# Procreate: Who is it for & What does it do? Your questions answered!

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Bring Your Own Laptop
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0
- **Дата:** 09.04.2026
- **Длительность:** 55:35
- **Просмотры:** 1,988

## Описание

Watch the new Procreate Essentials Course & get 10% off BYOL: https://byol.com/pcrtfaq 
Download Procreate: https://procreate.com/procreate

Is Procreate a nice-to-have or the designer's new best friend? With over 25 years of experience in both traditional and digital media, instructor Nathan Brown has the answers. Join Dan and Nathan for a Q&A covering what Procreate does, who its for, and pro tips for any designer looking to add this intuitive digital illustration app to their toolkit. 

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## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Bring Your Own Laptop live stream. Today we are launching the Procreate Essentials course. We searched you guys asked for the course. We searched high and low across all of the internet and to find somebody who was both a great artist and a great teacher of Procreate. And we found him. His name is Nathan Brown, professional artist, Procreate instructor extraordinaire. Welcome to the live stream, Nathan. Well, thank you so much for having me and for that wonderful introduction. — [gasps] — How does it feel to have the course finally out in the world? Great, because you know, it takes a long time to put one of these together. And when it finally goes out there and you just kind of sit back and you know, just enjoy the fact that it's done and it's there and it's hopefully people are enjoying it and having a great time with it and learning from it and that's the big reward to the all the work you put in. That's the best bit. Like I'm loving seeing the course is live now for anybody that's just joined us on the live stream. It's live now on Bring Your Own Laptop. You can check it out there. There's a link in the description for it there. But some of the class projects already coming through. Just before we went live on the live stream, me and Nathan just talking about how great like some of the really early projects are already turning out. What we're [clears throat] going to do is we're going to be quizzing Nathan about Procreate his own work. But this is a live stream. So the cool thing about live stream is you get to ask questions. If you're on YouTube now watching, you'll see the chat window. You can ask questions. Stephen Butler will be gathering those up and we'll be answering them in a minute. So Nathan's here to answer your questions about you know, being a digital artist, about Procreate. So jump drop them in the comments and we'll be getting to them soon. There's not that many people here. So your question will get answered. And before we get into it, I just want to show you a little bit of Nathan's work. I'm surprising Nathan with this. And uh just to give you the style and the type of work that Nathan does and what he brought to the course. You see here, I'll just we won't go through them all. I just want to scrub through them all cuz I'm just we're all blown away at Bring Your Own Laptop when we found Nathan. The right style from the right person. Just love his work. My favorite here Daredevil. — The victory design looking one. Just amazing work. And what I also want to show you is some of the class projects that we do as well. And so moving through Nathan's work. This is some of the early class projects. The sea creature. This is the one me and Nathan were talking about seeing some of the you know, work of the class already. And as part of the project throughout the course, there's a book cover that you design. So it's both artistic and design elements throughout the course. Let's jump back into the live stream here interview. Cool. And So Procreate Essentials, who is it for? What does it do? I'm here with Nathan Brown. We're going to answer your questions. First of all, the big question, Nathan, what is Procreate? What is it exactly? Well, I can tell you what it is to me. — It is like the ultimate digital art tool. Like especially if you are coming from a traditional background where you like to draw on paper or paint on canvas or whatever traditional media you're coming from. It's the most like realistic experience I've ever had putting together digital artwork. It's so intuitive. It's so easy. If you understand the concept of layers and the concept of digital art brushes you're there. I mean, that's it. It's so easy to use and I love it. It transformed my It's the single tool that transformed my digital art. Hands down. What were you doing beforehand? Was it always you know, like paper and materials or was there a like a transitional like was Photoshop involved or was it just straight to Procreate or nothing until Procreate? It was like years and years of Photoshop. And if I wanted like if I wanted a traditional look in Photoshop, I would have to do it by hand, scan it or photograph it and bring it in. If it wasn't quite right, I'd have to go back. There was no real way to edit it or adjust it to make it look more traditional. It would just start to look digital, that kind of thing. I did not like I did layouts and things in Photoshop. I did attempts at digital art, I would say

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00)

that I that would have but it would just always looked like Photoshop to me. Like it and it never felt natural. Like I even had like the big um like the touch sensitive monitors, you know, where you could not touch the screen but yeah, Cintiqs and things like that. Like I had the big one. I was like, oh this is going to be the thing, you know, what makes the connection for me. And it just never did. Like it always felt just kind of awkward. You know, like there was still this disconnect of like this just doesn't feel right to me. You know, this just I don't know it was just the somehow the awkwardness of it. I don't know. And then Procreate just immediately felt natural to me. And it just it clicked right away. Which I you know, there was no like time period of like you know, oh I'm eventually going to get used to this like I thought with the monitors, you know. It just was right away. So that was the game changer. That was probably my hesitation of touching Procreate. I didn't do it until I did your course and that was it cuz I came from the Wacom kind of you know, there was this kind of like awkward I could make it kind of work but the one of the like the small thing that was the big changer for me is being able to use the iPad and just turn it around like a you know, like I have a good drawing I can draw really good this way. I can't really draw that way. Whereas the Wacom and especially the Cintiq you talked about the massive thing. It had you could buy giant hinges and stuff but it was pretty clumsy, right? Like just grab the iPad and going youk on the side I was like it took me ages to go just turn the iPad like a better paper. But it was such a big change. — Yeah. Yeah, I had one of those big hinge things that you're talking about. It weighs like 100 lb. And like it holds it, you know, and it's like and it just it's crazy, you know, just the and then with the iPad, yeah, you just turn it. It's no big deal. — And what we did in this course is like what we like what we did at Bring Your Own Laptop before we found Nathan is we spent a long time trying to find somebody cuz Procreate is digital art. And Bring Your Own Laptop is traditionally designers but you know, we were trying to find somebody with a commercial art kind of lean and like for a designer, let's just say you know, is it strictly for kind of fine art or you know, can designers use it for sketching and illustration? Was it kind of more just fine art type you know, kind of like finished goods? Yeah, I think for me it was like it made my designs and layouts more adjacent to fine art if that makes sense. So like if you if you think about like you know, you're doing let's say you're doing like you're consistently doing book cover work or album cover work or posters or t-shirts or whatever you do in Photoshop, whatever you design and typically layout. When you suddenly can like bring in like more traditional methods to that workflow that is not necessarily intuitive or available to you in Photoshop. Like it kind of changes your workflow. It's like adding like new tools to the toolkit in a way. So it's like you know, you can still use Photoshop for your type layout or your you know, your roughs or whatever but then you start to bring in the ability of Procreate to kind of have that little bit of traditional workflow. And you really see it in the course. You see how I put together the all of the stages of a book cover design all within Procreate. And there is a stage in there that is a little bit more of like a traditional approach to what you might consider a layout that you would maybe do in Photoshop. Cool. And what I found really good about it is it's really small thing but like colors for me, you know, like I I like drawing with my hands and stuff but like and sketching is I really like it but I feel I can probably still quicker just doing a quick sketch on my sketchbook. — [clears throat] — But when I go to color things in, I have drawers and drawers full of like different kind you know, there's acrylic markers, there's like kind of the you know, and then you buy the colors and you're like, do I just buy that set? Okay, I'm going to buy the warm tones and then you get like, all right, it's a couple of these and then the white and then I'm going to have this and then all the grays. And you kind of committed to this illustration or drawing that you really want to you know, build up to express your idea. But then in Procreate, first of all, the colors that just the palettes you get. You're like, I'm awesome at color. — Like I didn't do anything. I just picked the default color panel. It's not like

### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00)

Photoshop where you get this like magenta, full blood red, you know, all these colors that you've got to kind of dig [clears throat] in, whereas Procreate was just like, I'm grabbing stuff. I'm like, these are all going together. I'm looking great. And I'm not committed to them forever, you know? Right. Yeah. It It also kind of like something about it kind of makes you like you might say, "Oh, well, I'm a designer, you know? " But there's something about Procreate that kind of like is going to lean you a little bit in the artist direction. You know, like you're still a designer, but you now have this little bit of like art leaning tendencies because or artistic leaning tendencies because you have access to things that you just didn't have access to in Photoshop or things that are just making it easier, like easier access. Yeah, Photoshop you had to like use filters really to kind of try and mimic something. You couldn't make it happen on your own, right? Like you kind of like did something and then try to make it force it to be something it wasn't originally, whereas Procreate you're kind of making it the same Yeah, you're creating the thing at the same time you're making it. And what do you reckon the pros and cons are though of say, you know, you've done you do traditional art and you do this digital art. What are the There's got to be probably pros and cons for both of them. Where do those kind of fit when you kind of started using Procreate more more? So the the definite con with traditional art and which Procreate instantly removes is just the commitment to like, you know, what I'm laying down is there, you know, like there's no undo. You know, like you If you want to undo it, you've got to paint over it or you've got to erase take some sort of drastic measure to essentially undo. Um but what I do like what I consider to a definite uh pro to Procreate is that you can use the same traditional methods. Like let's just say like if you want to um uh you use a lot of like brushy textures and things that you have that you can put those into Procreate. You know, I do a lot of like I create my own textures and I bring that into Procreate and I overlay over my drawings and then I begin to build it up, which is a very traditional process where you're just kind of working from a middle tone um and you might just paint a canvas like a tan or a brown or a gray and then work the values from there. You know, something like that is just like really simple in Procreate and you can just have all these uh like textures and things that you've brought in and then you can just work that traditional process that you're used to using or that maybe you've seen someone else use and it just it's like magic. I mean like it just is so easy to stay within that traditional um workflow that you're used to, but you have all the advantages of digital art. You know, you can undo or you can remove that texture or you can change that color. You know, all that stuff that you know, is the main advantage of digital art. Um so that's probably for me that's been the biggest like positive over like working traditional. You know, I still have this I can use the same workflow, but I've got all the advantages of digital. Are there times where you just like, "Actually, I'm going to go back to kind of like in real life things or you know, is there a kind of a circumstance where you're like, actually this is not really the role of Procreate in this kind of artwork. I'm going to go back to traditional art. " Oh. Do you mean like it like is there is a reason why I would go back to traditional — a reason why we like, "No, Procreate's not right for this. I'm going to open the tin drawers full of um materials and you know, get out of this paper. " Yeah, definitely. So there's two things. Um there's two reasons why I would do that. And the first being that I'm a very tactile like I like the way that traditional materials feel. You know, I like the feel of paper and texture and paint and paint brushes and things like that. Um then there is the aspect of like traditional materials will inherently do things on their own. Like um you know, watercolor and water are going to it's going to do something different every time. You know, you're going to put water down, you're going to wait for it to dry, you're going to see what it gives you to work with. You can do the same thing in Procreate and I have brushes specifically to mimic that kind of interaction, but you are still like it's not necessarily going to do it on its own like traditional media will. Like you have to kind of coax it, you know, to get that look or you have to use special brushes or special methods to get that

### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00)

sort of organic look that traditional media just does on its own. Gotcha. Cool. And how does something like let's say I make something in Procreate. How does it work with like our designer land, you know, kind of like Adobe ecosystem ecosystem. Is it kind of like output a JPEG or can you do you know, can you bring stuff in use it in other Adobe programs and you know, keep some of the I don't know layers and stuff like that. — Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely cuz it will like it will import its own native Procreate format which will maintain the layers, but you can also export like JPEG, TIFF, transparent uh PNGs, uh layered Photoshop files. It'll export a PSD which maintains all the layers. Um I've even taken like I've done ink drawings and just taken them right to Illustrator and then like vectorized, you know, the ink drawing like that Daredevil that you just showed a little bit ago. Um you could just take that straight over to Illustrator and vectorize it and then do all the vector things that you might do. Gotcha. So that wasn't completed in Procreate. You did some sketches in Procreate and then brought it into Illustrator to vectorize it. Is that what you did or It was completed in Procreate and then just vectorized as you see it. So like as you see it in Procreate, but it just wasn't a vector. Gotcha. Cuz that's one of the things with Procreate. It does it doesn't make vector. It does not make vectors. — But it's seamless enough to kind of export out — Absolutely. Yeah. I've even just like with the Illustrator app on the iPad just copied and pasted and then there it is. Boom. And then just hit vectorize and you're ready to go. I've even done like a workflow where you I'm like creating something in Procreate and then just bringing it over and vectorizing that element, putting together a vector and then doing some more drawings, bringing it over and I'm adding to the vector in Illustrator. — You're building the vector over here and you're building elements in the Procreate. — Yes. And that's a really fun workflow because it just it's a real it's a lot easier for me to create a natural looking ink line illustration in Procreate, but if the client needs a vector, you just bring it over, vectorize and then the final output or final file is a vector. That's a funny one cuz like I do that like I teach the Illustrator essential and advanced and to get, you know, like I I'm proud of them, but they all look the same, you know, I'm when teaching people like, "Look, you can make it look like a pencil drawing. " But you're like anybody that's looked at a pencil drawing knows that it's kind of an assimilate, you know, like and there's a brush library of 10 to pick from. Like that's all of the world's ever brush strokes, you know, and you're like, "Uh you know. " And then you have to use the same brush stroke cuz you want it to be consistent around a few different things. You're like, "I can see you're repeating, you know? " — Right. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. — Um what is it like the prob like one of the problems for people are going to be like, "All right, I'm a busy designer. I'm pretty good at Photoshop and Illustrator and I can mimic some of the stuff I've seen um you know, Nathan make. " What do you reckon like you've taught many people from kind of nothing um to using it. What do you reckon the switching time is or like if I'm really good at Photoshop doing kind of like you were, how long before you're making stuff and feeling like, "Huh, I'm doing something. I'm making things in Procreate. " Yeah, I mean I would say right away because you as long as you understand the concept of layers, then that's really it because I mean there's a few things inside Procreate that like will just make the workflow easier. Like some tools that are available to you. We go over them in the course. Um but then like as far as just understanding like the different brushes and the things that the different brushes do and then the concept of layers and where some of those like the things that you might be used to in Photoshop might be located in a little bit different place as it pertains to like layers. You know, things like um turning on like an alpha channel or using a mask or using a selection tool or if there's something like that, it might be located in a different place and it might behave a little bit differently, but you'll still understand the concept of what a selection tool is or what a mask is if you're familiar with Photoshop. So I don't really think that there's a serious you know, if you're already familiar with Adobe tools, I don't think that there's a like a real major learning curve time to Procreate. That's what I found as well. Like when I was doing your course, you know, they use the same language, right? Like it's not like they went and made Procreate with this brand new with new kind of nomenclature or you know, you're like, "All right, it's alpha channel. It's a mask. It's a layer. It's a They're all you know, like blending modes. " You're like, — [clears throat] — "I've seen these all before. They just you know, like they're kind of peeled back, right? To make the drawing experience primary, whereas they're a little bit easier to find in say Photoshop, but

### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=1200s) Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00)

they're all there. That's what I found easy for me, you know, but I'm you know, um I'm really good at Photoshop, but I found it yeah, particularly easy to get through with. Um Yeah, it's mainly like adding, you know, if you're used to Photoshop, a lot of those essential tools are there, but with the addition of the natural artistic feel, the pressure sensitivity, the especially with the Apple Pencil, the way that it the pressure works, the angle of the pen, um it's like add it's like bringing Photoshop into a like real traditional media environment. And one of the things with it though is that like subscriptions, nobody likes subscriptions. People especially hate them at the moment. Procreate is just like a one-time purchase. It's not very much. What's the catch with that then? I feel like everything's a subscription. I've only just signed up for Procreate and I paid for it once. I'm like, Yeah. — where are they getting the rest of the money from me? — I know. I have not um encountered any I mean, I've had it for years and I just paid the one payment, you know, 10 years ago or however long ago it was. Um and that's it. They haven't — Really? They don't come knocking at your door with any new feature? No, I that's what I thought. I was like, oh, they're going to you know, they're going to relaunch this and they're going to charge more money for it or something and they have not done that and you know, it's just been a beautiful thing. — Yeah, it seems to be what it should be. It feels like a — It feels like what it should be, but not what I expect. — Right. And before we get on, I'll just let everybody know if you hear from the live stream, Nathan Brown has launched uh Procreate Essentials. It's live now on Bring Your Own Laptop. You can check out the link in the description for that if you want to check it out right now. Um also, it's a live stream. So, if you've got a question, ask it. We're getting through some of them now. Stephen is grabbing them. Throw them into the comment section and we'll get to them. Um the next thing I want to go through is um so, we approached you as a more design kind of focused uh business and uh how, you know, like um what did you think about that when you were making say a course outline compared to say um one of your other courses or maybe more kind of like traditional watercolor kind of courses that you do? How did you like it's a it's not a design tool specifically, but we kind of nudged you into like kind of keeping a designer's mind kind of focus. How did you do that for the course? Well, I wanted to well, when I was putting it together, I just tried to channel the like client work that I've done that has utilized Procreate and how my approach is now different versus what it would be in Photoshop. Cuz I had a I've done a ton of book cover designs. I've done posters, album covers, t-shirts, all those kinds of projects for various clients over the years. And I've done them in all sorts of different ways. Um and yeah, at one point in time, I was doing strictly just Photoshop, you know, whatever I could, you know, do in Photoshop to make it look as close to what I saw in my head as possible. So, I took I took that approach. It was like, okay, well, you know, if I'm doing client work or I'm doing something that, you know, involves some layout, involves some design, involves some typography, um but would also include like an artistic element where Procreate would really thrive. Um And then and to do all of that within Procreate and not have to go out to Photoshop or go out to Illustrator, is do it all within Procreate. How would you do that? Um and it made for a really interesting course because, you know, my courses in the past, it's just like, well, how do you reproduce watercolor? the look of oil and the feel of oil paint, you know, things like that are tend to be more artistic leaning. So, this one was fun because, you know, it was a different approach to well, now we're going to you know, we're going to design this for print and it's there's we need to leave room for text and we need here's how to do the text and here's what we need to think about. — a brief, right? Like that's a big difference between like you know, art and design. They head in the same direction, but one has some boundaries and like you things you can and can't do. Yeah, if you take on a client project, there's going to be some specifics to it and you're going to have to work within that specific request. So, that's a fun element to the course is adding that brief to keep you within the guidelines and it and — That's why I couldn't be an artist. Like if somebody said to me, you know, if I was in charge of myself, I you know, I'd be like trying to make something cool-looking, which is — Yeah. unattainable. Whereas if there's a brief and it needs to be done by Tuesday, I'm like, all right. — Yeah. All right, these are your these are the you know, this is the size and

### [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=1500s) Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00)

this is the dimensions and these are your colors and this is what it needs to do. I'm like, all right, I can work within that. But if you ask me make something beautiful, I'm like, uh — Wait to go. I actually think that having those the having that confinement and that specific request in there kind of allows for more creativity because you have these like constraints that you have to stay within and sometimes when like you said, when it's just, hey, make something that you think is artistic or beautiful, then it's like, well, you know, but when you have some kind of a constraint to work within and it somehow it just allows for more creativity. So, that's a really fun aspect of the course, I think. It's fun to know as well that other people have these cuz like when in the early days of Bring Your Own Laptop, we had design challenges. We still have them, but in the early days, there was a lot less guidelines and we had a lot less entries. As soon as you give people the narrower, you know, the more entries we got because like, okay, you know, instead of like trying to put their heart on their sleeve with something beautiful, you give them some really tight boundaries and we had more people applying. You're like, all right, it's not just me. Everyone's needs a bit of this. Um what do they actually make in the course? What's, you know, what are we building in the course? I know the first one I love is the sea creatures kind of examples. It's an early one in the course and a lot of projects are being submitted for that, but what are you know, what are the what is the project you're kind of working towards in the course? Yeah, so it starts out with just like a grasp on the basics and like drawing something simple and just like doing a simple drawing and a simple painting like just right out of the gate. You know, here's the basics that you need to know. Now, let's put it towards a simple project and it's a sea creature and you know, you're going to get different kinds of sea creatures. Everybody's going to have a little bit different approach, but it's just a basic drawing. Um and then as we move through the course, the ultimate goal that is being built up through the rest of the course is to design a book cover. And there is a brief that will create all different types of stories for you to work from, which I think is brilliant because not everyone's book cover is going to be the same. Uh mine was a sci-fi book cover, which of course, I loved. Uh I have my own collection of sci-fi. — That's one of the reasons we found you in the first place. I was like, I like this guy. — I love the sci-fi and I love the kind of '70s, '80s sci-fi. You've nailed it. It's awesome. So cool. — Yes. So, I was uh very happy to see science fiction pop up for me and it was like I think the theme was like maybe solitude or something like that and it just immediately I got several images that kind of popped into my head that I worked through with various thumbnails and kind of walk through the early stages and the build-up of it to finally the end painting and the typography and then the color adjustments and bringing it all together and it's just a good time. It's fun. And uh the so, they'll get you Yeah, so that's the cool thing about it, right? Is that they get something unique that's kind of there's some boundaries, but everyone will come out with something unique for their portfolio, which is really cool. And the uh so, they do that. There's another project at the end that's unique for Bring Your Own Laptop, the distinction project. Do you want to quickly cover what's in that one? Yeah, so if you want to go the extra distance, um there is an additional poster project at the end that if you want to take the skills that you've learned from the book cover and apply them to like a full-on like poster, then you can earn the distinction certificate that way and you can take all the same uh steps, you know, the thumbnails, the color comps, the value stage. You can take all that, apply it to a poster and really like drive home all the concepts so you can cement them in your brain. — If anybody is um I'm showing them now on the screen, this is even so sorry, uh Nathan. Um so, if you're new to Bring Your Own Laptop and if you do the course, the um you if you just do the course, like the class projects through to the end, watch the videos, you can get a certificate. If you also do the quiz questions, they're not tricky. They're more Nathan's created a bunch of questions that are more reinforcements of what you've learned rather than, you know, just to get the main ideas out after the videos. If you do that, you get the merit certificate, which is kind of the upgraded one. And then what Nathan was just talking about then, if you do the Here's a better example. If you do that last distinction project, which is not small, not massive either, it's just kind of putting all your kind of, you know, what you've learned from Nathan together, you can get the distinction certificate and the sweet little badge. Okay, so those are the kind of levels you can do there at Bring Your Own Laptop. And let me go back to www. Cool. Um one of the big things is that do I need to draw first? Uh you know, be an artist to be able to go

### [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=1800s) Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00)

I need to be an artist to be able to go and kind of you know, a lot of people are coming from print to web where maybe drawing's not their strength or they can doodle or I don't know. Are they wasting their time in Procreate or I don't know. What do you think? I don't think so because, you know, it's funny because when some there's something about having easy access to a thing that will there's no barriers for entry, right? So, there's nothing to keep you from adding a bit of hand-drawn element to whatever it is you're designing, creating, even if it's something small. Procreate allows you to do that and it looks and feels more natural than what you would in Photoshop. So, when there's that easy access and you can create something that feels so natural, even if you're not good at drawing, you will gravitate towards it and you will begin to use it more and more with each project. I mean, that's how it was for me was like once I had that no Cintiq, no barrier, no — you know, this big giant thing, you know, um I just began to use it more and more and it's to the point now that like 99% of everything I do is in Procreate. Um you know, I will bring Go ahead. So, I had the same experience like I'm a reasonably good drawer. I don't like I it's a part of my process rather than something that I'm like uh looking forward to doing and I just if you were if you're really bad, it's going to make you average. That's what I found. If you were average, it's going to make you good. If you're good, it's going to make you great. If you were great, it's going to make you amazing cuz like I'm a good drawer. Oh, yeah, I'm an okay drawer. But like some of the like the machine learning brushes like the stabilization, oh man, when you showed us that, I was like — like if I'm drawing with my mouse or even with my hand, I'm like, okay, yeah, I got to go over a few times or is this you like I am the best drawer ever had you know, like I've like annexed my draw I I've become a lot better than I thought I was and it's just makes there's a some sort of like uh association you're like, this makes me feel good cuz I — it makes me look better and I can honestly say rather than something like AI where, you know, you can probably get these styles. I can hand them you know, themes and stuff. Whereas I'm drawing, I'm like a 100% like I made that. Even though the lines were kind of straightened up a little bit and like textures were all added but I'm like I felt like I was part of that thing. So, I felt much better doing it. There's a great little burst of like dopamine when you're like, oh, this is good. I'm going to do more of that. Especially when you're inking, you know, it's when you're doing something that you're maybe you're going to vectorize or something like this type of final output's going to be a vector. Um something about that adding that stabilization to an ink line is just like, you know, it's just so great. Yeah. And no two lines look the same cuz it's not a style on a on a stroke. It's thing you made and like what I didn't realize is how picky I was about my like I really like is this the pin? Yeah, this is the pin um uh like 0. 03 um brush you know, like uh I don't know that's the brush tip. But anyway, you know, I've got a special pin that I love. So, like I found one that was close enough and I was like, that's pretty good. But it doesn't do and I was like going in after doing your course, I was like, okay, I can edit these cuz there's not that many settings to adjust. Like it's Photoshop, if you open up the settings, only I think I'm I might be the only one in the world who could work their way through it all to know where you're going, you know, quick enough. Um whereas this, I'm like, okay. And then you mark it down, you're like, no, that wasn't it. Oh, that's it. I want the blob at the end. That's what I want, you know, and you're playing around with the tip blobs and you're like, okay, yeah, cuz I don't like it when it streaks at the end. I want it to be like a inky blob like I like with my pin. And yeah, it it's so simple, isn't it? Like uh to get the brush — Right. brush the kind of stuff that you want. Um What's what was your like my favorite thing was stabilization. The second one that I liked was the two-finger undo. What was one of the features that kind of blew you away when you know, when you were I don't know. Yeah, you're first getting into it, you know, going from Photoshop land? Yeah, it's the transparency of the some of the brushes, especially like watercolor type brushes and the varied edge. Like you said that like no stroke is exactly the same, which is lends really well to like traditional media like no stroke is going to be the same. And just the it's really kind of hard to explain unless you you're experiencing it in the app but like the edge of a

### [35:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=2100s) Segment 8 (35:00 - 40:00)

transparent brush stroke and how it looks, feels, and behaves much more naturally than I expected it. Um and then the ability to build cuz like with watercolor, it's transparent and you're building layer on top of layer to build up the values in a painting. And just the way that you could do that in a digital environment and it look so traditional. If that makes sense. Yeah, no, I was there. Everyone else has to go try it. Um Um layers though, layers like funny, I come from Photoshop where I'm like layers everything, you know, like I'm not going to forget the layers. Man, I forget the layers when I get inside it. I'm like okay, now I get to move it. Ah, they're all on the same bloody layer. — Somehow Procreate can't read my mind yet. That was my only thing. I'm like, layers are awesome when you remember to create them. When you remember, yeah. — Yeah, it's funny too because in Procreate like some there was something about like I guess the simplistic nature of it all. Like I tend to use more or I guess less. less layers like as I'm working because what I'll do is I'll commit. Whereas in Photoshop, I would never do that for some reason. Like I would have a file that would have — 72 you know, 150 layers or something and it was almost impossible to figure out where things were. But like in Procreate, I'm going I like this, combine these five layers, continue to paint, layer layer, combine these eight layers, you know, so forth. So, then like by the time it's over like, oh, this whole painting is like five layers, you know, and it just it's much more simple. — to recreate Photoshop land where everything's on its own layers. Everything can be moved. So, — Which you can still do. Yeah, you can still do that. No, I have like 10 layers and then everything else on one. — And I'm like, ah man, cuz you get into it, right? Like you get the flow going and then you forget about the layers cuz they kind of hide away to give you the painting thing. So, yeah, there's pros and cons but they yeah, that's one of my cons. Um do you need like I have top-of-the-line iPad with a top-of-the-line Apple pencil. So, like what can you get away with to actually use Procreate and make stuff? I think that the Apple Pencil is essential. Um I've always used an iPad Pro mainly because of the slightly bigger screen size. Um but I've never found the need to have the latest one. You know, like I will replace my iPad Pro maybe every five or six years or so. I think the one I'm using right now is from 2021. Yeah. And I haven't felt the need to — choppy or slow or No, it does not. Yeah, and you know, I it always gives me enough cuz the layers are limited based on how capable the iPad is and then how large of a file that you're working in. Mhm. And I always have enough. Like I haven't run across a situation where it's like, oh man, I'm just out of layers and there's nothing I can do here, you know, I haven't run into that. Um and I haven't felt the need yet to upgrade the current iPad that I have. — Does it work on the older the different styles, you know, the mini and the kind of regular size? I don't even know. The I've only got one but does You know, I'm not Yeah, I'm not sure about the mini because I don't know um if it has the same uh capabilities with the Apple Pencil. So, I'm not sure about the — Pencil is the kind of key ingredient to the making this work. — very key ingredient. Um I do know that they make an iPhone version of Procreate, which is like with your thumb. So, like there's going to be some version of Procreate for the iPad mini. But I don't know if it will be the exact same experience as what you would get with like the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. Um one of the things Procreate have kind of come out and said that kind of like they've got a no AI kind of stance, you know, and everyone else in my worlds, you know, the Affinity's and Canvas and Photoshop they are down for the AI. And I don't know, how does that philosophy work with you as a professional artist? Like do you think it could be in there? Are you happy about it? Like how do you find AI in kind of what you're doing? Um and — So, I I tend to keep a positive outlook when it comes to AI and art because I'm old enough to remember like Photoshop and digital art and the people that were like, oh, that's not real art, you know, that's not it's digital art, you know, it's not real. Um and I I tend to want to believe that AI will be another like artistic tool. But we're just we're in a stage right now where we're trying to iron out the details. Um and I try to maintain that positivity about it. Um I really would not right now, I would prefer to not have it in Procreate. Um

### [40:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=2400s) Segment 9 (40:00 - 45:00)

mainly because like I think that one thing that we all have in common as human beings is the need and want to make things. And I don't think that AI is ever going to replace that need and want within us. I think we'll just adapt it as a tool. Um so for right now, I don't need it in my Procreate um because I'm in there making and creating my own drawings and paintings. Um so as for right now let's keep them separate. — I do like what they're doing with some of the more machine learning. I love how they call it machine learning and other people call it the exact same and um like the stabilization. I feel like there's going to be this I feel like it's at the moment it's easy to box AI cuz you know like there's a big shiny button that says I'm going to be using AI. But like if you use most features in lots of software now, there is some AI going on and I agree with you like I lived through the you know I got started just in kind of computer design, you know, but I was being taught by creative [clears throat] directors who didn't like it but had to use it and kind of like it was a bad thing, you know, whereas now we're worried about AI in design, it's not real design. I'm like pretty sure mine wasn't the real design as well, you know, they were cutting things out and pasting them up as well. Yeah. Yeah, I mean if it can be in incorporated in a way that you know makes our lives easier as artists and designers, you know, maybe it's in brush development or brush usage or something that allows us to do what we want to do and make make, that that's going to be fantastic. But as far as just being able to push a button and make something artistic, you know, it it's to me it just if that that's going to suck the fun out of it. It's going to suck that desire to have to make something, you know, and I don't want that to ever be gone. I want to make the thing myself. You can assist me AI — but you can't take over. But that's what You can't have the pencil. — You can't have my Apple Pencil. Yeah, you can't have the paints and you can't have the pencil. — [snorts] — And that's why that's probably one of the big things that it maybe looks scary looking in design if you're kind of just getting started. It looks like you can just hit a button and do design, but people forget like people hire you as an artist not for as much about the thing that's going to get produced. It's more about the working on the idea, feeling like you're collaborating with you and kind of getting to that end point cuz often the client doesn't know exactly where they need you know, if they did, they could use AI, you know, and they don't. That's why they need people with the language and the communication skills to help them get to that final point and feel like they're part of it, right? It's not just a you you get more input from your clients than just here's a brief be ready on Tuesday, right? There's a bit of back and forth and them not quite clearly communicating it and yeah. yeah. Um so if you're here in the live stream, we've got a little bit more time, not much, but if you've got a question, throw it into the questions and we're going to go through them now. Um some good questions. Um so can Procreate do things like logos, social media graphics and kind of design work or is it mainly around the kind of drawing front? So yes, it you can absolutely do I do um logos and t-shirt designs all the time, which I kind of I thought you were going to say no. — I was going to say you just say no. Really? No, you can absolutely do um yeah, you can absolutely do logos and um and that kind of thing in Procreate. Um what's great about it is that you can uh incorporate like I mentioned before, you can incorporate that bit of hand-drawn element into a logo or into uh a graphic like that if you want. Okay. And how important are things like brushes uh in Procreate? Like do is the first thing you do go and buy brush packs or can you work with the brushes inside of Procreate? Like how good are it and like how quickly should you go and find some brush packs? So the brushes that come with it, especially the latest version, are absolutely incredible. They are wonderful. Um I have created brushes for my own purposes, like my own custom brushes that do specific things but that's only because I'm looking for those specific things. So like if you're brand new to Procreate, I would say don't rush out and buy a bunch of brushes until you have used it enough that you know specifically what you're looking for. You know, it's like I need a brush that does this specific thing and it's doesn't it it's not a part of the default brush set within

### [45:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=2700s) Segment 10 (45:00 - 50:00)

Procreate. Use what's there first. — that great up until recently cuz I only started it by doing your course and I was like these are amazing. Were they not as good as them? — you can still access like I think they call it the classic library um in the Procreate brush library right now. Like there's two. There's the new brush library and then there's the classic brush library. And yes, there is a bit I mean while they were great, but there was some lacking elements in there that custom brushes would fill the need. Um the new brush library is excellent and I mean you can do a lot with it. Um I'm not saying don't go out and try and experiment with other brushes because it's a lot of fun. Um but you can do some amazing incredible art with what's pre-installed. And that's what's cool about it, right? Like cuz like I made my own brush for a YouTube video after doing your course and like it wasn't great, but it was the brush that I was using and I let everybody kind of download it, but like you've made brushes that you love and you know, you sell them on your website, right? Like it's cool that when you can find somebody's style that you like and the way they're doing and the tutorials that they're doing, you can not have to try and fudge around to try and half get it close, you can actually go and buy their brushes and follow along with them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I I've created a lot of brushes that are specific to my style of watercolor or acrylic or oil or something like that. Um but you know, that it's really it's just kind of up to you. It's like if you want to use the same brand of paint that I'm using in traditional or you want to use your brand, you know, it's just you know, it's just it's kind of an artist preference kind of thing, you know, you experiment and you find what you like. And then maybe you bring something else in every now and then and try it out and see, you know, see if it sticks. Yeah, that's what I like about cuz I love your style of drawing and illustration and you know, I love that kind of like sci-fi poster look and to learn, you just want to kind of like recreate it, right? You just see if you can push something quite similar and you end up branching off doing your own thing. And it never looks perfect and you find you know, even if you try really hard — you end up creating your own kind of flavor, but it's good to not be held back by the tools, right? You're like okay, I'm using the same thing he is. Well yeah, that's that's part of what I love about art really because I mean you can have a room full of people, you know, 25 people and say let's all draw a cat. You get 25 different cats, right? You know, it's like we all use the same cat as a model, but we all got different interpretations. — You know. That's the fun part. And I got a question for Marie here. What are the essential tools I need to learn first in Procreate? I have no experience. So no experience, I would say understand like the layout, you know, the basically the interface, which is super simple. Your brushes, your layers are over on the right. You know, your brush size and opacity are over on the left. Just really easy stuff. Understand DPI, like the size of the canvas that you're working on. You know, start with like you know, an 8 by 10 inch canvas at 300 DPI, you know, something that you could print if you wanted. Um just understand the size of the canvas you're working on. Understand the concept of layers. Um and then play around with the brushes. You know, just pull them out and make marks. Choose different brushes. They're all divided up by categories, oil, pastels, um charcoals, pens, pencils, all the kinds of things that you already kind of know or you kind of expect you know, you kind of have an idea of what the stroke would look like. Um and just play around with it. I mean there's really I think even if you have no experience, it's laid out in such an easy way that within 30 minutes, you're going to kind of have a grasp of those basics just because it's so uh there's just like there's no barrier. That's what I thought. Like I thought it was a new tool to learn and when I'm learning new tools like some of the latest ones was Blender, you know, and I was like okay, that was a commitment. — And you know, like and I got there and I did it, but it was a couple of days before I started feeling like I'm like yeah, I'm doing stuff, you know? And whereas Procreate literally within an hour, not even within an hour, the first thing I started drawing I was like oh, what am I doing? And then you do your sea creature, which is only a few videos into the course. I'm like I'm making a sea creature and it's you know, like there's a few frustrations, but it's not as daunting compared to any other bit of software. It's more like an app, right? It is an app, but it it's more so cut back and so easy to learn and so it's — It's definitely not Blender. — Yeah, give yourself a little more time with Blender. And Elijah asks and when will your next update for the ultimate brush toolbox and war master watercolor brushes be released? Do you have any info on the new brushes and when you the brushes that you're working

### [50:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=3000s) Segment 11 (50:00 - 55:00)

on? I'm assuming these are the ones on your website. Yeah, absolutely. So, I am working on these updates for these brush packs, but I'm taking a lot of time with it because I want them I want the update to be like a valid and useful update. So, that requires me like making changes to the brush packs and then using them in like art, my own work, to make sure that like, you know, this is this makes sense because those brush packs were released and I loved them the way they were. But then as I began to use them, like, okay, I can make some changes and some tweaks here. But then I do those tweaks and I kind of have to experiment a little bit and it's just a time thing. It's coming, but it's going to be a little bit. Plus you're busy making a Procreate Essentials course, right? And that. Yeah. — And that. And Cool. And Marie asked another question. This will be your last one. And so, personal question for Nathan regarding the learning process. How Did you follow a structured method or did you learn by experimenting? If you could go back, what would you do differently kind of learning your Yeah, learning to do your work? That was a great question. So, uh I could take another hour on this. — You've got 3 minutes. Yeah, 30 seconds. Go. No, um the thing about it is like I love learning. Like I love for things to take a little bit of time, you know, like I just love to learn. And the way I do that is through like hands-on and experimentation. Like if you're not messing something up, you're not learning. You know, like if you're you If you've spent 3 hours on this painting, spill a bunch of paint on it. You know, like just like and then see what happens. And then what happens is you learn some new technique, you learn something new, and then you apply it in the next one. Do as many paintings as you can. Do as many drawings as you can. Don't spend 30 hours on one single one. Do 30 one-hour paintings. Um you're going to learn more from that experimentation and that experience than you would being married to one final output. Meaning like I spent all this time on this one grand masterpiece that you'll never be happy with. — It's not linear, right? You don't get to the end to be good. You bump your way along and zigzag along. That's why we found you, Nathan. Like we're trying to find somebody who could teach Procreate and there's a lot of people very capable, very great artists, but we spent a lot of time, me and Abriana, trying to find somebody who's wants to get their hands dirty early rather than figure out the interface. You know, and then understand it all once you've understood all the principles, then start making it. Like, no, no, no, no. Grab the first thing you can grab and do a sea creature. You know, like get down and get something on the thing. Yeah, make a big mess. Don't be afraid to experiment. Try a lot of things. You know, that's how you learn and that's how you get better faster. For sure. — And it sounds like you're a lot like me, Nathan. Like the learning part is the fun part. Like I you know, I don't know what it is about me, but like once I've learned something, sometimes the magic is gone. You know, like I love the figuring it out part. That's the Oh man, little eureka moments, you know, like And once you got it, you're like I won. Yeah. — I don't Yeah, like I mean the perfect example is like I don't ever want to be like um a master like artist, you know, like what I guess whatever that is, you know, like I don't want to be like, well, I've learned everything I can learn. I guess I'm done, you know, like I That's the part of it That's the thing about art is like you're always continuing to learn something. You know, like there's always something to be uh there's some new skill, something to level you up even when you've done it for 25 years. So, there's not many things in the world that are like that. So, cherish art. That's the reason we're not accountants, right? I feel like there's rules. You can win at accounting. You can have You can finish something and be done. I won. Like I am There's You can check it. I beat it. Whereas hassle of being an artist, right? Um and you know, cuz everyone's like, well, what are the rules? You're like, well, uh there's some guidelines, — You can't win at being a creative. And to be a master painter or a master artist, I'm pretty sure you also have to die famously. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So, I definitely don't want to be one of those. — All right. Thank you, Nathan Brown. For

### [55:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRQBTvz__y0&t=3300s) Segment 12 (55:00 - 55:00)

anybody watching, Nathan Brown's course is live right now on Bring Your Own Laptop. It's called Procreate Essentials. Go check it out. There's a link link in the description. Thank you so much, Nathan, for all your work producing this course. It's been great working with you and I'm looking forward to all the class projects we get to check out together. And thanks for the live stream. Absolutely, man. It's been a good time. I really appreciate being here. Awesome. All right. Bye, everyone. Bye, YouTube. Bye, Nathan. Bye. See you soon. Bye.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/49144*