iPad Pro (Day 3)

Welcome to Day 3 of my coverage on the iPad Pro 9.7 inch. Let’s get into some technical aspects of Procreate on the Pro. When you create a new “digital” canvas you’re given options. There are
Retina, Square, 4K, 1080p and A4 canvas sizes. 

 Let’s look at the pixel dimensions and how many layers you have. The dimensions refer to the image size, basically how it’s going to look on your screen and then when you print. Layers I always explain are like sheets of tracing paper. 

Each canvas is different. Retina is generally what I use. It has dimensions of 1536 x 2048 pixels and 60 layers. Next is the square format. That has 2048 x 2048 pixels and can hold 44 layers. 4K is 3rd, has an incredible 1714 x 4096 pixels and can hold 24 layers. 1080p has 1080 x 1920 pixels and 93 layers. A4 has 2480 x 3508 pixels and 19 layers. 

 Keep in mind the higher the pixel count the less layers you have. Really though on average I probably only use at most 20 layers on portrait art, 5 to 10 on cartooning work and about 3 to 4 on landscape art. It’s all about condensing your layers to conserve. It’s also helpful that Procreate let’s you name your layers so things don’t get bogged down. 

 Today I started off by working on a commission. The client wants a cartoony style so my toolset is different than usual. I started off in the Sketching section (under the Brushes section) and used the 6B Pencil tool. Next I switched to the inking tools and used the brush pen. 

It’s interesting that the pencil will let you have a tapered line with a flick of your wrist. It feels very natural and expressive. For coloring I like to play in the Painting and Artistic sections. I went between the Round Brush and Wet Acrylic brushes. For some personal work I created a painting of app icons using the Oil Paint tool which is found in the Artistic section.

Come back tomorrow for Day 4.

Copyright © 2018, Raheem Nelson. All rights reserved.
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