yeah I agree with most, there is huge difference to actually tracing something and having reference to look to. Besides the most skilled who can just draw what they envision, all the illustrators, animators that I work with including myself have huge reference libraries to help fill the gap when the mind can't seem to do it 
"if I am guilty for what goes on in my mind, than give me the electric chair for all my future crimes"
Just out of curiosity: I understand that tracing other people's art only reinforces their mistakes in your hand and mind. What about attempts to trace actual photographs via a light table in order to get a feel for proportion and line?
What is amusing me is everyone who seems to think that because you trace you pick up bad habits. It's simply not true in all cases. It can also make you learn where the person went wrong.
When I was younger I would trace and then go back and erase parts and reshape them to make them look better.
But it's very simply, do what you think is best for you. I still like the idea of trying to copy an image by site instead of exact line tracing.
�Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!� - Thomas Gray
Last night, I took one of my comic booky "How to" books since they were right there, and went to the part at the beginning where you have to draw your egg-ish shape for a head, and build from there toward something that looks more head and face-like.
When I finished, while my drawing didn't look exactly like the one in the book, I think it's the best I've done so far.
The one problem I find I have, and I think it's getting better (but we'll see in time) is looking at something, seeing how a particular line is drawn, and then getting that signal to my pencil. The nose I was drawing last night was particularly trying because I couldn't get the curve on the right nostril right.
In the end, though something clicked and I was better understanding what I was trying to get my pencil to do and things started to look more natural and noselike.
I expect to have a scanner within the next week, and then I can start putting stuff up. Woo hoo!
Cosmic
Tracing... Not Tracing... Tracing... Not Tracing...
It really doesn't matter as long as you learn to see.
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Tracing... Not Tracing... Tracing... Not Tracing...
It really doesn't matter as long as you learn to see.
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The book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards makes a huge argument that it is not the art of drawing that's the hard part, but moreso the ability to "see" and interpret is where most people's skills need to be developed.
Fascinating read. I recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their skills.
I've actually got it, and need to finish reading it. I've been hung up on doing the pre-read drawings. Portrait, hand, and chair, I think.
I really should do those tonight.
Cosmic.
I big thing that helped me understand what was under the skin (and not something most people will get to do or likely even want to do) was anatomy classes in college biology and beyond. Really helped me see the different layers in a tactile 3d sense. I know kinda gross.
Yes, use the books which all start with a section about drawing basic shapes first then building. Look at some of the sequential stuff the great artists here have posted. Early stuff is very sketchy basic shapes that are then worked into form, and detail added (ok sometimes you feel like the shape is beaten into form). As for it looking different then in the book, so what, your style should not be a clone of the how to author. The steps are tools the style is your own.
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I never traced, but a couple years ago I did recreate just by looking at an image.
Example:
Original
My Copy
A bit off, but still fun to do.
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FLCL FTW!!!
Personally, I've never traced stuff, but that was only because I grew up in a poor family that couldn't afford tracing paper.
I had to settle for staring at comics, and even real people sometimes 
, when I'd go outside. Yes, I do go outside occasionally. I've gotten some real good visuals of people giving me this look like they were saying "why is this person staring at me?". I'd just try to sketch what I saw with varying degrees of success. I think I've gotten better over the years. I really don't know whats the best way, but thats what I did, and continue to do. Sticking with something, and practice seems to do the trick for most things, not just art. So just keep drawing.
-Pep
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I never traced, but a couple years ago I did recreate just by looking at an image.
Example:
Original
My Copy
A bit off, but still fun to do.
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FLCL FTW!!!
Personally, I've never traced stuff, but that was only because I grew up in a poor family that couldn't afford tracing paper.
I had to settle for staring at comics, and even real people sometimes , when I'd go outside. Yes, I do go outside occasionally. I've gotten some real good visuals of people giving me this look like they were saying "why is this person staring at me?". I'd just try to sketch what I saw with varying degrees of success. I think I've gotten better over the years. I really don't know whats the best way, but thats what I did, and continue to do. Sticking with something, and practice seems to do the trick for most things, not just art. So just keep drawing.
-Pep
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Pep, that wasn't a "Why is this person staring at me?" look. It was a "Why is that person wearing stripes with plaid?" look.
�Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!� - Thomas Gray
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FLCL FTW!!!
Personally, I've never traced stuff, but that was only because I grew up in a poor family that couldn't afford tracing paper.
I had to settle for staring at comics, and even real people sometimes , when I'd go outside. Yes, I do go outside occasionally. I've gotten some real good visuals of people giving me this look like they were saying "why is this person staring at me?". I'd just try to sketch what I saw with varying degrees of success. I think I've gotten better over the years. I really don't know whats the best way, but thats what I did, and continue to do. Sticking with something, and practice seems to do the trick for most things, not just art. So just keep drawing.
-Pep
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As I was wandering around today, I thought "Ooh, I could snap pictures of people with my camera and then use them to draw from." But, then I thought people would be freaked out if someone just out of the blue took a picture of them. So I started wishing they'd develop eye cameras that you could just take a picture into a computer in your head and connect like a USB cable to your computer and download from your brain.
Tracing has its place. However, I don't feel it can be the best tool for visualization and concepts nor a the best tool for beginners. Why? Because, to paraphrase a UK game art professor, it's exceptionally important for an artist to -see- the world and not just draw it. Seeing how the world is formed, colored, and shaped lets an artist re-create it accurately and develop their own interpretations of it.
As Hex Girl said, tracing does NOT always lead to bad habits.
Note that when I say trace, I mean the OUTLINE. I do not mean in anyway to trace the ENTIRE picture. When you trace an entire picture, you really aren't learning anything.
When you trace, you should be doing it more as a way to get the ball rolling in a picture, once you've done the outline of the body do the details yourself, do your best to free hand it all while using the picture as reference.
For an example of what I mean:
This is a drawing I did in 2002 of Batgirl, it was a freehand that I drew while using the actual comic picture as reference. I made my version bigger and made some alterations to the arm position because it didn't quite look right to me.
This is a drawing of the new Batwoman which I did completely from my head, of course, using the classic 'swoop down to grab' bat-family leap. 
You can see the difference between the two pictures just by a quick look over, Batwoman has more detail, more muscle tone, better shading; it's the superior of the two drawings but I never would have come that far if I'd not started with drawings the way I did batgirl.
I think when I say that tracing isn't a good thing, is that by going over someone elses work, you only draw what is apparent...and not know "why" you should.
Lets say you copy a drawing of the hulk lifting a girder. You draw that thing untill you got the perfect copy. You think, "well, I mastered the hulk!"
But did you?
Why is there a line on the inderside of the arm? Is that a muscle? Would it be there from another angle? If I draw Spider-man in the same pose, would he have that line there as well? What behind his leg? What does he look like without the irder and his arms down?
If you try to draw the Hulk any way other than what you traced, you won't be able to. Thats because you haven't understood why an artist chose to draw what he did...
When I used to teach figure drawing, sometimes a person would say he's done learning, because he just drew the perfect figure. All I have to say is, "Okay, now draw the samething...from behind".
It's the same thing with drawing an outline of a shape. you're not using the shape at all. What is supposed to be a sphere is just a flat circle.
Having said that, as a child, I used to copy John and Sal Buscema comics. Years later I think a little of what I copied rubbed off on me on my own style. So perhaps a lil' tracing is okay...Just don't stay there and stretch beyond.
I've done some pretty horrendous drawings in my time, and for my own sanity, burned them. But Every mistake was a step at understanding what I should have done to make it better.
If you want to trace, thats up the the individual. But if you want to grow beyond what someone else did, leap off and make your mistakes. Soon, you wont need to see something already drawn to draw something new.
::raising hand from back of the room:: ::ahem::
If I may comment... If you want to trace something, then trace over images from a picture of real people, not comics. Now, I know that some people may be saying... "But Jim, you draw comic like characters and stuff!"
You're right... I do draw them fairly comic book like... But I have to know how to draw with natural proportions before I know how to get the comic book like qualities in them. Study anatomy from a non art book. Learn the muscles of the body, from the trapesius to the deltoid to the biceps and triceps that connect to the forearm muscles and connecting tissues... soak up that information. Learn to bend and shape that arm in your mind into all sorts of poses... extend the arm, bend the arm, etc. and "see it"... do the same for the legs and torso... you will not be disappointed.
If you really want to use comics as a means for you to get drawing, then just trace out body skeletons... stick figure over any drawing you see, or better yet, any picture you see. It will help you with natural movement and proportions.
I used to freehand A LOT from old VHS Disney movie covers and comics, and tried to imitate what I saw, and I kept thinking I was getting a lot better every time. Now, I see every mistake I made along the way. I notice an arm out of alignment, an eye cocked wrong, etc...
That's the thing about drawing: You don't see the mistakes of those you admire until you find your own "style". I hate to say style cause it implies something that you developed that sometimes becomes the "IN-THING"... I don't consider what I do, nor do I hope that it will become the "IN-THING". I just want to become better at what I do.
Just find your own way of doing things on paper and cultivate it. Work at it like it was a passion, and it may become your passion. It frees the mind and soul... and sometimes makes a buck or two.
Of course this is just my opinion, I could be wrong...
Good Luck to you... I'm in your corner!!
Jim
The Neverending Battle Continues; Be Heroes!!
Stuff I've Drawn
My Deviant Art Page
I must admit. I still trace. Only difference is I trace my own work now. The big reason is I can get rather sloppy due to shaking. So I will draw and block everything in and have all of my basic shapes in place with maybe some details. This is almost always on printer paper. Then I will place this under a clean sheet and draw a cleaner version. I will normally take this and freehand it to a larger piece of paper where I can work in more details. Sometimes bristol board, sometimes not. Sometimes I don't though. If I am reworking a piece on the same size paper, then I almost always darken the lines I like with markers or drafting pens and set that under the new sheet.
When in middle school I didn't have much money. An alternative I found was wax paper. Not nearly the same, but it can work in a pinch. As others have stated, if you are going to trace other people's work then you are likely to pick up their habits and it's not going to go a long way to teach you. Photographs and live models are best. Good reference can be a great thing. Just be careful not to pick up the mistakes of others.
You could also use things like grids as an in between for tracing and freehand. In fact, I would highly recommend using grids over tracing. This holds especially true before you gain the confidence to draw freehand. Grids also allow you to change the size of an image to fit whatever you are working on.
A trick I found helpful for me was to change reference images to grayscale. It greatly helped me to understand lines, form, contour, and lighting. Learn some basic anatomy. Learning the basic shapes of bones, the workings of joints, and how the muscles work together is essential. I have no idea what the names for muscles on the arm are, but I know how they flow into each other and how they react with the bones and joints. You may be able to get around this occasionally with a live model or photographs, but using a program such as Poser to create custom poses or attempting to creat a piece from you imagination will often result in improper anatomy. Poser is great for finding a basic flow and playing with the lighting, but depending on computer programs such as this for anatomy is futile.
Remember, just because you might be tracing, you don't have to make a photocopy. You can change things as you go along.
Definitely have to agree with Poo about the grids. The main failing of using tracing as a tool for learning is that it does not lend it's self to the first step in learning to draw... seeing. With tracing, your just doing. You have to learn to see, and by this I mean break down, analyze, and understand what it is that you are seeing. Using a grid is just another tool to help break down what your seeing into easier to digest chunks... it simplifies things, keeps you from getting overwhelmed by all the "stuff' that your eyes might be seeing, and also helps to break things apart so that they are no longer their recognizable named forms but just shape instead. Grayscaling an image has the same result as it removes the extra chaos of hue leaving only value to show the shape of things.
To any and all who use or would like to use tracing as a learning tool, I'd highly recommend the grid method instead... or, hell, go for broke and do a grid on a grayscaled image. I promise you will learn a LOT more in one drawing then you ever could through tracing.
And, as has been pointed out to the point of grinding the horse into nice manageable patties ready for a bun (mmmMMmm hose BURGER!), if your really serious about honing your art skills, study the reality of things. Distortion and stylizing things due to a lack of being able to represent said thing any other way is a major limitation and usually only ends up showing your lack of control... your style will control you. Learning how something really is will allow you to be able to chose exactly how you distort it for maximum effect... you will be in control of your style so to speak.
aaaaand... I'm done babbling again.
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it's the superior of the two drawings
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I completely and thoroughly disagree. The first one has a much better pose and composition. Now, that's because you were copying the pose, but that's not always a bad thing. As far as the tone and detail being superior, I'm not really seeing it. And, even if I agreed on that "more detail" doesn't mean "better drawing." To be honest, it looks to me like the tracing has made you focus more on the LESS important things in drawing, like detail, while providing you little of the more important things, like learning about the underlying structures and the composition and posing.
I think your drawings prove the exact opposite point of the one you were trying to make.
While I agree that the first is clearly superior (sorry that you feel that your unique drawings was better), I think he was saying that because he DIDN'T trace he was able to come so far. The same point you have been making.
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While I agree that the first is clearly superior (sorry that you feel that your unique drawings was better), I think he was saying that because he DIDN'T trace he was able to come so far. The same point you have been making.
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Hmm..on second read I think you're right.
I thought the first bunch of posters had this straightened out. Tracing and Copying freehand are two entirely different things. The poster was saying that tracing isn't always bad, but then went on to describe a way of working that is NOT tracing. (I misread it after the first sentence.) I think even the anti-tracing people here see the value in copying something freehand. I sure do. But that's very different from actually putting paper on top of a drawing (or a new layer in Photoshop) and just tracing over the lines.
Tracing good or bad?
To me it seems that all the "expert" say don't. ( I am not just talking about PMD, DJ , Atomic and other board artist but also all the books I ever read). However in my mind it depens on who you are and what you want to acheive.
Kinda similar to: Can you learn to hit a baseball using a T-ball?
Can you learn to paint using paint by number kits?
can you learn to ride a bicycle using training weels?
I will stick with the baseball analogy.
My answer is if you are juuuust starting a t-ball can help get you entousiastic but it wont "teach" you anything. Lotsa kids start hitting a ball on a T-ball. It helps little in teaching the how to hit since the ball is not moving and they will actually often take all kinds of bad habbit because of it but... it makes the game fun. They actually get to hit a ball and thus play the game. It is the same with tracing.
In a short time (usually a year) the kids move to having someone lob the ball to them ( at least that is the way it is done here) they thus start learning to hit a ball in movement. The ball however is purposly thrown to be easy to hit. This way they learn but still get the satisfaction of playing the game. I would compare that to copying. Copying can teach you more than tracing because you have to think about what you do.
The next steps in baseball are gradual. kids learn from coaches the "proper" way to hit. From watching the pros they may learn different "styles" of hitting. Eventually they may even make it to the big leagues and inspire a new generation of players. Meanwhile even once they are proffesionnal they still refine their hitting techniques. That progression would be the same for artist.Eventually copying leads into modifying picture and (eventually) just being inspired by other poeple art, making your own original art, being paid for it inspiring a new generation.
Sooo is tracing bad? Is using a T-ball bad? depends where you are, what you are trying to acheive.
The last thing I would say, and I know this was not the OP's question, is that tracing and then claiming the results as your own THAT is a big no no.
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While I agree that the first is clearly superior (sorry that you feel that your unique drawings was better), I think he was saying that because he DIDN'T trace he was able to come so far. The same point you have been making.
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Hmm..on second read I think you're right.
I thought the first bunch of posters had this straightened out. Tracing and Copying freehand are two entirely different things. The poster was saying that tracing isn't always bad, but then went on to describe a way of working that is NOT tracing. (I misread it after the first sentence.) I think even the anti-tracing people here see the value in copying something freehand. I sure do. But that's very different from actually putting paper on top of a drawing (or a new layer in Photoshop) and just tracing over the lines.
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Okay after re-reading my post I wasn't clear enough.
My point with the BG BW example was that, before I ever evne did the batgirl one I spent week tracing the outlines of batman pictures, and then filling in costume details, backgrounds, etc. myself. I did this mainly as a confidence builder, to familiarize myself with the character. Once that was done I felt prepared enough to try doing the free hand batgirl picture.
As to which is better, upon further study of them I actually withdraw the statement, Batgirl pose is much better really; the only thing I think make me like the Batwoman pic more is that it's coloring is smoother... Yeah I'm anitpicker about coloring. I don't like the streaky lines in the batgirl pic.
The main reason for my question, at least initially, was as a means to steady my hand and get used to drawing a particular curve, etc.
I honestly didn't want to trace, but if it could have been a helpful exercise, I'd consider it.
Reading all of the responses here, and just drawing over the last couple days, I'm very glad I'm pushing through and not tracing anything.
I think so far, the progression of drawings, from the fishy lipped girl to the Statesman/Positron heads to a not-quite-right-but-not-too-terrible-either drawing of my scrapper and finally to the female figure I copied off a drawing on a website, has made it clear that I don't need or want to trace, and when I put some effort into it, I can actually get the lines to go the way I want them to.
Cosmic
lol I still am impressed by his gravity defying, back broken, amazon freaks of nature :O