Tracing is cheating if you pass it off as a drawing by you. (guess as Maya pointed out that has been drilled into my head all through school) Tracing is a great learning tool, and should be used as such. I should note that the above is referring to tracing someone else's work.

Tracing a photo you took and then painting that tracing is a somewhat different matter. The entire work is yours. You capture the image onto film, with your own view of the object. Then transferred it to another medium. While this may be grey area, I think it is ok.

I akin tracing, to using someone else's model in your 3D scene. Nothing wrong with it, but I think it should be noted that the model's were not yours, and give credit to the artist that created the model. For that reason I very rarely used pre-made models. I model everything my self.

This is all just my personal views. Art is to subjective to be so ridgely defined. I would not reject a piece of art that I liked simply because it started out as a tracing. I would simply admire it for its on beauty. I would however hold a higher opinon of an artist who did everthing freehand over one that traced, providing everything else was equal. For I feel it takes more talent, so therefore I would admire the artist more for his hard work.

--Randy R