Tracing References... My Long and Boring Take on the Subject

General Forums Art Discussions
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I’d like to talk about tracing our references, and what it means to me.

I’d like to start by saying I have no formal training in art except for a few drawing classes I took my college years… so what I have to say is my own opinion from my experience over the years.

There’s lots of opinions out there in the art world about tracing your references vs. using a grid, measuring, or simply “eyeballing” your composition with your reference. (I consider plein air painting to be the ultimate in “eyeballing”. No tracing or color picking possible there!. :laughing:)

In traditional art, the use of a grid, a projector, a light box, or some form of measuring proportions is common. I’m sure everyone has heard at least once that “tracing is cheating”. If you are practicing to improve your “eyeballing” ability, then I suppose you could call it “cheating”. Other than that, how is tracing any different from using a grid? I see no real difference, other than tracing saves time.
And speaking of time… many artists, including myself, have deadlines to meet. Commissioned work needs to be timely and accurate. In my case, I have gained a pet portrait following that keeps me fairly busy during the holiday season. A quick outline trace of the subject saves a lot of time in the process. In commissioned realistic portraiture, it’s imperative to get a good “likeness” of your subject, or your clientele will quickly dwindle.

In Krita, you can get a quick proportional sketch of your subject with the reference photo, then proceed with your painting as usual. Tracing and color-picking are great learning tools, not to mention a huge time-saver versus using a grid or eyeballing. Using these tools have allowed me to get much better at judging proportions and colors because I can see the difference easily between my guesses and the reference. That’s why they are called “tools”. They save time and help with learning. I am not ashamed to say that I regularly use tracing in most of my commissioned portrait deadlines for those reasons.

But, not everything requires such accuracy of proportions like realistic portraiture does. A landscape, for example, can have lots of variation from your reference and still be very good, and even better than your reference.

So, this is where my passion lies. I don’t feel challenged by photo realism painting, and although it takes a lot of skill, I don’t admire it like I do looser, more creative work, like Nathan Fowkes’ art for example. It simply doesn’t give me the satisfaction that creative or stylized painting does.

So, getting back to tracing. I think it’s a great time-saving tool when needed, and no artist should ever feel like they are “cheating” by using it. But, for my own personal art, I am currently on a very satisfying journey to develop my own style and be more creative without the need to paint “exactly like the reference”.

Many of you artists here on the Krita forum have so much creativity it astounds me. I am not to the point where I can just paint from imagination (although I do a few from time to time, like the “Trucking Cowboy” character).

I credit this forum for giving me the inspiration to expand my horizons beyond my boring realism art and look forward to all the new challenges and conversations here. :heart: :slightly_smiling_face:

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Your realism art is definitely NOT boring! I like to look closely and see how you achieved things, that’s the way I learn.

I think it’s a great time-saving tool when needed, and no artist should ever feel like they are “cheating” by using it.

Definitely, tracing saves time! And, when you trace, you still have to fill it in!! Lots can go wrong with that. It takes skill to get the right colors in the right shape, in the right place! You haz such skill! :+1:

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You should use the tools that are within your reach, that’s why they exist.

The great masters of the past learned and worked with these tools and are still admired for it today. Until ~100 years ago, art schools from the Middle Ages onwards were all based on coloring in templates previously projected onto the canvas by the tools of the time. These projections were often drawn more or less accurately onto the canvas with pencils, charcoal, whatever was available at the time, so that they could continue painting even in the absence of daylight, which was what the projections of the time were usually based on. Nobody accuses them of cheating.

Besides, I sometimes suspect that those who want to persuade you that this is cheating are only doing so to make you doubt and to gain advantages for themselves. As I said, it’s just a suspicion.

For my part, I use the tools that are available to me in Krita, whereby I always paint landscapes freely from my imagination, and I only used reference images for real things that I had to paint as realistically as possible. I do this because in the professions I learned, carpentry, technical drawing in mechanical engineering, and surveying/engineering, I was always bound to high precision.
Finally, as a surveyor, I was bound to the highest precision, because we were in charge of gas pipeline networks from planning to completion, where a millimeter deviation in one place can lead to a meter (or more) deviation a hundred meters further on. And anyone who has seen the consequences of gas explosions as often as I have knows why accuracy is the highest law there.
That’s why I loved painting freely, being able to “invent” landscapes without constraints. But I would never consider it cheating to use references or the tools Krita offers, they exist to be used.

Michelist

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I feel like tracing could also be part of the whole “learning to draw” part.

Tracing makes you draw on top of an already existing picture. Like that, you draw and learn with confidence. It’s like riding a bike with training wheels! It’s bad that others don’t see how they are actually demonizing a practice that could help beginners…

I also have trouble with drawing landscapes, and grids aren’t really my thing. But with tracing, I can draw freely, choosing to either draw my line on an already existing one, or to create my own. And with enough practice, I’m sure I soon won’t need to trace anymore!

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Yup, why would someone say using reference is cheating? No person isn’t using reference while drawing?! How do they know what a tree looks like? How do they know how water drips? Because they saw it! :laughing: That is already using reference in itself! That is what I think at least…

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The pitfall with tracing is that you still need a good understanding of what you are doing for it to be useful and to get good results.

If you don’t understand what you are doing, you might end up tracing too many or too few lines (in case you are doing line art). You might end up with poses or expressions that look to stiff because most art, even realistic styles, will have some subtle exaggeration going on. You might trace from a photo where the subject just does look weird because it’s capturing slightly weird moment, or one that isn’t best suited for a 2D representation or for your style. And for portraits, not every photo is automatically capturing the essence of a person or look a lot like them.

And of course, tracing limits you to exactly what you have available as reference.

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With your point, it feels like it would be even worse with grids :thinking:

In the end, every beginner who starts drawing will end up with something awkward, be it with tracing, using grids, using references, or simply using imagination. That’s where we all begin, and the only solution is to practice again and again and again :smile:

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Thank you @CrazyCatBird ! :slight_smile:

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Yeah, I’m also not a big fan of grids. I think the best way is to break things down by what’s meaningful to the object you are portraying; constructing faces with the ball + central line + eyes line thing, constructing bodies with a basic mannequin or basic lines of shoulder, hips, spine, that kind of stuff, generally breaking objects down into basic geometrical shapes (well, boxes mostly), that kind of stuff.

But in the end, I don’t really care about how other people do their art.

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@Michelist Well said, and some good points.

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Exactly! :slight_smile:

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I agree, being too reliant on every line and detail can be a limiting factor with tracing. But by pointing out these pitfalls, hopefully we can try to avoid those things. :slight_smile:

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Tools are there to be used, but you have to know the when and why and how. If you’re just focused on results that match a reference, then there are tools that can help shortcut that. If you’re focused on stylizing or doing your own thing, then it could be a crutch- something that helps you start walking, but if you rely on it too much you forget how to walk without it, instead of leaning on it when you need it. And then you won’t be able to find your own pace, your own style.

I prefer not to trace (I’m actually really bad at tracing, the lines come out shaky) or color pick a reference, but comparing the original outline and colors of something to something copied by eye is still a good way to study. Sometimes the shape or color is different than you thought it was, but you won’t learn that unless you compare it.

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Absolutely! I’m finding the more I practice, the better my eye gets at getting it right, or changing it the way I want it. It’s given me the inspiration and ability to be more creative.

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I think if you are doing the work professionally, then there are only two things that matter – the end result and time invested (because you can never have too much time!).

Of course yeah, the usual disclaimer about copyright and plagiarism applies, but other than that you are a craftsman delivering for the customer. Why would you slow yourself down, or risk producing less accurate painting?

On the other hand, if you are a hobbyist, doing things for yourself, and trying to improve, then probably tracing too accurately may harm artwork (as it was mentioned, it could become stiff and unnatural).

I am trying to stay clear of tracing, but I’m starting to think that eyeballing and measuring also isn’t that great, because it seems to take a very long time to get good at it. And is that even a worthwhile investment? Even if you post casually to hear a few nice words about your work, people look at the end result. That makes me think I should incorporate loose tracing to my work more, so that I can focus on things that really matter, like the composition and the artistic expression.

Sometimes I’m so exhausted after spending two hours molding the character into a vaguely believable human pose, that I’m starting to question if it makes any sense :laughing:

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My sentiments exactly :laughing:
I don’t enjoy commissioned work half as much as my own art, and all those reasons are probably why! :slight_smile:

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That was once the reason for me to give up figurative painting, from that moment on I had so incredibly much more fun painting free from the imagination, doing my own “thing”, doing what I want, that I can’t describe it, it’s so absolutely fantastic not to be bound by “rules”! I can only assume that a person released from prison after decades of incarceration will probably feel a similar way to how I felt then and still feel.

Michelist

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I always trace the outside of my image to get started. I also may trace where the eyes , nose and mouth are. Then I start filling it all in with Krita brushes to get a realstic look. I even traced the Abandoned Church I did recently. I just wanted it to have all the right proportions. I have never been good about drawing people at the right proportions. Something is usually screwed up like lopsided eyes or strange mouth and jaw. I gave up a long time ago trying to eyeball it to realistic proportions. I’m not selling my work, so I want it to look as real as I imagine it.

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It’s a great conversation. I think professional work is probably a different question to casual drawing. Up until using Krita I had my references on a completely different device which ensured no tracing or colour picking. I always use references but don’t trace or colour pick. I do want to get good at sensing colour, and have found since doing this art I enjoy seeing more of the subtle colours in the sky and other nature. I find the HSV adjustment feature invaluable for getting the colour right in the context of my picture.
I am always amazed when drawing a face how incredibly minor differences make a face look completely different, older, angrier, happier etc. I guess this is due to our ability to be able to tell apart one person from millions of others and what emotion they are having even though we all have eyes, nose and mouth.
I had a struggle when starting digital art, coming from Pixel art, as to what rules to apply to myself. Should I use an infinitely small brush to make details or use a bigger brush and construct the details using carefully placed overlapping strokes? Pixel Art has some rules, and that is why it looks like Pixel Art. But not everybody follows exactly the same rules there either.
I guess in the end it is a matter of expectations. What skills are the audience thinking they are appreciating? Alternatively, are they just looking for an image that looks good as a whole, and that is the skill?

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I think by now most regulars know I do a 3D mockup for most of my illustrations. I trace over those basic shapes, but everything else I come up with from references. Tracing saves time hands down, it’s a professional tactic. BUT…

I would not recommend tracing for beginners. Sorry, the pros and seasoned hobbyists might trace, but if you’re starting out at art, it is best you learn the fundamentals. We all did. There is no way around it.

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