Resources, References, and Tutorials.

Will someone please explain to me how the fuck people do not understand the difference between tracing and referencing?

Warning: The following rant contains a lot of swearing from a person who is bitter over things.

Usually I will save the rants for my personal blog, but I honestly want to know how the fuck people do not understand the difference between tracing and referencing.

A REFERENCE is an image or object that you refer to in order to get a better understanding of something. Looking at various photos of buildings to get a better understanding of particular elements to design or create your own architecture is referencing. Looking at pictures of animals in various poses/positions to get a better understand how the animal moves is reference. Looking at your feet or shoes to get a better understanding on how to draw feet or shoes is fucking referencing.

TRACING is when you take an image from any fucking source and draw directly over the image and call it your own.

I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT YOUR ARGUMENTS ON THIS TOPIC.

“But many great artists like Norman Rockwell traced.”

Norman Rockwell could fucking draw his own shit and draw it well. The images he traced where scenes that he personally set up and took the images for due to time crunches. Rockwell hated the practice.

“Tracing helps you understand where to place lines better though.”

You keep telling yourself that.

“What about all of those Renaissance artists who used models.”

This is where you step over the line into life drawing. Drawing/painting a model or still life in front of you is life drawing. Even if there are creative changes made in the process, drawing/painting what you see in front of you is life drawing.

WHICH ACTUALLY.

Drawing from life and understanding how things work in the real world is kind of beneficial to any artist.

This is not a say to not use references. For God’s sake, references are important tools that make the headache of life a bit less severe. References are good for when you’re having trouble with a particular pose or trying to get certain details correct in a drawing. References are good for doing gesture drawings. When you use a reference you are using it to get a better understanding. When you cross the line from referencing to eyeballing or tracing you really aren’t even learning jack shit and your work generally tends to look stiff and/or lifeless.

There is a clear difference between referencing and tracing.

They’re not the same fucking thing. How the fuck do people still not understand this? It’s not a difficult concept.

-Snarky

P.S. The original post that this rant is direct towards I will not be posting on this blog because I am not going to be an advocate for tracing.