10 Procreate Hacks to Draw Faster and Smarter (Stop Wasting Time!)

Alright, here is a free set of Procreate tricks that will make you draw faster, cleaner and way smarter. And yes, this is actually part 2 of my Draw Faster and Smarter series but don't worry you can start right here even if you missed part 1. We got everything from smooth lines to perfect shapes, mirror designs, coloring hacks that will save you so much time. Let's go! Tip number 1. Streamline. This one is your Procreate bestie. If you want your lines to look smooth and professional without fighting your speed, streamlines got you covered. See how the lines wobble even though I'm drawing super slow. Let's fix that in seconds. Go to your brush library and tap your brush to open the settings. Now head over to stabilization and increase the streamline amount just a bit. I usually keep mine around 80%, that's the sweet spot. If you set it too high, your lines might start feeling stiff and you will lose a bit of control. Suddenly those wobbly lines turn into smooth, clean strokes effortlessly. Use low streamline for fast sketches and high streamline for inking or detail work. It's such a simple trick but it saves you a ton of time. Tip number 2. Quickshape. Quickshape is your next bestie for drawing fast right after streamline. If you want clean, perfect shapes without redrawing them 10 times, quickshapes got you covered. Draw a line and hold your pencil and boom, straight line. Want precise angles? Add one finger and it locks to 15 degrees increments. Same for circles. Draw a messy circle, hold it and it snaps into a perfect ellipse. Add one finger and you get a perfect circle. You can even go to the top menu and tweak between ellipse or circle. You can also adjust the points to get the exact shape you want. Quickshape will make you draw way faster and you will be saving minutes on every drawing without even noticing. Tip number 3. Save your favorite brush sizes. If you are working with different line widths, saving a brush size can be a total game changer. Let's say you have a few favorite sizes. All you need to do is pick the size you want, then tap the plus symbol to save it as a mark. You can save up to 4 marks for both sides and oppositely across paint and erase. Later just tap or slide to a mark to snap right back to the exact setting. Each brush can have its own custom set of marks. I keep one for lineart, one for details and one or two for coloring. If you ever want to remove one, just tap the minus symbol. This little hack saves you so much time and frustration. No more guessing or fiddling with sliders. Tip number 4. Symmetry drawing guide. This one is a lot of fun. Want to draw stunning faces, flowers or patterns without wasting time on symmetry? Here is a trick that makes Procreate mirror every stroke perfectly so you draw smarter, not harder. Go to actions, canvas, turn on drawing guide, then tap edit drawing guide. You have different options here, I want you to choose symmetry. You will see a line appear, that's your mirror. Adjust the opacity and thickness until it feels right for your setup. You can also choose the color of your drawing guide here. Next, open options here and select vertical. And hit done here. You are all set now. Now every line you make on one side instantly appears on the other. Let's try this drawing a face, because the feature perfect for faces, characters or anything that needs clean symmetry. Once you are finished or if you want to add some asymmetrical touches, simply turn off drawing assist on your layer and keep drawing however you like. To do that, go back to layers, tap on your layer and toggle off drawing assist. Now you can add details to break the symmetry and give your drawing a little extra life. Now let's try another drawing guide. This one is perfect for drawing patterns, mandalas or flowers. Alright, create a new layer, go actions, canvas, then go back to edit drawing guide. This time choose radial. Make sure that drawing assist is on your new layer. To check, go to your layer, tap on it and make sure drawing assist is selected. And just like that, you are ready to draw flowers, mandalas or geometric patterns in seconds. Perfectly balanced and incredibly fast. If you want to add unsymmetrical details, just go back to your layer and toggle drawing assist off. Now you can freely add your own touches and break the symmetry. I'm sure you will have so much fun with this one. Tip number 5, flipping canvas. And this one is seriously underrated. Flipping your canvas. The moment you flip it, your brain sees the drawing like it's brand new. Suddenly, all these tiny mistakes you've been blind to, they pop right up. You will spot them instantly. And the best part? Fixing them now saves you a ton of cleanup later. Alright, let's set a quick gesture so you can do this instantly. If you go up to actions, preferences, gesture controls and then tap quick menu. And here you will see a bunch of ways to activate it. I will go with the first one. It still gives you more control. Now head back to your canvas and tap that little square here. And the quick menu pops up. Mine is already customized but you can tap and hold any of the tabs and assign it to flip canvas. That's it. Now you can flip your canvas anytime while you draw. Super quick, super easy and perfect for catching mistakes fast. Tip number 6, impart colors from Procreate. You ever see a photo and just fallen in love with the colors? Don't waste time guessing or trying to recreate the palette like this. Instead, Procreate can grab them for you in seconds. Here is how. Go to your colors and then hit the palettes. And you will see all your palettes here. Hit the plus at the top and choose new from photos or new from file. Then pick your image. And that's it. Procreate instantly builds a palette from it. You can see your palette here at the top. If you got a reference photo or a screenshot or even your old artwork, your colors are ready to go in seconds. If you don't like some of the colors, just tap on them and then tap delete. Then you will have a perfect palette. Tip number 7, deciding colors faster with Harmony tool. Stop wasting time scrolling through the color wheel hoping for a good combo. Procreate literally gives you color tarot on autopilot. Here is how. Let's say you want colors that go with this orange. Then open your color panel and tap Harmony. Then if you tap here at the top, it gives you a few options. The first one is Complementary. This one is great for contrast. Then there is Split Complementary. It's like complementary color. It's a bit more softer and more balanced. Then you got Analogues which picks colors right next to it for more harmonious look. Dreaded gives you strong vibrant palettes with good balance. Now you can pick colors that work together in seconds instead of minutes. I usually save my favorite combos straight to a palette so I don't have to think about it again. So Harmony tool, every time you are unsure about your next color, it's your lifesaver. Tip number 8, continue fill. Stop dragging colors every time you are coloring. Procreate has a smarter way for you. Here is how. Grab your color, drag it into a shape. Then instead of repeating that over and over, tap Continue Filling at the top. Now just tap all the other pieces you want to fill in one go. It's fast, clean, effortless coloring. Tip number 9, fill layer. Now I want to show you an even faster way to change colors in your drawing. It's a not so famous feature in Procreate but it's pure magic. Let's say you already got your base shape or flat colors done. You can instantly recolor them in seconds instead of using Continue Filling. Here is how. Go to your layers panel, select your layer, the one you want to recolor. Now tap on that layer and choose Alphalock. Make sure you pick the new color you want to use. Here is the cool part. Then tap your layer again and select Fill Layer. It fills only your painted areas. That's Alphalock. So make sure you turn it on first. You can change colors as many times as you want. Just pick a new color, hit Fill Layer again and watch the magic happen. Tip number 10, Alphalock. You got this cute cat and you want to add patterns fast but you don't want to mess up the lines like I do here. There are many ways to do that. First up, Alphalock. Here is how it works. Go to your layers, just tap your layer and hit Alphalock. This lets you color only the pixels that are already painted. No more spilling outside your shapes. One downside though, it works directly on your original layer. So if you want to delete something, it deletes the original too. If you want more flexibility, watch the next one. Tip number 11, Layer Mask. Okay, this is your fix anything without fear tool. And if you are not using it, you are wasting time erasing and redoing. Here is a trick. Go to your layers, tap on your drawing layer and hit Select. Now go create a new layer on top, tap it and choose Mask. Now you have two layers. This hides everything outside your selection. Click the bottom layer. Your paint is masked to the pink cat face below but it's on transparent layer. Giving you even more flexibility. As you see, your original drawing underneath stays untouched. So you can experiment like crazy. In ProMove here, you can combine this with other masks like Clipping Mask for even more control. Create a new layer on top, tap on it and choose Clipping Mask. Now anything you paint, shading, texture, patterns will appear only inside your mask shape. You can even go back to your base layer and add another Clipping Mask on top of that. Every stroke you make stays perfectly contained under your pattern. Before you know it, you built a whole stack of smart layers. It's clean, fast and insanely flexible, letting you make instant changes without ever touching your base artwork. If you love these tricks, be sure to check out part 1 of this series. It's packed with even more time-saving Procreate hacks that go perfectly with what you learn here. And if you want full step-by-step lessons with real projects, my Skillshare classes are linked below. The first two months are free with my link, so don't miss it. They will take your Procreate and drawing skills even further. Don't forget to subscribe and like if you enjoyed and I will see you in the next week's video.