What?

[Stratadrake]

It's called the "overlay method". Using photoshop, we compare the artist's version to the official picture to see how well they correlate.

Take my attachment as an example. On the upper-left is the "official" pic. On the upper-right is the sketched Paint version. Using photoshop, we create an overlay with partial transparency and then line them up to compare (center pic, sketched version in red).

Now notice the bottom picture. EVERY, and yes I do mean every single line in the sketched picture matches up EXACTLY with its counterpart in the 'official' pic.

The chances of this happening without tracing are about the same as winning the lottery jackpot. Twice.

Thus it is declared that the picture was traced.

If you don't like being accused of tracing, play it safe by drawing official characters in ORIGINAL POSES -- i.e. [b]without[/b] looking at official pictures for reference. Or better yet, just draw original characters in the first place.

PS: For the record, the sketch shown in my attachment was the WIP version of one of my gallery pictures. The lineart version I traced in MS Paint. Yup, call me guilty of tracing one of my own pics! It was for a friend who wanted something to color in MS Paint.
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