Drag these layers above any art to instantly turn everything below them to bluelines.

To do this, create two Procreate layers: One layer should be filled with blue and have a layer effect of ‘COLOR” and the second layer should be filled with white with an opacity of ~80%. While those reasons don’t apply when working digitally, the approach is still still amazingly handy. This helped with photographing and later scanning original art. TIP 2: Instant bluelines! White and Blue Layersīack in ye olden times of pencil and paper, we cartoonists used blue pencil for sketching and roughing out our drawings. Since you’ll likely be lettering in Photoshop and bouncing back and forth with your desktop, having a properly sized template helps a lot. I also use this opportunity to import a graph-paper-like grid which comes in real handy. You can also create perfectly geometric panel borders (something Procreate isn’t good at). This offers a lot of opportunities to mark off crops, and bleeds and the live area. I usually use Illustrator and Photoshop – and import the template into Procreate (via Dropbox).

When you start your comic strip, create your template on your desktop computer. TIP 1: Don’t start in Procreate! My template for The Middle Age That ebook does an amazing job of guiding you step-by-step through the basics and all the latest features. No matter what your skill level, I recommend going to the App Store and downloading the Procreate manual to your iPad. General warning: These tips are geared to professional and aspiring professional cartoonists and these tips assume you’re at least a little familiar with the Procreate app basics like copying and pasting, sharing files via Dropbox, and exporting a video of your file.

(Updated January 21, 2019, with two bonus tips!) I’ve worked this way for nearly two years and during that time, I’ve stumbled on to some pretty good tips and tricks. I draw my Eisner- and Ringo-nominated webcomic The Middle Age using the Procreate app on an iPad Pro.

Procreate tricks and tips