Forum › Tracing discussion

Fb99a412e56031b0a8f5568f284d39f1435bb314_hq
joined Nov 19, 2017

Can anyone explain to me what this tag means ? and why is it badly viewed ?

UranusAndNeptuneAreJustCousins
joined Sep 6, 2015

Tracing is when an artist takes an image (real life picture or another mango work), and then just copies it so blatantly they might as well have just placed their paper over the original picture and traced its lines. Of course, some things are altered, face, hair, that sort of thing. For example:
https://twitpic.com/9nyy0t
https://twitpic.com/9nys74
https://twitpic.com/9nxzxy

UranusAndNeptuneAreJustCousins
joined Sep 6, 2015

Just to be clear, it is not a taboo method or anything, and it is actually often used for things such as landscapes and scenery in general. But when an artist uses it for characters, it is mostly viewed as crossing the line.

Img_0215
joined Jul 29, 2017

In US comics it's called "swiping," and usually applies to artists copying poses, compositions, etc. from other comics, but also can be applied to overuse of photo-reference. Opinions vary (inside the industry and among fans) about how grave an offense (if it is one) swiping is. As the name implies, it can be seen as a form of, if not outright theft of intellectual property, at least a dubious sort of "taking."

There is a line between using photos and other images to make sure you're drawing things accurately (which is good) and just being too lazy to draw things yourself (which is not good), but nobody has ever been very precise about where that line is located (when people notice the swiping at all).

I don't know much at all about how it's seen in the context of manga.

UranusAndNeptuneAreJustCousins
joined Sep 6, 2015

I don't know much at all about how it's seen in the context of manga.

Negatively, because of the copyright infringement issues. Using images for reference (which in the case of "Prism" Shou admitted to doing, but the final verdict was that he went beyond this) is fine, but actual tracing of the images (blatantly copying it, sometimes by actually tracing the lines) infringes on copyright of the material used (hence why "Prism" was cancelled).

joined Nov 26, 2017

My bad I thought its another series.

Fb99a412e56031b0a8f5568f284d39f1435bb314_hq
joined Nov 19, 2017

Oh i see , what a shame it was cancelled , pretty good manga nonetheles, thank you for the clarification

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