherealChainsawmaniac]

bruh out of my 7 years in the industry, tracing has saved my ass so much times in meeting my deadlines and saving me time

[verihimthered]

"There is no original thought." But you can sure as hell make some crazy combinations

[KoongYe]

Stigmatization of a practice only limits potential of art and artists.

[joelmayerprods]

Never draw what you can copy, never copy what you can trace, never trace what you can cut out and paste up. - Wallace Wood

[lunerlilly]

Yes many do (professionals.) It's ok to trace things and convert it into your own work. (Aka making real changes not a copy paste) I watched a guy trace a girl's hair who was running to get the motion right on his body structure design pose. I've watched people trace a real life room display to put their characters on. And now with new tools you can use in art program's to make a 3D model in basic form to trace.
*tracing is partially done because sometimes our brains 🧠 can't wrap around the idea of what we want to draw.*
I've also done the warm up method. It really does help a lot for muscle memory.

[andyc.]

THIS! Tracing is only bad if the person takes full credit (if it was traced over art such as a drawing or animation) and/or if they profit off it (case that happened to me some time ago). Sort of a re-color but more elaborate I would say.

[dissonanceparadiddle]

When i want to learn to draw a character on model tracing is either the first or second thing i do. Before breaking it into easy to build 3d shapes

[ashleyferguson]

Thank you so much for covering this very touchy subject!

[kannonfps]

for years i've "told" myself that i should not trace, that i should learn how to draw everything from reference even tho i had no idea how etc, then ultimately quitted art altogether many time because of that (not just that but was playing a big part)

then recently i started tracing (breaking down the image) and boy it made a whole world of a difference for me to learn... my lineart and lines in general a much more confident, when i do a reference study of something similar to something i traced before it end up look much better than when i didn't trace and randomly "studied" without understanding shit and so on.

i have no clue why for so long i thought that i should not trace, i don't recall anyone telling me it's bad or anything but my guess is that my ego was the actual problem. i told and convinced myself that unless it was painful it would not be true learning or something or that i would not own my skill... where in reality that's litteraly how most of us learned how to write in the first place, we learned how to properly write the letters down by tracing them t'ill we didn't needed that to write said letters

[zach]

To practice drawing, I would trace a drawing every da and then try to redraw it from memory at night for about 100 days. I feel off when my phones pen broke.

[bloopboop]

Rotoscoping is hell haha. I've had a few projects where I needed to rotoscope and I've learned I never want to do it again. Very rarely do you use any of your brain and it becomes very monotonous work.

[nathanhollow]

Tracing shouldn't be controversial but it is. Are you tracing to get attention or to study art and improve your skills? Ultimately, the intent is what it comes down to, I feel.

[Armitox]

Funny I'm getting into Rotoscoping this month and you come up with this video 5 days ago. Appreciate it. More people need to hear it

[zorkman]

Would love to see a video about blind contour drawing and the best way to get value from the practice. I remember drawing without looking at the screen for fun a few times, but I didn't realize people actually did it to practice.

[v-mi]

Tysm for this video. I’m currently working for a big YouTube channel that wants me to do an animation/animatic type of video for a song on a tight deadline. I was looking for ways to speed up my process and I ended up getting a few free 3D models from Sketchfab to trace over, I was starting to worry that this is a bad thing but at the same time I don’t have to time to redraw one and the same object in different angles over and over again if there’s free 3D models that fit perfect with my scenes. I usually don’t really trace like that so I was having a whole inner debate about if it’s morally correct to use those free 3D models in my art/animation lol, a lot of people told me it’s ok but I still feel like it’s a bit of a controversial thing to do especially if it’s not your own 3D models. I feel better about using those techniques now though after watching your video :3

[keyframesdaggers]

Tracing is no different a tool than using a calculator. I don’t see people mocking others for not doing math in their heads.

[TheKevphil]

Every illustrator (and fine artist) who works realistically traces or projects photo reference. Saying otherwise marks you as an amateur.

[AgsmaJustAgsma]

13:11 Thank you! People underestimate how powerful blind drawing is. Really fun at parties, too.

[thartmann]

My final in a 2D animation class I'm taking is making an emotion change animation. I chose to do a character without a mouth, so a lot of that motion is communicated by complex body language at a strange perspective from below the character. I was a bit worried that I'll get docked out portfolio review, since the essence of the motion was traced from reference footage I shot myself, but after watching this I'm more confident that my professors will see the value in the choice