Your view on tracing...

[joeman]

Tracing is just bad karma. It doesn't really get anything done. It is useful if you have a real life picture (Of a person or a building or something. Renaissance artists are believed to have used the Camera Obscua to paint complicated objects such as chandeliers.) you want to depict on paper, but you really don't develop much as an artist by doing it. You don't have to think about where lines go or how to compose a piece.

That and it is an artistic taboo to trace another person's work.

Recreation is alright, so long as you don't try to pass it off as yourself. You learn about the shapes in play and have to actually put forth effort to get it to come out correctly. referencing is alright as well. I use images from Google to figure out how something might look or to find a cool pose for a figure.

It is just a moral gray area and is best to be avoided whenever possible.