Tracing: My Two Cents
I could care less about the fine details of copyright law and whether it or not is legal to post a traced anime screenshot on a website. What bothers me is an art site's official policy considering tracing to be art, and then seemingly welcoming it.
Art should be something the artist worked on to create. We all are at different stages of learning and improving, but I salute artists that try their best to create something on their own, even if it is not of the same "quality" as the official art they could have traced. Those are the artists that will get better, since they are trying to learn for themselves how to render shapes as they see them and what constitutes a good composition, while the tracers stagnate, mindlessly copying the predetermined lines before them. Encouraging dA members to move away from tracing or heavily referencing another artist's work is a much better way of "nurturing [their] inner artist" than simply giving tracing a blanket stamp of approval.
Based on the public outcry, it seems most members of deviantArt hold a similar view of tracing as I do. Therefore, I do not understand why, if "every staff member, volunteer, and member is a contributing factor to deviantART’s success," the community's opinions are being so condescendingly shot down in favor of merely following some legal minimum.
The ideal deviantArt that I envision in my mind is a place where all the members self-moderate and only post the art that they themselves know they have tried their hardest to create. That is primarily why I am disgusted by this issue: this policy officially lowers the standards for what is acceptable and discourages self-moderation. This policy goes against "a passion for excellence, quality and creativity" or any attempt "to instill these values in our community."
We need to stop worrying about what is legal, and instead consider what would be best for deviantArt as a community of growing artists. I believe allowing tracing runs counter to the goals deviantArt itself proclaims.
Unheard
Devious Comments
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LOLOLOLOLOLOL ERROR!!!
Meep meep!
If YouTube, Twitter, and FaceBook formed an alliance, it would be called "YouTwitFace"
All that tracing does, as far as I can see, is produce a near mechanical reproduction. That's fine if you're tracing or lightboxing your own work in order to have a clean copy, or making something for your own amusment. But we are not reproductionists. Nor are we fourth graders with "how to draw horses" books pressed up against windows. Tracing is fun because it does allow you a shortcut to work that looks pretty good, but it isnt art. It isnt your skill being praised.
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I'm sure my gentle naivité will survive.
Blog: [link]
To me, this just proves that dA is focusing more one its social networking features than providing any semblance of quality control.
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The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow.
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Behold my websiteness!
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Thou shalt not think any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a pedophile. Some people are just nice.
Even non-beginning artists need to reference sometimes. If no one like you is around for me to ask to stand in a ridiculous position, I would need to try to find a picture to figure out how shoulders work (though I would not be copying it exactly, but trying to understand how the pose would look).
Like I've told you before, you've graduated from so heavily referencing the poses of official art. Now I want to see some more awesome unique fanart from you.
I have a version of my Zero drawing in progress with the reference pictures I used right on the Photoshop file. I needed to use references, so that I actually drew Zero looking somewhat like Zero, but I didn't copy any of them. Referencing heavily, where you copy the source exactly (without tracing), is okay to learn, but not really original. You know I copied the poses of Pokemon all the time when I was younger by looking at Pokemon cards. But now we are both well at the stage where we can look at the official art to be sure to get the details right, and then draw them without needing to copy the poses.
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Thou shalt not think any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a pedophile. Some people are just nice.
Also, it is fine to trace your own work. If you wanted to trace Bard in the Trees to a clean new sheet of paper, so that you don't have erased pencil lines messing up your colored penciling, or if you want to adjust something that you already inked (like trying again on the flute), that is perfectly acceptable.
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