Master Procreate Tracing- From Photo to Digital Art (Beginner Tutorial)

Welcome to my channel, I'm Aaron Rutten, and today we're going to learn how to trace in Procreate. Tracing is a fantastic way to improve your drawing skills, practice composition, and create artwork from a reference. Let's dive in. First things first, you'll need a reference image. You can use your own photos, stock images, AI generated images, or even my exclusive reference images available for members on my website at aaronrutten.com. I'll link you to that in the video description. I'll choose this photo of a Canadian goose, which I took myself. The image needs to be large and high resolution enough to see the details in it. A low resolution image will just look blurry if you try to enlarge it. If I show you a low resolution version of this goose, you can barely make out the feather details and other features. If you can't see it, you can't trace it. But also keep in mind that your artwork might not need to be super high resolution, so just aim for a medium size reference image or larger. Once you have your reference, open Procreate and create a new canvas. It's a good idea to base your canvas size on the aspect ratio of your reference image to ensure everything fits nicely. You don't have to make the canvas match the photo, because you may want to place your subject somewhere else, like on a background or alongside other subjects. But in this case, I only want to focus on the goose. Overall, the goose is wide, not tall, so I'll create a wide canvas. I'll just make it simple and choose the Screen Size option, but you may want to choose something that is larger if you plan to print your work. Now let's bring in our reference. Go to the Actions menu, which looks like a wrench icon in the top left. Next, tap Add. And then you can either insert a file from your local or cloud storage, or insert a photo from the Photos app. An important tip here. If you're recording a time lapse and you don't want the reference to be captured, you can omit it from your recordings. To do this, swipe left on either of these options and choose Insert Private. Select your reference image, and once it's on your canvas, you can move, scale, or rotate the reference to place it into the composition. Before you do anything, be sure to select the Uniform mode or you will distort your reference. You can use touch gestures or the handles surrounding the reference to manipulate it. You may also want to zoom out of your canvas a bit to get a better view of how your reference fits in the scene. When you are finished, tap on the Transform tool to deactivate it. Next, tap on the Layers panel in the top right and tap on the layer. Choose Rename and name this layer Reference. After that, you'll want to dim the opacity of the reference to make it easier to see when you are tracing. Tap on the N next to the layer and drag the opacity slider until the image becomes fainter. You may want to play with this to find the right opacity when you are tracing. In my case, around 25% is enough to see the important details I want to trace, but also allows me to see the pencil lines I will be drawing. Next, drag this blank layer or create a new layer above your reference layer and name it Sketch. This is where we will start our tracing. There are two primary objectives for tracing. First, you might want to use it to help you get the correct shapes and proportions of your subject. The rest of the illustration would be based on the sketch, but would include much more detail. This sketch would be temporary and discarded when it's no longer needed. Second, you might want to skip the sketch and just ink right over the reference to create lineart. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to get started with both methods. For sketching and inking, I highly recommend using a stylus like the Apple Pencil Pro since it offers much more accuracy than your finger. As for the brush to use, I have an excellent sketching pencil in my Procreate Starter Pack available at AaronRutten.com. Of course, you can also use any of the default Procreate brushes as well. There are some pencils in the drawing category. Start lightly sketching over your reference image, focusing on the main shapes and lines. For now, I just want to get the outline of the goose. I will wait to sketch the feather patterns. If you plan to use your tracing as a starting point for a painting, you only need to indicate where the details will be, not draw the details entirely. For example, the feather textures are very fine and intricate, and I could spend hours drawing them with this pencil. But if I ended up painting over the sketch with paintbrushes, all of that previous detail would be wasted. So to clarify, we're making a temporary sketch here, not a finished drawing yet. Eventually, I plan to use a lineart style with ink outlines, hatching, and color fills, so I will only need to indicate the general shapes of the feather patterns. If it's hard to see certain details, you can place a duplicate of your reference image on a separate device, like a phone or computer screen, or you can increase the reference image opacity as needed. And don't worry about drawing the wrong lines. You certainly can undo, but that will waste a lot of time. It may be more efficient to clean up the unwanted lines with an eraser near the end of the sketch. Once your sketch is complete, go back to the layers panel and hide your reference layer by unchecking the box next to it. This allows you to see your sketch more clearly. You may want to create a second sketch layer, dim the opacity, and refine your sketch. I don't think that's necessary, so I won't bother. What I will do is make the background color darker, so you can better see the sketch in my recording. It's also easier on the eyes than a bright white canvas. If you're satisfied with your sketch, it's now ready to turn into a finished illustration. You can choose from a number of art styles, genres, and mediums. I can't possibly cover all of those in this video, so I will just choose one that is simple and fairly common. I want to use this sketch to make a lineart drawing and fill it with some color and other details. I'll create a new layer above the sketch layer and name it Inking. I'll also dim the opacity of the sketch so I can see more of my ink lines. Next, choose an inking brush that you like. My smooth pen works great, but there are also lots of default brushes in the inking category. Take your time and ink over your sketch, creating crisp, smooth lines. You need not follow the sketch exactly if you feel the ink lines are an improvement. You can use the eraser mode to clean up your lines as well. If you're having trouble keeping your lines stable, try increasing the brush stabilization in the brush settings. I only want to focus on the main outlines, not any fine details. I'll use Color Drop to fill in the darkest shadow areas with black. I'll create another layer and name it Hatching. Now I'll use a smaller brush to add some finer details on the feathers, legs, and face. I have a video you can watch with some tips and techniques for inking, so that's all I'll say about it in this tutorial. You may also want to open your artwork in the reference panel to see it both up close and from a distance. This helps you better visualize the patterns in the linework. You can use the erase mode to cut into your ink to create negative space too. It would be difficult to exactly match the reference image, so I'm just trying to get the impression of the feathers. The feet are obscured by the water, so I want to make just an impression of them as well. I'll do that on a separate layer just to be safe. After you've finished inking, you can hide your sketch layer to reveal just your clean lineart. Looks great, doesn't it? Next I'll give an overview of how to add color to a lineart illustration. This is another topic I cover in detail in a separate video, so have a look at that if you want to learn more. I'll create a new layer and drag it below the inking layer. You can name this coloring. There are two main ways to color. First, you can use a reference layer and color drop. Make your inking layer a reference layer by tapping on it and selecting reference. Then on your coloring layer, you can use color drop to quickly fill inside the lines. Just drag a color onto the canvas and release. You can use continue filling mode to keep the fill tool active. This will only work on closed shapes, so be sure to close any gaps on your linework layer. For more flexibility, I recommend separating different colors onto their own layers. This way you can easily adjust individual colors with filters or by painting over them. Alternatively, you can hand color using a brush like Smooth Fill or any of the default brushes that have a hard edge and full opacity. After laying down your colors, you might have some color that went outside the lines. No worries. Just use the eraser to clean up any stray marks. Finally, let's add some shading. Tap on each individual color layer and enable alpha lock. This allows you to draw or paint only within the existing pixels of that layer. In other words, it works a lot like a stencil. Now you can add darker or lighter colors to create shadows and highlights. This will give your artwork more depth. Feel free to enable and disable alpha lock as needed. I'll keep adding different colors, trying to somewhat match what I see in my reference, but I'll also use my own creative choices. After filling in the main colors, I'll blend a bit using the smudge mode with my coarse oily brush or something similar. I can also use a glazing airbrush to help merge the colors together and create form on the subject. I can also add some realism by painting a shadow on a separate layer set to the multiply blend mode. I'll need to reduce the opacity to blend it in. If your colors are a bit off, feel free to use the filters to correct them. You can add textures within your colors using brushes from my starter pack, like the chalk or sponge. I'll use the select layer command and paint onto a new multiply layer. And of course, there are lots of default texture brushes in Procreate as well. I'll add the finishing touches, like a simple background that gives the impression of water. I'll need to add some of the watercolor into the feet of the goose. I made this background in two parts with a soft gradient and a texture I can smudge around to create detail. The drawing looks pretty good to me, so I will stop here. As you can tell, tracing was only a small part of this process. I am fully capable of hand drawing this goose without tracing, but it's already tedious enough to ink and color, so why not save time where I can? That's more time I can use to make more art. Don't feel bad about tracing if that's how you want to draw. Once you're happy with your artwork, it's time to save it. In the Actions menu, tap the Share button and choose your desired format, like JPEG or PNG. And there you have it. That's how you trace in Procreate. I hope this tutorial was helpful. If you're interested in taking your Procreate skills to the next level, be sure to check out my full Procreate training course, available at aaronrutten.com. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.