Forums » Art & Creativity » Easy way to make character art? Or is it cheating?

Oyy, I have a little question to all of those artists amongst you

I'm not very good at drawing, but I'd really love to make my own pictures of my characters.
So I figured out a way how I can do it - but I feel bad while doing it, so I have to ask:

Is this cheating?!

I uploaded some sample pictures of my work in progress for you to look at and maybe you can tell me if it's ok to do this or not...?
It's kind of a big picture so I put it into collapse!

To answer questions which might get asked:
I bought the Sims 4 in Origin with real money.
I created the sims characters on my own and adjusted several things from any standard types.
I didn't use any mods in the game.
I traced what seemed like the outlines of the screenshots I put together.
I added some detail myself, because that's the reason why I don't simply use Sims 4 (even custom content is not satisfying for me xD)
I used different layers and transparency in GIMP to trace the features.
I don't know if I can color this now or just have to delete it because I'm a cheater

I really can't figure myself.
On one hand, I still spend some time doing it - and will spend even more time and I'd just like to show people how I picture my characters and I don't want to make money with this.
On the other hand, it's not really 100% my work of art.
Maybe I should just do this for myself as some practise?
Or should I just delete it and practise drawing in another way?
I really feel bad about it. It's technology that gives me the opportunity to do such bad things

I would be glad if you could tell me if...
1.) ...something made like this is allowed to be put here on a character profile as reference pictures?
2.) ...this will make me look like some giant idiot who can't even put effort in learning how to draw properly?

Thank you in advance ^^"

I think your art looks great and is perfectly worthy of going on your character profile the way you do it now. If you're concerned about tracing, blur your reference photos slightly so that you can practice a bit by laying down your own lines.

Another way is to draw your image based off of references. For example have one window open to the Sims image and a blank one next to it and try to draw to the best of your ability and to the best of your memory.

This way you are training yourself in two ways. Reference drawing and developing your own style. Both will take time but it will be worth it in the end!

Well what is cheating? I once showed one of my art pieces to a friend and she was like "WOW YOUR CIRCLES ARE SO ROUND" and I honestly... just used the circle tool? Is that cheating?

You're not tracing over other people's character artwork, or concept art from games/anime and calling it your own. Ethically I think you're in the clear, and should be free to call it your artwork your own. I don't think people would even guess this is your method if they were only to see the completed piece and know nothing of your method.

I think continuing this will allow you to only improve to an extent. You also need to learn how to freehand things. Try drawing some things from real life or using sites like http://artists.pixelovely.com/

When I was younger, my dad encouraged tracing; not because he thought it was a good thing to do permanently, but because "you're training yourself to lay down the lines in that fashion". When I asked him to explain this, he proceeded to say that when you trace over it, you're becoming familiar with how to make it look... how to to that the next time you draw the same thing, or something similar.

Overall, however, there is nothing I can personally say that the others haven't already. References are always great to have, and taking time out of your day to devote to improving upon yourself can also help. I draw at least once every day, experimenting on some occassion, or expanding upon what I'm already familiar with.

Are you planning to sell your traced works, lie about having used some traced references in the line art and go about bragging about your freehand skills, or enter contests with traced art?

If the answer to the above questions are no, I don't think you have a problem. You picked the image(s) that you traced with care to not harm other human beings, which is amazingly considerate and good of you.

Thank you all for your replies
I really feel better now, and each of your answers has helped me!
Maybe I won't get to be an aspiring artist, but I definitely will try to improve and do my best to also try out other things to practise. And I guess, for reference it's always better than nothing at all, when I don't find any fitting photos
Thanks for taking the time to answer. I was really very insecure if I was doing something ethically wrong xD
Also I will try in the future to keep a better track of the replies to my forums posts
I feel kind of bad to reply to all of you together on each of my topics, but every time I check, there had been so much things going on I really love that this seems to be a very active community!
Have a good time, all of you!