Dont agree with me…read the post again, specially the last 4 sentances. I’m a retard:spin:.
In the dozen or so life drawing classes I’ve taken, we’ve always had at least one student in each class who started tracing or copying comic book panels when they were six. They continued this through high school and finally wound up in a life drawing class at the college level. Of the couple dozen exemplars of the “learn to draw by tracing school” I worked along side of, only one was able to easily transition from drawing symbols to drawing from life.
The rest spent the semester very frustrated, since they could not see what they were trying to draw, their symbolic “here is a bicep” “this is a mouth shape” memes dominated their hands. It’s not that they couldn’t draw the model in a contraposta pose, it’s just that when they did, their drawings looked as if they were drawing Superman or Wonder Woman. Worse, they didn’t make much progress during the semester, leaving the class with roughly the same drawing skill they had when they entered. So I don’t recommend it, the odds are not favorable.
For me I found that I got better at drawing the more I practised - I can’t draw well with no references though.
any time you spent drawing will help you out 
lots and lots of practice
im constantly drawing, everything and anything. not just what i see, but also what i imagine. i dont just draw on paper either, i draw on napkins, dry erase boards, walls, floors, cabinets, if it has a plain surface, i will draw on it (with premission of course, no graffiti on my part.)
it takes years of anaylzing the beauty of the world around you in order for you to mimick it with your hands, and even then you will find it in vain, but at least you can create at that point.and even pulling the abstract ideas of our minds onto paper can prove difficult, but with practice it can be done.
drawing is not something that is learned, so much as it is something that is desired, its something you strive for. you can read all the learn to draw books you want, but unless the passion is there to draw the same line again and again, for years maybe, until depth perception, textures, shading, lighting, and all the key points of art come together in your hands to the point where its almost muscle memory, a reflex almost, then it wont mean a damn thing. and if you have that passion in your heart, then you dont need a “how to draw” book, you can teach drawing to yourself.
i never so much as flipped through a how to draw book, instead i looked to the world around me and practiced what i saw and imagined until it was reality on paper, and my art has thrived!
if you cant draw a head, dont give up, dont lose hope. keep drawing it, keep messing up, keep studying at faces, study other people’s drawings of faces, and it will come to you.
bottom line
hard work and dedication are the key to man made beauty. oh how inferior we are as humans, its madness to think we can produce beauty with the flick of the wrist. no, for man to create beautiful objects in any form, he requires a burning heart, a determined mind, and enlighted soul.
keep practicing :yes:
I would say that tracing isn’t really the best way to learn to draw - even not in the way you are describing - because you’re not learning things generally enough. I’ll give you an example: Let’s say you started drawing your torsos by tracing the outline from a photo. Then you put all the details inside that outline by eye, just from looking (not tracing). You’d only really be learning how to draw that one torso. If you wanted to draw someone else, you’d still have that specific torso in your head, but you wouldn’t know how to pose it differently. So you’d have to find another photo. Worse, you’d have to change your original ideas because you couldn’t find a photo of a person in whatever pose you wanted.
The best way to learn is to break things down into shapes. 3D shapes. Don’t draw a circle, draw a sphere. Don’t draw a square, draw a cube. When an artist studies from life, he’s not really studying the way something looks, but the way it’s constructed. The smaller shapes that make up the larger thing. The only way you can draw whatever you want is to know what it is you want to draw, and know how it’s constructed.
What you describe - drawing the outline first, then filling in the details - is called “contour drawing” and it’s useful to train your hand. The more accurate you can make a contour drawing by eye (not by tracing), the more control you have over your hand, which is a very good drawing skill. But you’re not going to learn how things are built that way, and thus you will have difficulty making up your own stuff. Learning how to draw using a construction method will end up not looking as good as your contour drawings for a while, but the difference is that with a contour drawing you’re learning control and attention to detail, and with construction you’re learning shape, form and structure.
Agreed.
Tracing in its own can teach you line control; done correctly, it’s actually a positive thing, but it’s far from enough – you need variety in your exercises. You need to learn to control spacing and planes, to represent depth, weight, texture, lighting – there are tons of stuff that line tracing just can’t teach. Life drawing IS a must.
I wont repeat what others have said so I’ll go into other areas I find can help.
Shading, I find that line drawing can give you the basic structure and shape of an object/body but shading adds the extra details like muscle definition etc…
Tracing cant really help in that area.
For me when it comes to drawing, practise is the key, whether it’s copying from a photo or real life, just keep practising, one day your problems of a certain area will just click and you’ll realise what was wrong.
Also talking to other & asking for opinion on your work whether complete or not is always good.
I find getting a fresh eye to view your work can show up problems that you yourself overlooked.
It seems the best way to learn to draw is learn to build the object which you are drawing with simple shapes (sphere, cyliners, cubes, etc…). I have been using this method of drawing but I need a way to improve the way I position the shapes. It seems the way I learn where the shapes go and move is by studying the world around me. I also believe I will need a great amount of practice.
I also have another question. How would I go about mimicking some one elses style of art (just for fun). Example: Anime, Manga, Cartoon, etc… I know that to draw other styles or stylized characters you need to have an understanding of how things really look and then stylize it. But how would I copy a style I have seen before… (This is just for fun so…)
I have been “trying” (and I use that term VERY loosely, I can’t draw good at all) to draw on and off now for about 8 years. I have improved but it’s still no where near good. Here’s what I have found that helps me.
-Find all the books you can (sites, books, magazines, whatever) and actually follow along. Just reading the book isn’t going to help at all. Try to reproduce what they are teaching in the article or tutorial.
-Try to draw something symmetrical, whether it be a sphere, square, human, whatever. Practice getting both objects “mirrors” of each other, I have the hardest time with this.
-Draw out the basic shape, then work on details. Just like you do when you model, get the basics down, then “subdivide” (in terms of drawing, move in on more detail), do more detailing, and move in to even more detail. Just take it in little steps, adding detail as you go.
-With the previous tip in mind, I started out just learning to draw the basic shapes of things, never really finishing anything, just kept on drawing until I got the basic shapes of things down.
All anyone can do is give you advice, you’ll have to find out what works for you. Good luck and just don’t give up. :eyebrowlift:
Thanks everyone!!!
This I agree with - at the moment I’m practice shading, and textures on pencil and paper type drawings.
Yeah, as others have said, the only way to learn to draw is to draw. Nothing you read anywhere will directly influence your skill until you apply it – by drawing. (Including this post.) So draw. Right. Now.
Well said bro, well said, and very true.
This useless post brought to you by the letter C…
You see, If i trace a drawing once, i can remember how to draw it the second time, without having to trace it.
Well, I have one thing to say…If you don’t like it, DON’T DO IT!!! Otherwise, do it
its pointless doing something you dont like, espeially if all it is is practice 
Im really bad at drawing detail, but I am amazing at speed drawing anything. So I hate tracing things, therefore, I don’t.
Me too… Necromancer!