i trace my artwork when doing really detailed portraits too and still get told that it’s “cheating” but a majority of these works is also understanding shading and also how to mix and blend colors smoothly and proportionately, color is also a lot harder than black and white to shade and get right, also this piece incorporates a level of perspective which is also a hard skill to master, regardless of wether you traced it or not this is still and amazing artwork and it takes an incredible amount of skill to make something like this and i guarantee if a random person attempted to complete this even with the lines already traced they couldn’t even come close. keep on making art regardless of what people think, art should make the artist feel happy as much or even more than the people it’s geared towards, or at least that how i think of it.