Drawing

PopCraft paints on the same canvas it draws vectors on. A stroke is a real object in the layer tree, in the same file as your frames and type — there is no separate paint document to keep in sync.

1. 1.Pick a brush from the library0:00
2. 2.Draw on the page0:01
3. 3.Draw another: every stroke is its own layer0:03

Description

A comic page in Draw mode, with the brush library in the left panel. Oil Pastel is picked from the library and two curving strokes are drawn across a panel; each lands as a stroke layer in the layer tree.

1. Click Draw in the top bar. The left panel becomes the brush library.
2. Click a brush (here, Oil Pastel) and press B for the brush tool.
3. Draw. Each stroke is its own layer in the layer tree, so you can move, recolour or delete one on its own.
4. Press Esc, or choose another mode, to stop drawing.

Getting into Draw

Click Draw in the top bar. The toolbar becomes the drawing palette, and the left panel switches to the brush library. B picks up the brush in any mode, so you can ink a quick line without leaving Design.

Press Esc, or choose another mode, to leave.

The palette

Draw mode's toolbar is the document's palette — a row of instruments you made, each one a brush, a color and a size remembered together. Hitting one picks up that whole combination, the way you'd pick up a pen rather than re-dialling three settings.

Use + to add the current brush to the palette, and the chevron on any slot to change what it holds.

The brush library

93 brushes in 13 groups:

Every brush in the list draws its own preview stroke, so you can see the grain before you commit. The chips beside a brush say what it is:

• Vector — an editable, resolution-free path
• Pixel — textured, soft-edged and wet-mixing, baked to pixels
• Tilt — tilting the pencil changes size, opacity or color
• Side — lay the pencil down and it shades with the side of the tip

Pressure, tilt and stabilization

On a stylus, pressure drives size and opacity and tilt drives the shape of the tip — a pencil on its side broadens the way a real one does. Each brush decides how much of that it wants.

Strokes are smoothed as you draw, and the tail of the stroke is refitted behind the cursor, so a fast line comes out clean without feeling laggy. Every brush carries its own smoothing amount.

Drawing guides

Turn on a guide and strokes are held to its directions:

• Grid — a square grid at a spacing and rotation you choose
• Isometric — the 30° / −30° / vertical axes
• Perspective — one, two or three vanishing points. One is flat on, two is a corner, and three adds the vertical convergence of looking up at a tower or down off a roof.

Assist is what makes strokes snap; turn it off and the lines are just something to draw against. Either way the guide is an aid on screen and is never exported.

Bringing your own brushes

The Import button at the top of the brush library takes Procreate .brush and .brushset files, along with PopCraft's own .json brushes. See Procreate brushes.

Vector or raster?

Both, and the brush decides. An inked line stays a vector path: editable and resolution-free. A watercolor wash is a pixel brush, baked as you draw — that is what buys it grain, soft edges and wet mixing, and what keeps a heavily painted file fast. The chip in the brush list tells you which you're holding before you start.