Vector tracing for wallpapers

A lot of the good wallpapers in /w/ are vectors.  How do you vector things?  I was thinking take, say, Inkscape (think Illustrator but free) and paste the picture into the background, then use curves/lines/other shapes to get the outlines and then gradients to fill, then delete the original picture from the background.  Is this how it's done, or is there a better way?

note i'm not looking for auto-vectoring things - those tend to create overly complex paths with like 300 or so nodes.

I do it like this:

1. Open up http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/ .
2. Open up GVim.
3. Type and type until the SVG image looks like the source image, or better.
4. ????
5. Fap fap fap.

Might not be the best way for overly complex images, but it is the most correct -- if you can do the curves perfectly, that is.

Good job, but help me please!
we provide some runescape services, like runescape gold(http://www.rs2moneyvip.com/),
runescape money(http://www.rs2moneyvip.com/runescapemoney/),
runescape power leveling(http://www.rs2moneyvip.com/runescapepowerleveling/)and runescape accounts(http://www.rs2moneyvip.com/runescapeaccounts/).