Procreate: A Beginner’s Journey
In one of my previous blog posts, I talked a little bit about Procreate, the illustrating, painting and drawing app created exclusively for Apple’s iPad.
Looking back, I realize I didn’t go into as much detail as I should have. So, please allow me to take this time to talk a little bit about Procreate and why I’ve come to love it so much.
What is Procreate?
This award-winning creative app was formed by a tech startup located in Tasmania called Savage Interactive.
We chose the name Savage because we’re extremely hungry and driven to make the most compelling software in the world for creative professionals. — Savage Interactive
According to many designers, artists and illustrators, Procreate has the responsiveness of a pen and paper when it is coupled with the Apple Pencil. The “smooth” feeling, combined with a large selection of more than 130 Procreate brushes (as well as the ability to customize and add brushes), have caused many artists to fall in love with the app.
Procreate vs. Photoshop
Looking at Procreate as a whole, it runs very similarly to Photoshop. However, I personally find Procreate’s interface to be superior to Photoshop’s in that it’s just easier to navigate as a novice.
Procreate allows artists to organize their work in a gallery format which is similar to Photoshop, zoom in and out of their work and transition back and forth between other apps or platforms as needed.
All in all, these are just some of the things I’ve noticed after having worked in both Photoshop and Procreate respectively. For a more comprehensive guide, check out this blog post.
My Favorite Things About Procreate
Grouping Artwork
Overall, I’d like to think that I am a pretty organized person. Thankfully, Procreate allows you to group your artwork in stacks and rename the stacks as you see fit.
As an artist, I have problems sticking with one topic at a time, so being able to arrange my work into neat piles is really useful so that I can come back to them whenever I want.
Interface/Layers
I’ll be honest, when it comes to layers, I don’t know if I’m doing them “right.” However, Procreate has provided me with a system that let’s me achieve my goals so it’s a thumbs up from me.
Whether it’s toggling visibility or merging layers, everything is extremely straightforward.
The fact that the app is on an iPad also seems to add to the appeal. Most if not all Apple products have the same sleek and simple interface. I highly recommend Procreate (and an iPad Pro) to other beginners for this exact reason.
GIFs
One of the most recent things I’ve been learning how to do is make GIFs. Thanks to Procreate, this process is extremely straightforward. Keep in mind, this is just one of the many ways to make animated GIFs in Procreate.
The first thing to keep in mind is that every layer is a frame. The frames will appear in the GIF from the bottom of the list to the top.
If we take a look at our layers in the image to our left, Layer 5 will be the first frame in our GIF. The top of the list, the layer that says “BOO” with a bat on top of the O, will be the last frame.
Once we have the layers in the order that we want, we can prepare to export our work.
After we’ve selected the artwork that we want to export, you’ll notice Procreate asks for the image format.
For this, we want to select “Animated GIF.”
Next, we’ll be prompted with a question on how many frames per second we want the GIF to be.
Remember, the more frames per second, the faster the GIF will sift through our layers.
For more ways to make animated GIFs in Procreate, check out the YouTube video below!
Inktober Progress
As promised, I want to give you guys an update on my Inktober progress.
To tell you the truth, keeping up with the prompts this week has been really hard due to midterms. However, I am planning on catching up next week so be prepared for a lot of artwork in the posts to come!
Also, I’ve been seriously contemplating making stickers or pins out of some of my drawings. Let me know what you guys think in the comments below!
