Procreate 5 Tutorial – New Features and Updates

I have been using Photoshop recently so I haven’t been using Procreate much. When I opened the Procreate app a few days ago, I realised that there were some changes, I then Googled for an update on Procreate online and learnt that it’s been the biggest release yet. The Procreate 5 has so many new features added, and some are very exciting for me, which makes me want to use the Procreate app more. In this tutorial, I’ll go through some of the updates in this release.

Animation Assist

Let’s you create animations! Turn on animation assist by going to actions, then canvas. You will see an animation assist option, turn it on to activate animation assist. You will see a timeline bar appear at the bottom of the screen.

Each layer or group is considered a single frame. To change the frame order, you can change the order of the layers in your layers panel or use the timeline bar by pressing, holding and then dragging them to your desired location.

You can also quickly select a layer to view or edit by tapping on the frame in the timeline bar.

Play

You can find this option on the left of the timeline bar.

Plays the animation.

Frame Options

Tap on the current frame in the timeline bar and you will see a list of frame options.

Hold duration: lets you adjust how long the frame lasts

Duplicate: lets you duplicate the frame

Delete: deletes the frame

Background: sets the frame as background, can be seen under other layers/ frames. This option is only available for the first frame.

Foreground: Sets the frame as foreground, it will lay on top of all the other frames. This option is only available for the last frame.

Settings

You can find this option on the right of the timeline bar.

Frames per second: 

Lets you decide how many frames you want to be played per second

Onion skin frames: 

Allows you to see frames adjacent to your current frame. You can change how many frames you can see.

Onion skin opacity:

Set the opacity of the adjacent frames

Blend primary frame:

Show the  current frame as an onion frame

Colour secondary frames:

Changes the onion skin frames behind your current frame red and onion skin frames after your current frame green.

Play type:

Lets you decide how the frames are played, there are 3 options: one-shot, loop, ping-pong.

Oneshot: Plays all the frame once and stops

Loop: Plays the frames again and again

Pingpong: Plays the frames from left to right, then from right to left, then repeats like playing ping-pong/table tennis.

Add frame

You can find this option on the right of the timeline bar.

Adds a frame/ layer after the current frame/layer

Brush Studio

Lets you create your own brush with its numerous burhs settings.

To find the brush studio, open the brush panel from the toolbar and select the brush you’d like to customise, tap it again and you will enter the brush studio and make all your adjustments. There are lots of options for you to customise, I will be making a separate post on how to customise your brushes in the future.

Combine Brushes

You can now combine brushes to create new brushes!

To do so, tap on the first brush, then swipe right on the second brush you want to combine with. After that, tap on the ‘combine option’ at the top right of the panel. It’s a good practice to create a duplicate version of the original 2 brushes first before combining them. After, combining, you can head over to the brush studio and make more changes to your new brush.

ABR Import

Allows you to import brushes from photoshop.

Go to Brush Library, tap on the plus sign on the top right, you will be sent to the brush studio. On the top right of the screen, tap on ‘Import’ and you will be taken to your files. Select your ABR brushes to import, you see then see your newly imported brushes in your brush library

Author Cards

This function lets you put in your information together with your artwork.

Goto Actions -> Canvas -> canvas information -> about this artwork

You will be able to add a photo, add your name and your signature.

Valkyrie Engine

A new and more powerful graphics engine, your brushes will feel smoother and more comfortable to paint with

Colour Dynamics

this is an option in the brush studio where you can customise your brushes so that they can change in colour! How cool does that sound?

Colour Companion

You can now drag the colour panel anywhere onto your canvas and have it remain there while you paint! This makes colour picking a lot more convenient and faster.

To drag the colour panel on to your canvas: Hold and drag the small horizontal white line at the middle top of the colour panel. You will see it decrease in size to make more room for painting.

To return the colour panel to the tools bar, tap on the ‘x’ button at the top right of the colour panel.

Colour History

Saves colours you’ve used into a list so you can quickly and easily go back to them. Saves up to 10 past colours.

To see your colour history, go to the colours panel and you should see it in the Disc, Classic, Harmony and value tab. You won’t see it in the Palettes tab.

Colour Profiles

When creating a custom canvas, you now have the option to choose a colour profile: RGB or CYMK. The new CYMK option is great for those who want to print out their artworks onto paper.

Colour Harmony

This new feature helps you select colours according to the type of colour scheme you choose. Follow the colour scheme will help you use colours that are harmonies when used together.

To change the type of colour scheme, open the colour wheel on the top right of the screen. Select the ‘Harmony’ tab at the bottom of the pop-out screen. Then, at the top of the pop-out screen, you will see the name of the colour scheme under ‘Colours’ title, tap on it and you will see all the other colour schemes you can choose from.

Once you’ve picked a colour scheme and a colour, you will see extra pointer circles on the colour wheel, those are colours you can use to achieve a harmonious result, depending on the colour scheme you’ve chosen.

Timelapse Options

The options for video timelapse are now available in the Procreate app! In the past, you would have to go to your Ipad’s settings to make changes in the settings. Now you can find it quickly in the app, go to Actions -> canvas -> canvas information -> video settings to see your video settings, however, you won’t be able to make any changes to the settings once you’ve created a canvas.

You can change the settings when creating a custom canvas, you will see the ‘time-lapse settings’ tab. You can change the video quality and resolution.

Clone Adjustment

You can find the clone tool in Adjustments -> Clone. This tool is great for removing imperfections and still make the artwork look natural.

A bar will show up at the bottom of the screen. You can pick the brush you wish to use for the cloning, change the brush size and change the strength/opacity of the cloning.

You will see a circle in the middle of the screen, drag it to an area where you want the cloning to start, then, with your fingers or a digital stylus, start painting on the area where you want to change to the cloning area.

Try out the Apple Pencil to bring your creative process to the next level on the Procreate App!

These artist gloves for digital painting are a must for me when I paint on the iPad, when I don’t wear the gloves, sometimes the Procreate app sense my palm resting on the screen as 2 fingers tapping and holding and start undoing! Or sometimes it starts colour picking. I’ve tried the different palm support options but I still get the problem sometimes.  If you’re having these kinds of problems as well, the gloves may be your solution, it makes you feel and look more professional too!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post and has learnt something new. I will be posting more Procreate related posts and tutorials in the future. Meanwhile, you can look at some of my past tutorials on Procreate by clicking here.

When you purchase something through the affiliate links I’ve provided in the post, I get a small commission (at no extra cost to you!) which helps me continue doing what I love and keep posting tutorials like this one.

You may also be interested in:

• Procreate 4.2 Tutorial – Introduction
• Procreate 4.2 Tutorial – Gestures and Customisation 
• Procreate 4.3 Tutorial — Blending Modes Briefly Explained