Thoughts on Templates and Tracing

[redprincess]

I know alot of artists use templates (mostly for ovals and circles, I have a few myself) but what are your thoughts on using them? And for that matter what of tracing? I dont mean others art, I mean like photographs. I've heard of artists tracing buildings, cars, bikes,and other technical images and alter it for comic use. I've been thinking of trying this for some objects I'm horrible at drawing, such as trains, cars, buildings. On a similar note, what about using predrawn backgrounds that tone companies sell? I know deleter and IC have some royalty free backgrounds that you can "cut and paste" on your art and use.

I was just wondering others thoughts on the idea. To me it feels a bit cheaterish, but I can totally understand why.

[yesterdayshero]

IMHO It really shouldn't matter if you trace/use predrawn BGs when you're a Graphic Novelist (love that term) I mean our goal is to tell a story in the most powerful way possible, using all methods avaliable, so those things really don't matter...

[redprincess]

That is very encouraging. I've been wanting to work on my comic but there are panels that will take me much to long to draw. I have a two page layout/splash page that would take me about 5 days of work without using some tracing for the detailed parts. (it's a choo-choo train lol) Although I've been very on-the-fence about actually tracing parts of actual pictures (not art but photographs).

[shutupadrian]

I got nothing against tracing, so long as the source is your own or you "make it your own" so to speak. But I personally wouldn't use the pre-made backgrounds just because you know someone will see it and say, "Hey, they used X background from Y."

[redprincess]

Ah, yes, I have a little habit of picking out tones I see that I have myself. I had a teacher once that read manga and manhwa and she would always tell me how awesome the art was, and when I saw what she was talking about I held my tongue so I didn't tell her that it was all predrawn tones. Lol.

[StrateryB]

Unfortunately I'm rather (scratch that, ultra) picky and I dislike tracing or using pre-made backgrounds. To someone as prideful as me, it just feels like cheating. I mean hey, my art may suck but at least I'm trying and not selling short. When other people use pre-drawn backgrounds or trace objects from photos, I understand, I just would never do it myself.

[redprincess]

Unfortunately I'm rather (scratch that, ultra) picky and I dislike tracing or using pre-made backgrounds. To someone as prideful as me, it just feels like cheating. I mean hey, my art may suck but at least I'm trying and not selling short. When other people use pre-drawn backgrounds or trace objects from photos, I understand, I just would never do it myself.

I totally understand. I wrestled with the idea of tracing backgrounds for a while. It felt so cheater to me. But so does having assistants. I mean, Looking at comic books, there are a dozen people that work on it (for major companies). Pencilier, Inker, Colourer.... And each one of those adds it's own personal touch. So if the penciler did everything it would look different than when 3 different people did each. On a similar note, Japanese comic artists have assistants who draw backgrounds for them. Sometimes they trace, other times they can do it on their own, but yet these backgrounds are always credited to the creator, not the help.

If you watch a mangaka's art when they change assistants (or magazines) you will see the change in the comic's art as well. This is extremely noticeable in D.Gray-Man, she most likely only has one or two now that help her half as much as before. So it doesn't look the same as when it was in WSJ as it does now in JSQ.


I'm getting a bit off topic, though, as cheating as it felt when I first tired it, last night I spent the length of Pulp Fiction and two family guy episodes working on tracing the parliament building. It was not as easy as it sounds. It was actually harder, but gave me a great chance to work on a picture I doubt I could've pulled off myself. You can't draw every line, it would be too busy so I had to pick and choose, I added things and removed things, and by the end, even though I had a photo for tracing it feels more of it is mine than not, now.

Anyways, thats just my insight. Although I do understand the pride thing. I am afraid to show my drawn page with a traced background and have someone go "OMIGOSH that BG is so good" and ignore the rest of the page. I use to have that happen when I used tones; when I first started using those I felt like I was cheating as well. Lol.

[yesterdayshero]

On an semi-unrelated note this artist uses photographs extremely well....

[redprincess]

Clamp has been doing that in their Gate & and I can't stand it.
For somereason photographs don't just feel cheating they feel lazy. although clamp has been known to do this in the past, such as with Tokyo Babylon. I do admit, I love their new character drawing style.

[yesterdayshero]

I can see how it can be considered lazy, still it adds a new feeling to the story when used properly. I guess I'm more of a writer than an artist, I want to portray what I have in mind the fastest way possible, as soon as I get the photograph use down I'm most definetly going to use them in my works. That page I posted is epic! its so awesome to me...and I want my stories to have the same effect.

[redprincess]

here is a picture I 'traced' along with the original. As easy as it is to say I traced, this picture was alot of hard work and took me, however long pulp fiction and two american dad episodes are, to ink it.

[yesterdayshero]

Nice~