Are you better at copying a drawing or from your mind?

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Are you better at drawing a drawing from your mind or copying it from somewhere?
I'm better at drawing from my mind than copying

I almost never copy drawings. I learned a long time ago that it's very wrong to copy someone else's artwork by, say, tracing over it and real artists/cartoonist don't do it. I can copy a drawing and do it decently without tracing if I want to, like this one one time years ago I drew a picture of The Lion King wearing sunglasses, walking up a red carpet with a human woman that was once on the cover of Cracked magazine, but I did that only for fun and to see how well I could imitate a style different from my own. I love being able to draw freehand with nothing other than a pen and some paper, and not have to stick to rules. And that's why I've made up my own characters and stories instead of just copying whatever else is popular at the moment. Sadly, my characters will never get the fame or credit they deserve, people only really care about how well you can draw other characters. A parent might brag "My kid can draw Batman better than anyone else" but they don't brag, "My kid has made up their own cartoons and they just might be famous some day", and "fan fiction" is a big deal but "original fiction" isn't.

I appreciate that drawing something you've conjured up in your mind is a remarkable talent, but you shouldn't underestimate the talent that sometimes goes into 'copying' ~ most of my drawings are pencil portraits copied from photos; as a cartoonist you might find the eye and (eg) head outlines easy enough, but that doesn't mean you'd have no problems getting the shading right. "Still life" is also 'copying', and requires different skills again ~ i can't draw still life any more than i can paint a landscape. Each to their own, huh

i would be better at reproducing from memory, but my manual dexterity limits my artistic skills to abysmal.

I do a bit of both. When I am drawing people, I do it from my imagination, but if it is a famous person or an object, I have to copy it. When I have copied a drawing, it them becomes easier for me to draw that person from imagination next time I attempt it.

It really depends on what I'm drawing. Humans? I need a reference shot otherwise it looks bad. Well, they still look like soulless husks, but at least the shading is decent. But I have a certain style that I draw that well, there are no reference shots for and I love drawing that the best (it's very geometrical). I love drawing humanoids without faces too. I wonder if that's why I like Victorian photography... often expressionless.

For example, the work I'm proud of: Kamiiyu's favs on DeviantArt
For the portraits, I did use references but only a couple were 'copied' (no tracing).