Quote Originally Posted by Noblejanobii View Post
AH yeah I had an art server a while back that greatly frowned up the use of tracing to get down concepts. I traced a bunch of hands back when I was still practicing on my trackpad and got reprimanded for it. One day ban. Scene recreations were also not allowed as I later found out. When I tried to explain that I was self taught so I don't know a lot of the learning techniques that they use (like the Shrimp method which is a really good method to practice drawing stuff fun fact) they just said that this wasn't their problem and shouldn't be an excuse.

Artists are cliquish like that.
Eh, sounds like a rather snobbish community that isn't worth your time or attention. Anyone, and I mean anyone who puts down someone for trying and for having a passion to learn and get better immediately loses all my respect. I don't care how skilled they are in something. These guys could be incredibly amazing artists, but if their attitudes are rotten and they don't have respect for other people, I couldn't care less about what they create and I don't even want to hang around them. There are plenty of friendlier people that also have skill and can be sources of great advice. Those are the people to hang out with, because those will be the people that inspire you and strength you. If those other guys want to keep their experience to themselves, then they can be alone all by themselves.

I didn't know about the Shrimp method before, but after taking a quick skim through it, it's a pretty effective way to get the point across that hey, reference pictures help. A lot! As it says, it helps you notice the fine details that of course you're not going to be able to recreate just out of memory unless you've drawn that thing like a thousand times very recently.