Hi Vince,
Turning down the resolution on the scan will not help. You never said what your end goal is with Joseph. Is this simply to learn how to convert bitmaps to vectors, or are you planning to engrave, route, or cut this shape on a cnc router, vinyl cutter, etc? There can be quite a difference between the result of a "quick & dirty" manual trace and that of a more detailed/accurate manual trace. It depends on how closely you want your final part to match the original. In any case, there are several techniques which you could employ to improve the quality of your bitmap image so that auto-tracing becomes practical.
Step 1 - Use a pen as you originally did to trace around your original onto a piece of dark colored paper.
Step 2 - With a sharp pair of scissors, cut along your traced line to produce a "template" of the original.
Step 3 - Scan your "template" to produce a bitmap file - as you originally did. If the "template" is too large to fit your scanner, place your "template" on top of a large white piece of paper (for contrasting background) and take a photo with your camera.
Step 4 - Import your bitmap file to VCarve Pro and auto-trace.
Step 5 - Edit as required.
I followed steps 1-3 above and here is the result of the scan.
Joseph black scan.jpg
Here it is imported to VCarve Pro.
Joseph black scan imported to VC pro.jpg
Trace bitmap.
Joseph black scan trace bitmap.jpg
Closed vector path after trace.
Joseph black scan closed vector path.jpg
Here are steps 1-3 but with the "template" photographed instead of scanned.
Photo of black template on white background.
20210102_174406_resized.jpg
I used Paint.net to crop photo.
Joseph photo 1.jpg
Import to VCarve Pro.
Joseph photo 1 imported to VC pro.jpg
Closed vector path after trace.
Joseph photo - trace bitmap result.jpg
When using "trace bitmap" for photos, it can be helpful to increase the noise filter setting from the default to around 8-10 pixels.