Is tracing cheating?

[Gary David Bouton]

Ross..

The XARA purists I refer to aren't even on this forum--I got email a couple times because my work in XARA looked so realistic, and then promptly got slammed when the writers learned that I used a 3D app as the basis for the composition...in essense, they were pissed that THEY couldn't do what I did using only XARA.

...which to my mind is like getting pissed that you can't create an oil painting using felt tip markers.

I think it was Erik (this thread is sooooo long and interesting!) that said if you victimize no one, then it's not cheating; specifically, cheating yourself.

Okay, here goes another spin on the topic: the REASON why I used the piece I posted as the basis for a XARA drawing is because I knew it would take too much time to model the piece to completion. I'm better at XARA than I am at trueSpace---why torture myself? The REAL "vicitimization" would have been to strap myself to the noble and painful MYTH that if it's not 100% conceived, sketched, and finished in one application, then I am a "poseur", and not an artist. "Poser" is interesting, and I think it requires a fair amount of talent to make figures that express what you want. The program can be misused as an "instant people factory", but that's no more art than using a cookie cutter on dough (even the shape of the cookie cutter was designed by someone else, no?

No, I think that the term "poser", for its recently found bad connotations here on this forum is far better replaced by the term "pretender", for it is the wannabe artist who turns to such rubber stamp tools as a font that is made up of drawings, modifying stock photography by running the Dry Brush filter over it in Photoshop and calling it their own, or any preset-filled program that a "pretender" uses and then calls it their own art.

These products I speak of are assistants to the mature, competent designer--and not "push button art".


Somebody go out and get a velvetine painting of Elvis real quick [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

The attached used Poser version one in what I thought was a novel way. Yes, Poser started out as a figure rendering program, although it had stick figure and mannequin mode.


My Best,

Gary David Bouton
Gary@GaryDavidBouton.com
Free education! The Writings Web site
and the updated GaryWorld Gallery is pretty okay, too.