I agree with Draak! Tracing never helps you learn, and using references is always a good idea. I have a book that shows me the bone structure and anatomy of a deer and all kinds of other animals. I find that learning how a deer's structure works, under the skin, is the ideal way to master anatomy in a drawing.

However, when I draw, I get kind of lazy and characterize more, by elongating limbs and altering the structure of a deer to make it look more stylized, or make the drawing look more specific to my art style.

Drawing is 30% drawing and 70% looking. Learning to draw is drawing.
What others say is drawn from stigma. Tracing is a brilliant learning tool to learning -how- the shape looks like.Sure they're more so complaining about it when used in finished products, but eyeballing ahem referencing copiesthe image pitch perfect aswell. Yet that one has better PR lol
Okay the meat of it:
Artists often don't know what they see. And if it's something unfamiliar, and you try draw a copy of it. And it just doesen't look right?
If you don't have another person to be your correct eye. Tracing will. It has an odd effect if seeing better. Just make sure when you're done you look at the traced image, the product of it and your old drawing. How do the lines flow? How do the shapes look? How big are indicvidual shapes.
Start drawing over the traced image and then try recreate the shapes and curves on your own. Eventually these shapes will be memorised bu you. Next time when you will look, you will see the inherit complexity of the structure you're drawing.
And. Preffer you use your own photos or free stock images for it!
I think this will help you mostly proportion wise to get a start up before going for anatomy sketched.
Try draw the anatomy lessions, try trace them. See your mistakes n try better.


A thing that won't further you much is eyeballing. Propper referencing is not trying to imitate a photo... what most people mean by referencing is actually closer to eyeballing or frankentracing and actually the same.
Referecing is giving you a normal font and side leaping view and you can stitch frontal leaping view of the given subject. You need many small anatomy references. How does actually a roe deer nose look like? "I'm drawing a hoof from the front but i'm having issues drawing it. Don't whip out an image with te angle you want. I mean do it so you know how it looks like in that angle, but getting side, bottom, back views will help you understand the structure more, you won't copy the view of the perfect angle picture, you will draw your own. One that fits the image more.
And why is that important?
Because people often point out how 'wrong' something looks like and 'i copied a photo It MUST be right' is frankly false. Photos are not correct and obscure reality, It is a copy of reality. A good refetence rule is: Live is better.
If something appears proportionally odd, fix it, is fometing is not grounded, fix it. No matter how 'it is correct by the photo' dictates. People are not seeing the photo, your work probably was not meant to be burdned by it. So if it looks wrong. Fix it! Stop mentioning the stupid photo lol.


Artists often don't see right. Every human doesen't see right. The most important person to help a growing artist is one with better eyesight. When nobody is there to see for you, you won't see it for a long time.
An artist ony grows when they draw.
But drawing is 70% in the mind. You need to REST too. Draw 0. maybe for months. When you return to srt you may miraculously imprive.
Because your brain and sight improved.
Don't be shy showing photos to advanced artists to correct you. It's really helpful!

^ Mindlessly drawing over something and calling it done obviously does little or nothing, yes (and is of questionable legality, even), but what Vessan has described isn't "mindlessly drawing over". It's outlining the shapes to see them more clearly, paying attention to how they fit, gauging proportions, then re-creating them on your own and/or using the trace to compare and see where the errors are in your own image. There's a huge difference to mindful tracing and mindless copying.

An example - the large drawing is entirely freehand, but based on the shapes I layered over the reference photos.

Tracing is more about memorization, and only used as a tool, never a product. There are several methods to making any form, tracing is one technique as long as it's only for one step in the training process. SOME say trace is ok if you use it only for personal works and not for profit, or if you take the picture yourself you are then free to use it as a base. This is a grey area and you will find many people on both sides of the argument, quite strongly so.

SO if you trace, keep it to yourself, and do it a LOT. It helps you learn head proportion to the back, the legs, placements, and the common poses deer are found in. It forms a base. Also while in this stage, draw the basic shapes you see. Cones, rectangles, triangles, circles and ovals. This will help you in the future to visualize your own dynamic poses that you can't find a picture reference for.

Eyeballing is more common than people like to admit. It's ok as long as it comes from a wildlife photo, not someone else's art. This is used for pose references and leg placement, as well as antler angles which can be tricky. I actually get a custom 3D model of my deers' antlers to use as a reference so they are accurate in any angle. This was a technique I was encouraged strongly to do in art class, and we were taught to actually make accurate copies just through eyeballing. It was something I excelled at as a teen and young adult but not so much these days. The key for this method is "Draw what you see". Make reference points. How far is the head from the body? How far down are the joints in the leg? How much space between point A and point B. Trial and error.

And of course, simply practice practice practice. It takes years to develop this skill if you don't have the natural talent, and you should draw every day to help you progress faster. It took me 6 years to be halfway to my quality goal. I'm good, good enough for some, but nowhere near where I want to be. Just keep at it, and you will get there. It's not an overnight skill.

Thankyou so much guys! I hope to learn from all of this lovely advice! <3