Colorful Sardines in Procreate: Relaxing Pattern Design

1. Let's Dive In!: Thank you so much for joining. In this class, we're going to create colorful sardines in Procreate, not just one, but a whole school of them in different colors. Sardines and sardine tin illustrations is how a lot of you found me on Skillshare. I absolutely love drawing them, and I realized that a lot of you enjoy drawing them, too. So it only made sense to do another sardine themed class. So we're going to create a colorful page of sardines together, and then we're going to turn that into a repeating pattern. So this class is divided in two parts. First, we're going to draw our sardines in Procreate, but you can honestly also use a sketchbook. The goal isn't perfection, it's just play and experimenting. If you want to take it a step further, then in the second half, we're going to turn this into a repeating pattern. I'm also going to show you a cool trick to make your pattern move and share it on socials. Plus, this class comes with a set of brushes and a color palette for Procreate, and you can find those in the resources. Alright, so let's grab your iPad or your sketchbook and let's get started. 2. Resources: In the first half of this class, we're going to make our page. And for that, I'm going to use Procreate, but you can also use a sketchbook. In the second half of this class, the pattern, which is a bit more technical, you do need Procreate. I'll be using the sardine summer brushes and color palette which I've linked in the class resources. These brushes are a selection for my Mediterranean toolkit. So if you do have that set, feel free to use it. This comes with a bunch of different textures. But if you have your favorite procreate brushes, feel free to use those instead. This technique works with pretty much any brush set. Later in the class, we're going to use my pattern tester to preview our pattern, and the link is in the resources as well, so you can follow along. That's it. Nothing fancy needed. So once you have procreate open and your brushes ready or your sketchbook, you're all set. So let me show you the brushes. So these are the brushes that we have. This is a really simple sketch brush that we can use for some sketching, but today we're actually going to start coloring right away. This solar color liner is really fun. It has with different strokes, a slightly different shade and you'll see this more in lighter colors. So here you can see you've got some pink and some red. And if you, for example, use yellow and orange tones, you'll see this even more. With every new stroke, you get a slightly different tone. And if by any chance, you have my Mediterranean toolkit, you might recognize this one because I have this one here as well. The difference is that this one is just a little bit brighter you have slightly more tones than this one, just so you know that there is a difference between the two. And the tile fill is the one that we're going to use right away because that one is just a really simple brush to fill in your shapes and to create your shape, so that's what we'll use. This tri fresco brush has some texture to it, which is nice for lines. Then we've got this texture brush which is great for just like textures, overlays on top of your designs. And lastly, also have the stamp brush, which is fun for maybe like a pattern in the background, for example. 3. Shapes: Here is a preview of what we're going to do. These are our sardines, or multicolor sardines, and we're going to use these Sardine Summer brushes for our fish, and then we'll also use this color palette. If you imported the color palette, you'll find that in your palettes, probably at the bottom. And then what you can do is go to these three dots and then set as active. That way, when you open up your color palette, it will show up right away. So you've got these collars right here. So what we're going to do is start with, I think a square canvas. So what we'll do is a canvas of 3,000 by 3,000 pixels. So let's start with the tile fill, and we're going to try and make our fish shapes right away without sketching. Roughly over here, one over there. And maybe here in the middle as well, like that. Then maybe just to change it up, change the shapes. Let's add two over here that are a bit smaller. This is roughly our composition that we're going to use. If you prefer to sketch this out, that's totally fine. I just want to try and get these shapes on the canvas right away. About the color palette. We've got five fish over here, different fish over here. That is very intentional because we've got five different tones. We're going to use all of these for our sardines. Let's do the top one, which is going to be this light green. A really easy way to make the shape of a sardine is by kind of a flat shape first like that at the top, and then a curve at the bottom. So we're going to roughly do that with just a little bit more a little bit more of a curve. So we've got almost a straight line and then a curve at the bottom, like that. And then at the end, we've got our tail, I think, is that what it's called, The fin. That's what I mean. Then we've got the fin over here. Then we can add a top one as well and a bottom one. This all isn't completely correct, but we're just trying to change it up and give every fish their own little design. Then we can just color fill this one. We can just color fill our basic shapes because later on we will add texture and details inside of this shape. But for now, this is the easiest way to just fill in this shape. The next one over here, let's use our yellow. We've got a very light tone of yellow here, and then maybe let's switch it, just flip it to the other side. Maybe a little bit more to the edge of the canvas like that. And the fin, maybe a fin on top like that, and that's enough. You can color fill this one, as well. And then let's go with the other big one over here. I definitely want one in blue. So let's go with this lightest tone of blue for the bigger one at the bottom. Okay and then let's do a fin on top and then one at the bottom, maybe or maybe like this. And maybe this one. I'll just take this out. I think it looks better without it like this. Then we have two spots left. We still have the pink to use. Let's make one pink. Let's make this one a bit smaller. By the way, I'm doing all of this on one layer because we're going to add a layer on top and do everything altogether. But if you prefer to keep these separate because you want to maybe move them around, that would be easier. Feel free to do that if you prefer it. A and then maybe this one's a bit small. I'm not going to put a fin on top, so just like this. I'm going to move this one a little bit more to the right. And then we have some more space over here. And then our last tone is our orange or light orange. And this one is also a bit smaller. Okay. And now we don't need this very rough layout anymore. Let's see how that looks. I'm gonna make this one a little bit smaller. I don't like the look of this fin, so I'm going to change this one. I just I'm not great at it, so I'm just going to make this one, I think, just a bit point to her. Okay, that will have to do for now. A 4. Colors: Okay, now we have our basic shapes done, and now comes the fun part because we get to add sort of a gradient on our fish and lots of different colors. So we'll do that. Then on top, we'll add our details like our eyes and last little bits of texture, and then we'll add a background as well. So easiest way to do that is by just adding a layer on top and then clipping mask that we can draw inside the boundaries of our shapes, but on a separate layer. So we can still make changes if we want to. So for that, we'll use this solar liner brush because it has a little bit of a texture to it and a slightly different tones with every new stroke, which is quite nice. So we'll start here, and what we can simply do is go to our green tones and then select This is the one we use for shape, but then select the one after that, which is the slightly darker tone, and then use that for this fish. Let's see how that looks when we start over here and then make our way down. Now you can see that you have this it multiplies a little bit, and it's just really subtle. But I think especially for project like this, that's about fish that have so many different colors. It's quite nice to have some of these different tones. And I'm also going to color in the fin, as well. So at the moment, this is a little bit dark. So what we could do to brighten this up is add another color on top and maybe in, like, a line. And I know this is not exactly realistic. This is not how sardines actually look, but then they also don't have all of these colors, but, you know, we're kind of making it up and stylizing it, which is the most fun part of this. Let's see how that looks if you add a line. Okay, at the moment, this is still looking a bit abstract, but we'll later on add a layer on top with more details. But for the moment, since we're on this layer at the moment, let's just continue and fill in all of our fish with our solar liner brush. Y this one we've got are yellow and we can use this one, but that might be a little bit too close because you cannot really see this yellow very well. Let's use this darkest tone, which is an orange, a light orange almost. We can use this over here and see how it looks. Here you can see you have all these different tones with every new stroke. A Maybe we can use our yellow. Let's do this one, this medium tone of yellow. Let's use that for a line like we did here, but in the middle. So Maybe to change things up, we can make a change here and actually use some red or this very dark saturated pink or red, just to change it up a little bit and add a different color like we did here. Maybe the fin could be that color and the back fin as well, the tail. And maybe we can add one over here, too. So now we have a fin over here. Now you can actually finally see that it's starting to you can see that it's starting to become a fish. Like that shape. I think that's already a nice color combination. The next one was the last big shape, and that is a blue. Let's go to the blue tones. This is the one we used. Now let's go to this medium blue, which is an ultramarine blue almost and we'll use that for the top and the fin. Let's see how that looks. Okay, now that we have our blue ready, again, we can add a nice line a line in the middle. Maybe for some contrast, again, that could be a lighter color, so maybe maybe this yellow again, lighter yellow in the middle. We're making this up as we go and obviously you can change your colors here. I just think sometimes but I do think that these colors work well together. But again, we can change this later. Let's go to our two smaller fish. Over here, we've got our pink. Let's see what happens if this is the one we used, the light one. We've got our medium tone of pink. Let's see how that looks on top. Yeah. I think we need a bit more contrast here. Let's try, first of all, the line over here, that could be something else. Let's see. Either a medium blue or I'm thinking a yellow. I think this one, it's a bit light. It I think it's just a nice combination. We'll do this one. Maybe we can give it a fin as well. That's the medium pink and just a fin like this. The last one over here, we've got our orange fish. This was the lights one. Let's see if we can use this medium orange on top. And this brush works really well with yellow and orange tones. So you've got lots of different tones in just one color. And a line over the top. Let's see what works. Probably a yellow again. It seems that works quite well because it brightens up the whole shape quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, that's it. That will do. Should we add a fin somewhere else? I'm changing it up every fish is going to look a bit different, but maybe green one. Let's see what happens. Medium green. Maybe the blue as well. Let's just give all of them some fins. And the orange one as well. Okay, we've got our five fish over here. We've got lots of collars going on already, and I think it looks quite nice. 5. Details: So now we've got our layer on top with our details. So let's do that separately, and we'll use another clipping mask to tap on that new layer clipping mask, and this will be all of our details in one layer on top. For this, we're going to use another brush, the dry fresco brush. So this one is good for, like, slightly drier details. So let me show you. So you can see you've got these, like a bit of a dryer edge, sort of like a crayon, which is nice for details on top. Let's go to our first one, our green fish, and the details are going to look similar in all of them just with different colors. First of all, let's do the eyes and the details over there with our darkest green. We've used this one and this one and now we're going to go to the darkest one to add the gills kind of It is also just the lines to separate the head from the rest of the body. Then the eyes are really simple. Let's use white. And a big circle in the middle, right on top of the line in the middle, like this. And then we'll make it dark green for the eye in the middle. And then maybe just a little this bit on top, and you can see the difference. Just by adding some reflection on top, you have, like, a very visible eye Then we can use that same green to add some details. Let's add details to the fins just by adding some lines like this. I'm keeping this really simple. You can make this as complicated as you want to. Then we've got some space over here and here to add a bit to add some more detail as well. Let's maybe add some dots or little dashes or stripes and maybe let's do that with the medium green. And over here, maybe with the yellow, the lights are yellow to add just kind of a fun pattern, maybe, or maybe just like the idea of, like, little scales. A I think that's almost it. I think that's our first one done. Just as a fun little detail, let's give this fish a little bit of a blush, just like some pink on top, maybe the medium pink like that. That'll be a fun way to tie in all of the other fish together. Next up, this one already has different colors, which is really fun so we can use our dark pink or red on top and maybe some of this orange as well. Let's use our red, and we'll do that same bit for, like, the gills like this. And then continue with the eyes. Same thing, just a circle like this. Then for the color of this eye, I want to use some darker or more saturated colors. But I think red is going to look a little bit intense, maybe, in this case, something that's not too far off could be orange. Let's use this maybe this darkest orange for the eye and then some reflection on top. And then let's add some texture, some lines on our fins, maybe with something that stands out from the dark pink. So maybe this light yellow. Then over here, we've got some space. Maybe let's use our dark pink or red, and then some space over here as well. This one. We'll just use these wavy lines over here, let's use this orange that we used in the top part. But And lastly, of course, our little blush with our pink, and that one is done as well. And then we'll go to this blue fish. We'll start with the gills in our darkest tone of blue. And by the way, if you did want to use darker colors, you have three options over here as well. But I think this one will be just fine for the blue. And then move on to the eyes. I'm going to switch back easily by just tapping on the color and then you can easily get the previous color back. Then we need white as well for a little reflection, and then we can add our details in the fins and that was also with our blue. Y Now we've got some space here to add another fun pattern. Let's do that with a brighter color, something that stands out like a yellow, maybe. Let's use this lighter yellow or maybe this yellow. Let's see. Let's do something else, maybe some bigger spots like this. Which is very bright. I think that looks quite nice, actually. And then our medium blue over here, so there could be something else again, maybe, these type of scale pattern, maybe. And now this one is a little different than the rest, which is nice. A And of course, lassi we've got our pink over here for little blush. Then we can move on to the two small ones. Our pink one, let's use maybe let's keep this one really light. We'll use our light yellow for this like that on top and our eyes. But for this eye, we do need a darker color to make it stand out. Let's see if we can use our pink. Maybe that's not quite bright enough. I think that works better. Usually the eye color just needs to be a little bit darker than the rest. Otherwise, it's just going to look a little bit too light and it's just not going to stand out. It's not going to look like an eye enough. And let's move on to the fins. Let's use our lighter yellow for that and add our stripes. And what about over here? Red? Let's see. Okay, maybe. Let's try that. And let's do another pattern over here. So maybe some like, Oh, no. Let's put it back. A as this one is a bit smaller, I don't want to add too much detail, so we're going to leave this just pink as it is, and just do it like this, maybe. I think that's already enough detail. Then our pink blush is the last bit over here. That's it. I'm making this up as I go, by the way, you can easily change this up. The example I showed also has different patterns, slightly different colors, but I think sometimes it depends on the canvas, what is actually going to look good. We're just making it up. Last fish, let's start with the gills. They use our darkest orange and the eyes. That's the same color, actually, probably. And let's add detail over here. Let's do that with our again, our darkest orange or brown rather. And then over here, we don't have a lot of space, so we'll keep the simple let's add some more, like, wavy lines, maybe. And, of course, our blush as well. This one doesn't stand out as much, but oh well. Okay. So this is our fish done. But 6. Finishing Touches: Mm. What we want to do last is add a nice little background to this. I think the dry fresco brush would be nice for that, but you could also try and try your own pattern or background. As I said, this stem brush would be nice to make a little pattern. This one is also quite nice. That works really well as a texture in the background. But what we're going to do is use a dry fresco brush and then put a layer underneath. Oh, we don't need this one anymore, of course, and add some really big shapes with our yellow. Just to finish off this piece and tie everything together. In this case, with these shapes, try not to overthink it and just let it be in the background. You can always change the color of this. For example, now this fish is blending in with this shape, but we can change that, of course. I Adding bigger shapes like this in the background also helps you feel a bit more dynamic and it instantly helps to tie all these shapes together as well. I'm just going to turn to Alpha lock and then we can change the color of this. You can turn that into a light pink, for example. There you go. Now this one stands out a little bit more. I'm gonna just move it slightly just so that it doesn't sit in the way of this pinkfsh And that's it? I think that's it. I'll make this one just a little bit lighter. Cool. So this is our fish done completely. 7. Break: Sardines & Fish Theory: Let's pause for a second before we move into our pattern. You can totally stop here by the way, and share your page in the projects and resources. I would love to see what you've created so far, and it's amazing to see everyone's sardines side by side, because even though we all used the same brushes and colors and the same steps, nobody's page looks the same, and that's the fun part. We actually did this project before in my drawing community, the Sardine Club, and it's been amazing to see everybody's varied results. There are no wrong outcomes here. While we're pausing and you finish your sardines and share the results in a project gallery, let's talk about sardines for a second. So here's the find that kind of started it all; Sardine tins. If you haven't seen this class yet, do check it out and definitely look at the amazing student projects in this class. I added a mini lesson recently in the middle with an overview of some of the amazing projects that have been added to this class. And looking at all these projects made me realize that I'm clearly not the only person who loves drawing sardine tins and fish. There's actually a theory going around on socials about this. Draw a fish if you have a creative block. And I think it works. It's so silly, but if you're not to focus on these subjects and you're just following along without thinking too much, you might find that drawing just happens naturally, and that's the point of this class too. Don't overthink it and just have fun drawing. And this is actually the exact reason that I started the Sardine Club. It's a community I run where we share each other's work. We cheer each other on, and I do monthly drops of brushes and palette like the ones that we use today. Instead of just classes, we do live sessions so that we can actually draw together. It's free to join, and I would love to see you there. There will be lots of fish based puns and jokes there, too. And a fun fact, by the way, sardines never swim alone. They always move in big schools together. I think that's a really good way to think about creativity, too, and making art together. Okay, that's everything. So please share your work in the projects and resources, and let's continue to make our pattern. 8. Pattern: So these are our sardines that we've made, and now we're going to turn this into a pattern. So the way to do that, let me show you a preview. We're going to turn this into this kind of pattern. And I'll show you step by step how to do this. We're going to make it in Procreate and then we'll use a pattern tester to see if we're happy with the actual pattern that we've made. For this, we want to focus, first of all, on the fish themselves. We're going to add these shapes in the background, but we'll do that afterwards. So let's take out these. Then most important, we want to do a copy of this because we don't want to mess with our original design. Let's deselect the background color. Now you only have the shapes of your fish, copy canvas and then paste. Now you have your fish over here on a separate layer. We're going to put all of these into a group, and we'll put these away because we're not going to touch those. These are the fish that we're working with. Now our sardines are on a separate layer, we're not going to touch this group anymore. For this, what we want to do is make sure that when we repeat all of these sardines in a pattern, there is no empty space. For that, normally what you do with a pattern is fill up that space, but we don't want to make any newer sardines. We're just going to work with what we have. What we'll do is space some of these a little bit out, so we'll move them. Move this green one a little bit over here. This one over there. And that should be okay. Now what we're going to do is duplicate this layer, and we're going to add a fill layer in between those. We've got a first layer, new layer on top, fill it with, for example, pink, whatever color you prefer, we need two of those. Duplicate that one and then turn down the opacity of both those layers. What you have now is your shapes, your fill layer shapes again, and a filled layer. We're going to use this to move our shapes to create a pattern. What we're going to do is use a selection tool for this, it's important to have snapping turned on. So we've got magnetics. We'll turn it on and snapping as well. You'll see in a second why this is important. Let's move this. We've got our fill layer and our shapes, select these two and then turn on selection. Let's move this to the left. There you go. And let's move the top two when they're selected to the right. And you'll see that when these connects, you have to make sure that there's no space here in between left and that they align perfectly. Now this is actually the we can merge these and we don't need these anymore. Now we actually have some space over here. We want to minimize that as much as possible. But this will mean there's empty space. There's empty space in our pattern. We can do that by moving the fish that are not cut off. Maybe move this one over here and let's move this one as well just a bit. Now our sardines are spread out over the canvas as much as possible. Now, these are placed okay. What we want to do is add our background. What we did is use our dry fresco brush and then we had some pink and yellow stars in the background. For that, we'll add a couple, but make sure that they don't touch the edges. Let's add one here. These definitely don't need to be perfect. Making them imperfect, I like loosely colored in actually is a nice contrast with the sardines in the foreground and also make sure that the colors don't interfere. The pink and the yellow here works, but don't add yellow behind the yellow fish, of course. Let's add a lighter yellow maybe here. F. And this one, I want to make sure it doesn't touch that fish. It's a little bit too close, so I'm just going to move it over here. I just want to make sure they don't have any weird angles so that they don't overlap with the fish too much in weird directions. Okay. Now we have these two ready. What we want to do is the same process again so that we can fill up our pattern with our shapes in the background. What we're going to do is keep a copy of this in case it goes wrong. Copy these two. And these two, they can stay over here just in case because you never know. These ones we can merge. So we'll use this duplicate these, and then we need our fill layer again in between. So we've got a fill layer and another fill layer over here. And we'll turn down the opacity of these two. Now again, you have these ones, the sardines. This is our fill and our fill again. Maybe this is a bit more clear. You've got sardines layer fill, sardines and a fill again. What we're going to do now is select these, the bottom ones. I'm going to move these ones up. Let's move them up to the middle. Then we've got these two and then we'll move these ones down. Now this part connects to this part. The top edge connects to the bottom edge at the moment. Now we can actually fill up this space a little bit more and then our pattern should be pretty much done. Let's delete these fillers, and then more filler shape in the back, one more star. So maybe a yellow one over here, maybe a pink. I'm not sure. Let's see what fits. Maybe a pink one. And there may be one in yellow over here as well we have a little bit of space over there for a smaller one. What we need now is a background. I'm thinking of a very light pink. So this one over here maybe, Phil, and that's it. Let's merge these together. And now what we want to do before we turn this into a proper pattern is test it. 9. Test Your Pattern: So what you can do is go to my pattern tester, which is over here. And with this, this is really easy to use. Just swipe your layer into this pattern tester and it will turn it into a pattern right away. So you used to be able to use a split screen view with this. If for some reason that doesn't work for you anymore, the way to do this is by going to your settings, go to multitasking and gestures. This one. And then instead of setting it to full screen apps, go to windowed apps. And this way, you can have your Windows next to each other. So that's actually the best solution to this. We've got a pattern tester, and then you have this little shape over here, and then you can make your screen smaller. So now you can put them next to each other. And it's a little bit fiddly, but that's the way to do it at the moment. Here you go. The shape is showing up as well. And then we go to layers. We've got our pattern over here. I'm going to swipe that and there you go. Now you can see over here what your pattern looks like. I'm going to make this bigger and you can play with the scale to have a look at this. Then here you could even. Try different flips. In this case, we don't really want the fish to be upside down, of course. The only thing that really works is horizontal flip, but that's it. This is our pattern. If you're not happy with how this looks, make some changes and try the pattern tester again to see if that works. But I think I'm okay with this. This is a good pattern. I'll make this one bigger. Let's duplicate this layer because this is our final image, but now we want to turn this one into an actual pattern repeat it. Go to the selection tool and make sure that uniform is selected, and then we will make this one smaller. Let's duplicate it, swipe it over to the right, and it should fit perfectly. Let's merge this one, duplicate it again, and that will fit perfectly as well. No seams. This is our final pattern. If you wanted to make this even bigger, what you could do is do the same process again, so you can duplicate this one, make it smaller, and then just duplicate it again. Merge, duplicate, and there you go. Y 10. Bonus: Make a Moving Pattern: Okay, bonus round. So we've drawn our sardines and we've turned them into a pattern. Now I want to show you what you can actually do with this, how you can share this. In this lesson, we're going to take that flat static pattern and turn it into a moving clip, the kind that you can use as a reel on Instagram, for example, where it feels like the pattern is endlessly moving like a loop. So firstly, I'll show you how to screen record directly on your iPad while we pan across the pattern in Procreate, and then you'll share that to your phone and then you can edit it in Instagram reels. By the end of this lesson, you'll have your own moving sardine pattern ready to post. So now what we want to do is make sure our iPad is. First of all, this will make it a bit easier to move around. So let's flip it and let's flip our canvas. And then what we want to do is make this a bit bigger, and then we're going to literally just move it like this going down. So we've got this one selected, and then the selection tool, make sure that only magnetics is turned on. Make sure that you've got the bottom edge over here so then you can start moving it like this. So the magnetics will help to make sure that pattern, our layer stay stabilized when we move it down. And now we can start with the screen recording. So usually, if you swipe down over here, you'll have this setting over here, and this is the screen recording. Turn on the screen recording. Turn on the selection tool, and then with four fingers this way, we can hide our interface. And now we can start very slowly moving this down. If you don't get it all on one take, just try again. So, this might take a few tries until you get a smooth scroll. And that's it. Let's move it back. If you go to your gallery, you'll find your recording over here and make sure to share it, and then we'll open it on our phone in Instagram. But let's see if it worked. So let's open your screen recording. And then what we do is just cut it to the moment you had a smooth recording, maybe like this. And also make sure that you don't see the edges, of course. And what you might need to do is crop it just a little bit. So that's what I'm gonna do. Just crop this slightly. And over here as well. So I'm just cutting off a little bit more. And now it should be free of any interface or any messages popping up. And that works too. And this is our pet urn done. D. 11. What's Next?: And that's it. A whole colorful school of sardines turned into a seamless pattern and ready to share as a moving clip if you want to post it online. If you enjoyed this class, I would love for you to share your project in the project gallery. I always love seeing how differently everyone's sardines turned out, even when we've all started from the same simple shape. And if you enjoyed working with these sample brushes, you can check out my Mediterranean Toolkit, which is on Skillshare as well. Most importantly, this toolkit isn't just brushes. I made it to inspire your own projects, so it comes with a tutorial and appropriate file with lots of different options. Before you leave, please leave this class to review. And for more updates, you can follow me here on Skillshare and subscribe to my newsletter. I try to make regular classes and tutorials, and for live sessions, you can check out the Sardine Club. If you're looking for more personal live support, I'm also available for one-on-one sessions right here on Skillshare. Thanks again for joining me today and I'll see you in the next one.