Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, my name is Marianne Renard. I'm an aspiring illustrator based in Nantes, France. I used to work in social media and I have a master's degree in audiovisual communications. I share my illustrations on Instagram and for the past few months I've been playing around with creating shifting backgrounds for my feed in order to make it look more original and cohesive. But what exactly do I mean by shifting backgrounds? Let me tell you. Have you ever seen one of those beautiful feeds, with posts that seem to melt all together? It looks really cool, But the thing with images that spread over several posts that they will only look good if you commit to always sharing three posts at a time. Otherwise, your image will be split, parts of it will be pushed to the next line and the alignment will be off two-thirds of the time. So that's why I created a technique to create a background that is made to shift as you share new content, and that will always look seamless, no matter what. Quite a few people have reached out to me to ask me how I was doing it, So I thought I'd come here and create this class. I will help you understand how your posts move in relation to one another, and give you step-by-step tips on how to design your background with your very own style. By the end of this class, you will have created at least nine mockups with your background on it, that you will just have to then add your content to before posting them on Instagram. This is an intermediate class, meaning that I won't to teach you how to use Procreate, but I will still be giving you lots of tips on how to use it. But you only really need to know the basics of Procreate. So if you're interested, don't hesitate to go and check out all the amazing, short, beginner classes here on Skillshare for Procreate, before coming back here. You can also follow along on Photoshop or any software that you're used to. My goal is that you learn the basic principles of the technique so that you can then play with them and apply them however you'd like to, on your feed or on your client's feed. So let's get started. I will tell you all about your class project in the next lesson. I'll see you there ! :)
2. Class Project: In this class, we'll go through the steps of creating your own background For nine Instagram posts. You'll be able to add more later on if you'd like, that is what we will see in our last lesson, but for now, let's stick to nine in order to understand the basics. Your class project will be to share your design with me and the other students here by screenshotting it on a preview app for Instagram or directly on your feed when you share them, I would really love for you to experiment with this, do this your own way, with your own style. It will, of course, depend on what your actual project will be, what you will use your background for and what your posts will be about. Personally as I don't really use the same colors, or the same brushes, or even the same style, to be honest, on my Instagram account day-to-day, I really like to use this technique when I take part in drawing challenges. This way, I make sure that they are all linked together by using the same brushes, the same colors, and the same background that links them all together and sets them apart from my other projects. If you, or your clients, already have a strong brand image with your own color palette and your own style, you can of course create a background in this very style in order to enhance even more your visual signature. Maybe it can also inspire you to create a new project altogether, you could decide to do a travel mini-series and share nine photographs of a country you've visited. You could use it as a background for text in order to share tips, quotes, and insights with your followers. Or you could decide to keep posting as usual and just use your background to make your feed look extra pretty and tied together. This is a method that you can keep returning to as you have new ideas for new projects. And as we will see in our last lesson, you could even decide to keep on adding to your background and make it a permanent feature of your future Instagram posts. Please tag me on Instagram if you use this method, I can't wait to see what you create. Let's get started. In our next lesson, we are going to think a bit more about our project, and I'm going to share with you some of my favorite resources and inspiration sources. I'll see you there :)
3. Do It Your Own Way: Before we dive deeper on the How to design our background, let's think a bit more about how we want it to look. As I said in our last lesson, this is going to depend a lot on what the actual content of your posts will be. For example, if you're going to be sharing text, then you can go wild with your background. If you're going to be sharing drawings with lots of different colors, you may want to keep your background more simple. You may want to share black and white photographs with a bright background. So take some time to think about what you want your project to look like. If you or your company or your client's company already have a strong visual signature, you probably have a good idea of what types of colors and shapes you're going to want to use. Otherwise, let me show you some of the tools I use for inspiration and some of my favorite brushes as well as some tips on Procreate. So let's get to it. Of course, since we are talking about inspiration, let's go to Pinterest. I'm sure all of you know how great a tool it is for inspiration. How I like to use it is that I just look for keywords that inspire me. So for example, if you want to go for something that's neutral and quite muted, you could go for keywords like "neutral design". See how that gives you nice ideas for muted color palettes. Don't hesitate to click on the words you have here on top if there's something that attracts you. I will add "graphic" to my search. Yeah, see how that gives you nice ideas for shapes and textures. We want to get inspired, we don't want to copy. So try and think about what you like about each image that attracted you. Is it the shapes, is it the colors? Is it the texture? Try and think about what you like and make a list for yourself in order to have some inspiration for what you want to incorporate to your design later. If you want to go for something a bit bolder, you could maybe try "eighties aesthetic". That gives us nice colors too. You could add other words, So maybe "shapes" See how that gives you nice ideas for crazy patterns and crazy colors and shapes. Don't hesitate to browse and get a bit lost. You can also create a new board if you want, to gather all your inspirations. What I am going to go for today I think is the "seventies aesthetic" because that's something I'm really into at the moment. I'm going to add the word "art" to that, yes, I like what I'm seeing. So for example, I really like this image. I like how dark the background is compared to the bright colors in the foreground. I like the shapes on this one, I like the colors her, I like the oranges and browns, I like the blue in this one as well. I like how flowy these lines are. Don't hesitate to, once again, click on the words here. So I think I want to go for something with some blue in it, So let's add "blue". Browse and look around that should give you a more general idea of what you want to go for today. So as this is a class all about Instagram, let's take some inspiration from Instagram. Don't hesitate to go look at your favorite art accounts and try and figure out what you like about each style. For example, I really like Claire Prouvost, she's a French illustrator. I like how bold the colors she uses are. I like the big, strong shapes she uses as well. I also really like Ectomorphe, She's another French illustrator. I like the colors she uses. I also like how she uses lots of different shapes in her work. So lines and dots, and stars, and squares, and everything. Another one of my favorite accounts on Instagram for inspiration is Colours Cafe. They have lots and lots of different color palettes that you can use So don't hesitate to go and browse and see if anything catches your eye. I really like this one, let's give it a like. I think I'm gonna go with this palette today. So what I do is that I just screenshot it and then go to Procreate, click on "photo", take the image. Then go create a new color palette. I'm going to call this one "shifting background". And then with the eye drop tool, you can just pick your colors and add them to your palette. And here you go, you have a nice color palette. If you'd like to create your own palette, there are also lots of amazing classes here, on Skillshare, on color theory. Before starting a new project, I also like to think about what brushes I'll be using, depending on what kind of texture and look I'd like to have. So let's just create a new canvas, make its screen-size because it's just for playing around with brushes. For today's project, you will want to use a brush that gives you at least a bit of control on the edge. So avoid these kinds of brushes where the edge is a bit random and you don't really know what's going to happen. Quick Procreate tip, If you want to clear a whole layer at once, just take three fingers, put them on your screen and shake them. I'm going to share with you some of my favorite Procreate brushes for shifting backgrounds. Most of them are in the "inking" section. Let's start with "Syrup". This is a really nice brush to make smooth lines and smooth shapes. In the same style, we also have the "technical pen" still in the "inking" section. It's also really nice to make shapes that you can then color with the color drop tool. Quick tip : if you have this white line here, this means that you have to change the color threshold. To do so, just color drop your shape as usual and then keep your pencil down and slide to the right to change the color threshold here, until you don't have the white line anymore. Another one of my favorite brushes for shifting backgrounds is the "Mercury" brush. This one gives you a bit more texture. See how it has a bit of a rougher edge. You can also use it to make shapes that you can color by using the color drop tool. You can also use your Mercury brush to add texture within your shape. One of my favorite ways to use the Mercury brush is to use it to create a shape that you can then fill with another brush. Let me show you what I mean. So let's create a new layer. Create a shape with our Mercury brush. See how we have lots of texture on our edge. And then alpha lock your new layer. So either by clicking on the layer and then on "alpha lock", or by taking two fingers and sliding right. You know that your layer is alpha locked when you have the little checkers in the background of your layer. Then go to "Adjustments", "Hue, Saturation and Brightness", "Layer" And then push the brightness all the way to the top. This way on your layer, you have your shape in white. And then you can take any brush you like and fill your shape with it. I'm going to go with a painting brush. I really like the "Salamanca" brush, So let's go with it. And you can just paint your shape. See how we have now the nice edges of the Mercury brush with the texture of the Salamanca brush. This way, we are able to keep control of the edge with the Mercury brush, and still have our nice texture on the inside. So let's erase that. And finally, one of my all time favorite brushes is the "Dry Ink" one. So in the "Inking" section, "Dry Ink". So it depends of course, on the size and on the way you hold your pencil down. I really like this brush to make some shapes. It looks a bit weird if you color drop it so just color it with your pencil. See how that gives you a nice texture on the inside of your shape. This is my absolute favorite brush at the moment, I've been using it non-stop for weeks, so that is the one that I'm mostly going to be using today. Don't hesitate to take a bit of time to go through the brush library, Procreate comes with lots of amazing brushes. Play around with them. Try different styles, different colors, different textures, and figure out which brush you want to use for today's project. So now that we have a better idea of what we'd like to create, let's get to our backgrounds. In our next lesson, I'm going to tell you all about how your posts move on your Instagram feed, and how we are going to use that to create our design. See you there ! :)
4. How It Works: In this lesson, I will show you how your posts move in relation to one another on your Instagram feed as you post new content. It's really important to understand where your posts will end up next in order to create a design that will shift beautifully. So let's get to it. First of all, let's see what will happen if we make a background that doesn't shift as we post new content. Here, I've made an image that I've split into nine squares. Let's see what happens if we just post the images one by one. So you post your first image, then your second, then your third. It looks nice for now. And then when you add a fourth image, your design is split, and the alignment is off. Same goes with a fifth image. And if you add a sixth image, it looks nice. Then a seventh, the alignment is off again. Same goes with the eighth. And it looks all right with the ninth image. So really the only way to make it look right is to share your posts three at a time. Otherwise, parts of your image get pushed to the next line, everything moves, and your alignment is completely off. You can of course, still use this technique, it allows you to use pictures you've taken, for example. But just know that unless you commit to keep sharing three posts at a time, your design won't look right two thirds of the time. So that's what we're going to avoid here today with this class. So I've made these little images here to show you how your posts move on your feed as you keep sharing content and how your posts are linked to one another. The main thing you have to keep in mind is that a post is always going to be directly next to the exact same posts. Let me show you what I mean. So here we have our first image. If we add another one, our first image, of course, gets pushed to the right, and our second image takes its place. If we add a third image, everything gets pushed one square to the right. If we add a fourth image, our first image is pushed to the next line, Now our second image is at the edge, and our fourth image is in the first place. We can now see that the first image is right underneath the fourth image, and they are going to stay that way all the time. If we add another one, we can see that our first image is still directly underneath our fourth image. 1 is still next to 2, 3 is next to 4, 4 is next to 5. If we add another one, 1 is still under 4, 2 is still under 5, 3 is under 6, and will stay under 6 forever. See what I mean? 1 is still under 4, 3 is still under 6, 2 is still under 5. The bottom part of the pink circle in our second image is always going to be right under the top part of the pink circle in our fifth image. If we keep adding other images, 1 will still be under 4, 2 will still be under 5, etc, etc. Notice also that our design is only ever split vertically. So 1 will always be under 4, but 1 and 2 can be split apart. See what I mean? So if we were to put all our images side-by-side, so 1 next to 2, next to 3, next to 4, next to 5, next to 6, etc, etc. It would create a line that would work. But we also have to take care of these junctions. So what we're going to do today is begin with our square like this, and begin by taking care of the inner junctions. So the junctions that are here represented by full circles. Because we know that if we take care of this junction here, it is always going to work once it's taken care of. If I create a yellow circle here, even if I split it apart, I know that next time our two images are together, the junction will work. So if we take care of each junction, while our posts are together, we know that this junction will always work. So it sounds obvious, but for example, we know that below first three posts, there i only ever going to be the content that you previously shared on Instagram. So you won't really have to worry about these junctions while designing your background. Same goes with the junction on the right of your first post. You know that this is always going to be an image that you previously shared on Instagram, so not part of your design. And similarly, don't worry about the top junctions of our last three images, unless you want to do more than nine posts on your design, but we'll see that in our last lesson. So one last time, the thing you really have to remember is that a specific post will always have the same exact posts right next to it. Keep that in mind, it will really make things easier for you today. So hopefully now, you have a better grip on how your posts move on your Instagram feed. Let's put that to the test and start designing your backgrounds. I'll see you next lesson for step-by-step tips on how to do just that. :)
5. Design Your Background: In this lesson, we are going to design our background and create a reference image of it that we're going to use later on to create our clean, full-sized mockups. Let's get to it. All right, so let's create a new canvas. I'm just going to make mine screen size. This is just going to be for our image reference, so the size doesn't really matter. Now you want to go to Actions, then Canvas, then activate the drawing guide, then go to Edit drawing guide, and pick 2D grid here. We can now change the size of the grid. We want to make ours at least four squares vertically and six squares horizontally. So like this, you can change the opacity of your grid, the thickness of your grid, and the color of your grid up here. I'm just going to make mine black. And then you want to activate assisted drawing, then done. And now we are going to be able to create our reference grid. So just pick a nice black. You want to use something like the technical pen in inking. So just a plain black brush. We can see on our first layer here that it is assisted. So that means that we can only draw vertical and horizontal lines, which will be nice to create our grid. So let's get to it. You want to leave at least two squares on the left and one square on the bottom. Create a nice nine by nine grid. You don't need to be too precise because once again, it is only going to be for reference. But try and stay on the lines nonetheless. Then we want to create some squares to put in the middle here in each square, that will represent our foreground. So that's something to think about as well, how big or how small you want your foreground to be compared to your actual background. I like to keep my foreground quite big because I still want my illustrations to be the main focus of my posts. Let's create a new layer and then create a square here, something that resembles a square. And then if you hold it and then let it go, you should be able to click on "edit shape" and pick "square". With the arrow tool here, you should be able to rotate it and move it around. So let's put it to the center of our little a square here. I'm going to color mine black. And then what you can do is duplicate it and then go to the arrow tool and then "snapping" and "magnetics". And when you move your new layer, you should get this blue line here. That helps you move your square in a straight line. You can then duplicate your square once again, put it in your third square. Then you can merge all three layers, duplicate it, and move it down. Duplicate it once again, and move it down. And then you can merge all three layers and you have one layer with your foreground. So let's rename that "foreground", and let's rename our grid layer "grid". Let's number our squares to make it extra clear. So our first post will be on the bottom right-hand corner here. So 1, then 2, 3. This way we can make it extra clear on the reference image which post is which. Then, let's create a new layer that we're gonna put under our foreground and our grid. What I like to do is pick a background color. So I'm gonna go with the darkest blue. I'll be drawing with the dry ink. So let's color our background color. You don't need to stay in the lines, we are going to clean it up later. So let's just color our background color. And then add another layer and you can start to work on your other shapes. I'm just going to take this orange here. So once again, we want to stay on the inner junctions here. This part of the 7 is going to match with this part of the 6, so we want to wait until we put them together to actually take care of this junction. Let's first take care of these inner junctions here. These are the ones we want to begin with. So let's just draw some flowy lines here. Don't hesitate to try things, and you can always go back and change your shapes. I'm going to add some lines here. As I said in our last lesson, you don't really need to worry about the bottom of the first, second, and third image, as you know that our design isn't going to continue down there. So now that we've taken care a bit of these middle junctions here, we want to merge all of our colors together and then clean it a bit. So you can either take your eraser and erase it by hand. But what I like to do is take the select tool, pick "rectangle", make sure you're in the right layer. And then make a rectangle. Then take three fingers, slide them down, click on "cut and paste", and then you get two layers, one with the inner parts of your rectangle and one with everything that's left outside of it. So the stuff we don't want. Now, just take your foreground, your grid and your colors, we're going to group them just to keep them and make sure we don't lose them. And then we can duplicate our group. So hide this, we're going to name it "V1". And then with our new group, we're going to take the select tool, the rectangle, and then take these three squares on the right. Take the arrow tool and then move them to the left, let's unselect "magnetics", we're going to move them to the left and one square down so that our 6 and our 7 are side-by-side, and our 3 and our 4 are side-by-side. Try and make them match as well as you can. And now we have what would be our second configuration. So what we would have if we posted something new. There would be our new post. And now we can take care of these junctions here, that we couldn't take care of before. And we know that our 4 and our 5 are going to match together, and our 7 and our 8 are going to match together. Let's go to our color layer and let's add anything we want. So you can play around and you can actually make the shapes you made earlier bigger. Just make sure you don't draw anything that goes beyond the edge of our grid here. So now that we've taken care of these extra junctions here, let's go and see what it looks like back in our nine-by-nine square. So let's clean that up a bit. Once again, you can take your select tool, then go to "rectangle" and clean it up. Once gain, three fingers slide them down, cut and paste, and erase the stuff you don't want. So let's duplicate it again. Rename this one "V2", just so we don't lose anything. Hide it. And then with our new group, we're going to do the same again. So let's take the select tool, the rectangle one, take these three squares and put them back here. See, it still works here because we haven't touched the junctions. What I like to do here is go back to V1 and duplicate the clean grid, put it in our new group, and then just delete this grid here, and put the grid on top. This way it looks way cleaner. So now we can see that we have our background that's still works in the inner junctions and we know that 4 and 3 are going to match, and 6 and 7 are going to match, because we've just taken care of that. So technically we know that our background should work as is, but let's check how it looks like in our third configuration. For that, let's just rename this group, let's name it "V3", then duplicate it. Hide this one. Rename this one "V4". And then once again, take the select tool, rectangle, and this time let's take these six squares, and move them left and down. And here we have what our background will look like in our third configuration, so once we've added two posts up here. We can see that it still works. So now we know what our background will look like in every configuration. So once we've posted all of it, once we've added one post, and once we've added two posts. And we can see that it always works and that it always looks seamless. If you want to add something to your background, you can, of course, but you have to remember to always go back and forth between your configurations to make sure that it always works. So for example, if I wanted to add a bit of blue here, let's do it. So go to my color layer, add a bit of blue here. Maybe join it with my blue shape here, why not. Then you want to clean it. So cut and paste, and delete what you don't want. And then what you have to do now is to take your whole group, duplicate it to save it. Hide this one. Then take your selection tool and move all six squares back here. You can now go back to your V1, duplicate your clean grid, put it on top, and delete this one. And now you can see you have your blue that you just added that is here and here. Let's rename this one "V5" just to be sure. And now we have our first configuration, our second configuration, and this one doesn't have the blue that we just added. So let's do this. Take our V5, so the nine-by-nine square, And do the same, so duplicate it, Rename this one "V6", make sure to hide this one. And then you can take the select tool, rectangle, and take these three squares and put them here. And now we know that the last three versions that we made here are what our background is going to look like in all three configurations, first configuration here, this configuration if we add an extra post and then this configuration if we add two extra posts. You can add extra details to your background, just make sure that you change the details to all of your configurations. So let's go back to our nine-by-nine square. That is going to be our image reference to create our mockups. For that, let's just go to "actions", "share", I'm going to share mine as a PNG, and "save image". I've exported my image as is, as a rectangle, because we are going to be able to zoom in on it as we will be creating our mockups later. Congratulations, you now have designed your background. I will see you in our next lesson to show you how we are going to set up our workspace in order to create our final, full-sized, clean mockups.
6. Set Up Your Workspace: Our first step to creating our nice, clean mockups is to set up our workspace on Procreate. We are actually going to create our mockups one by one on different layers of the same canvas, instead of doing a big background and then chopping it. This way, we can make sure that all of the junctions work together instead of just the inner ones. This also allows us to make sure that we have nice unpixelated images because we are going to be working on a full sized canvas from the beginning. So let's get to it. First of all, First of all, let's create a new custom canvas. Let's name it "Shifting background" And it is going to be a 1080px by 1080px as this is the optimum size for posting on Instagram. So that is our full-sized image. Now go to "actions", "canvas", "drawing guide" and then "edit drawing guide", pick "2D grid", and then you can click on the number here on the grid size and set it to a 1080 pixels divided by 10, that is 108 pixels. So now we have our canvas with a nice grid of ten by ten squares. Then go to "actions", Select "reference", then "image", and then "import". Then pick your reference image that we did earlier. This is a really nice tool, you can resize your window by dragging the bottom right-hand corner here. And you can zoom in on your image with two fingers, and then you have your nice reference image. And with this little gray bar on top, you can move it around to place it wherever you want. I'm going to make mine a bit smaller and put it here. So as I said in the beginning of this lesson, we're going to create our mockups one by one, starting with the first one, so this one. But before starting to draw, let's think about how we are going to make sure that all our mockups are going to fit together. This is where it starts to get a bit trickier, but follow me here. Let's take our background color from last lesson, when we were creating our design. If you made a bunch of overlapping shapes and don't have a background color, don't worry, just pick black or white. Let's create a nice big square by just color dropping color in your first layer here. So mine was dark blue, so just, here. This way we know that this layer is a square, and that it's exactly 1080px by 1080px. So let's rename it "Base 1080", just to make sure we always remember. Let's lock it in order to be extra sure that it doesn't move at all. Now, and that's the big trick, we're going to go to "actions", "canvas" and then "crop and resize". Go to "settings", and now we're going to make our canvas bigger. We're going to add extra space on the edge of our canvas that will allow us to make sure that our images really blend together. You will see what I mean in a minute. So let's add an extra 108 pixels on each side. So two times a 108 is 216. And then what I also found is best is to add an extra 10 pixels on each side, so 20, to compensate for these lines in between your posts on your Instagram feed. Their size varies depending on what medium you're browsing Instagram on, so there is no fail-safe way to make it absolutely perfect on all mediums. Proportionally, these lines are thinner on a tablet than on a phone, and thinner on a phone than on a computer. Those extra 10 pixels I add are based on what Instagram looks like on a phone, which is what a vast majority of people use Instagram on. And don't worry, it is still going to look great on computers and tablets. So back to our resizing. A 1080 plus 216 plus 20 is 1316 pixels by 1316 pixels. If I lost you there, don't worry, just follow my lead. Then select "snapping", here on the settings, go to your workspace here, and then put it in the center. When you have these two orange lines here, this means that it is centered. Click "done". And then you have your workspace all set up. Thanks to our grid, we can see that we have an extra band of 108 pixels here, and our extra 10 pixels on the side here as well. And here in the center we have our 1080x1080 square, which is our future image. This way we will be able to make all mockups overlap with each other in order to make sure that they absolutely match. And at the end, we're going to crop our images back to their original size. We now have our workspace all set up to create our mockups. I'll see you next lesson to do just that.
7. Create Your Mockups: Now that we have set up our workspace, we can finally create our mockups. So let's get to it. So we're going to start by creating our center square, our foreground. What I like to do is just duplicate this square here, unlock it, then alpha-lock it, either by clicking on it and on alpha lock or by taking two fingers and sliding right. Then you can pick a new color, I'm going to make mine this white here. Then click on your layer that is alpha-locked and "fill layer". Then with your arrow tool, you can resize it. Click on "snapping", then "snapping" in order to make sure that it's centered. So as I said before, now is the time to think about how big or how small you want your foreground to be. I like to keep my foreground quite big so that my illustrations stay the main focus of each post I share. But it depends on whether you want your background to be quite visible, if you're going to be just sharing text. You can even make your foreground a shape that is not a square, so a circle, or something completely different in each post. You can play around with it, so I'm going to make mine a bit smaller. I'm going to make mine this size approximately. You can also play around with the color of your square, or the edge. For example, you can make it a yellowish white. So do "fill layer", then undo the alpha-lock and take a brush like the Mercury brush and go along the edges with it. to kind of make it look like teared up paper. Or, I'm going to make mine back to this white color. And I'm going to add a lightly textured frame to it. So on a new layer I'm going to take a dark blue, very dark blue. Take my Dry Ink brush and a little frame so by just holding to make sure it is a straight line. Here I have a nice clean frame around my foreground. So if, for your foreground, you worked on more than one layer. let's group them. Let's rename this one "foreground". And let's rename this group "foreground" as well. This group is going to stay on top at all times because it is our foreground. So now that we have our foreground, let's get to the background. We're going to start with our first image, so the bottom right-hand corner on the reference here. Let's create a new layer. Put it under the foreground. Make sure you have the brush that you want. So mine is Dry Ink. And then let's go and pick our first color. Mine is the light blue. Look at your shapes on your reference image, where they are on the actual square. So you know that this square is your image. So the blue square here. But we are going to want to draw even beyond it. This is how we are going to make sure that our images actually fit together. This extra band here, the white band, will actually be our reference for our next square, a stepping stone to start our second mockup. You'll see what I mean in a minute. You don't have to match the proportions of your reference image to perfection. It is mostly here to help you keep track of what you're doing. So let's get to it. I can see that my light blue shape heres start about two-thirds on the top. So let's start it here. If you want, you can hide your foreground in order to make sure that your shapes are whole under the foreground, I personally don't really care about it because I know that my foreground is always going to be on top of my background. Then I'm gonna take my orange here. Make it a new layer. It goes like this. So here I can see that the white line is just on the top left-hand corner. But my top left-hand corner on my image is going to be here. If we hide it, it's going to be here. So I can actually make it go over the edge to make sure that I will have something to begin with here and here. Alright, so I'm quite happy with this. So once you're done with your first square, Let's merge all layers together and rename it "1". What we will do now is that we are going to duplicate our first square, then hide the bottom layer and take this one, rename it "2", because that's going to be our base for our second image. Move our reference image to see what we are going to work with now. And then pick your second image, go to the arrow tool and select "snapping" and "magnetics". Then you are going to slide it to the right. Making sure that you don't go all over the place. That's why we use the magnetics. You're going to slide it to the right, and then you're going to stop at the third vertical line from the right. So 1, 2, 3. And put it on this vertical line. Make sure that you have stayed on a straight line, and then you can crop it. So what we have here, on top of our white band, is actually the left edge of our first mockup. And what's on top of our background color, so blue for me, is a stepping stone to start drawing your second mockup. So now you want to be really careful not to touch what is outside of our image, so what is on top of the white band. Because that's our first image. If you modify it here, it won't change back on the first, so the alignment will be off. So let's create a new layer. I'm going to put it under. And then let's start with our second mockup. So you can see here that it drops a bit. So I'm going to go like this. If you want, you can go on your reference band here and change it a bit. I'm going to make this white band here a little further down. So you can change it, but make sure that you only change what is on this left square here, not on the right square. Because as I've said before, the right square, this band here, is our first image so you can't change it. All right, so now that we're done with our second image, let's repeat the same process. So merge our layers together, rename it. So that is our second mockup. And then duplicate it, hide the bottom one. Then take this top one, rename it "3", Take the arrow tool and slide it to the right, and stop at the third vertical line from the right. Make sure that you stayed on a straight line. And now you have your stepping stone for your third mockup. So let's get to it. Create a new layer. Look at what it looks like on our reference image. So I can see that the blue stops here. So I'm going to make it stop here. So once we are done with our third square, let's get to the fourth one, so let's repeat the process. So merge all the layers together, Rename it if it's not right. So mine is right now, duplicate it. Hide the bottom layer, then take this layer and move it to the right, oops, Move it to the right. But as we are now on our fourth square, we also have to take care of the junction between the bottom of the four and the top of the first. So let's duplicate our first square and hide it, move it up, then what you are going to do is do the same process, but instead of sliding it rightn we're going to slide it down and stop at our third horizontal line from the bottom. So this part that is on the white band here is actually the top part of our first image. So now we have our right and bottom edges is to go from. Let's do the same process. So the orange here takes all of the left part. Let's do that. Once again, you can change your reference band as long as you don't touch what's going to be on your other mockups. So just modify stuff on this little square here. I want my line here to be a bit thinner. So I'm going to go and erase a bit of it here, making sure that I don't go beyond this little line here. And then in this one. And then it's just a matter of repeating the same process all over again. So merge all of your colour layers, rename them "4", then duplicate your fourth layer, hide the bottom one, rename this one "5", take the arrow tool, slide it to the right, Stop on the third vertical line from the right. Then as we are going to take care of our fifth mockup, we want to take care of the junction between the second and the fifth. So duplicate layer number 2, move it up, rename it "5", then unhide it, take the arrow tool and move it down. Once I'm done with my fifth layer, I can duplicate it. hide the bottom one, rename this one "6", then take the arrow tool and move it to the right. Then, 6 is on top of 3, So let's take 3, duplicate it, move it up, rename it, unhide it, and move it down. So stopping at the third horizontal line from the bottom. If you see that you've moved a bit too much, don't hesitate to take two fingers, cancel until your layer is back in its place. So you can begin once again and go in a straight line. Make sure, when you have something like this, make sure that you fill what is between your reference bands and your foreground, because it's easy to miss. So for that, I like to work under my reference bands. And then I just have to color here. And now that my sixth image is done, I just have to do the same all over again. So merge all layers, rename it "6", then duplicate it, hide this one, rename it "7", move it to the right. Here, I can see that I've not gone into a straight line because I have this little white band here. So let's just cancel and move it again. Try and pay a lot of attention when you're moving your layers. We'll be able to our mistakes later, but it's always easier to not make mistakes in the first place. So we're going to take care of our seventh mockup. So we want the top of our fourth mockup for reference. So let's duplicate the fourth. Move it up, rename it, and slide it down. So remember that what's on our white band here, will actually be part of our next image. So here I've gone a bit too upwards, because I can see in my eighth image that my orange shape is going to go down. So I'm going to erase that and try and make it go a bit down here. So earlier, in our fourth mockup, I made modifications here. I erased a bit of yellow. So that's what I'll want to refer to. We can see here that our edge of yellow is not the same in my two bands. So what I want to do is refer to this one. So I'm just going to take my eraser, take this one and erase this bit here. And now I can draw, and make it seamless. There you go. Here I'm going to create a new layer on top of everything to draw my lines. Because once again, I know that I can change stuff in this band here, making sure that I don't touch this square here. So this is a process that is quite tedious, You'll want to pay attention and try and make as few mistakes as you can. So once again, as we are going to work on our eighth mock-up, I want to duplicate my fifth mockup to have for reference in the bottom part of my image. So here we can see that our design doesn't match, but it doesn't really matter because this part here, and this part here, are actually not part of any of the mockups we've created already. This is the extra part of our eighth mockup, and this is the extra part of our sixth mockup. So as long as we make sure to make them match in our ninth mockup, this is going to be fine. So what I'm gonna do is take my eraser. Erase here a bit. Don't go beyond this line here. Take my eraser on the other one, Erase here a bit as well. And now I'm going to create a layer that I'm going to put underneath both of them, and I can make them match. And here you go, now they match. So now that we have our nine mockups, we are going to group them, and rename the group "background". Now let's go back to our gallery. Let's rename this canvas "Mockups - Work In Progress" So this the canvas that we're gonna keep in this size in order to be able to make modifications. And then we're going to duplicate it. And name this one "Mockups - V1". Let's go ahead and stack all of our work together, and rename the stack "Shifting Background", to keep organized. So in our "Mockups - V1", we are going to go to "Actions", "Crop and Resize", then "settings", and then crop it back to 1080 pixels by 1080 pixels. Make sure to select "Snapping" and then center it. Then "Done". And there you go. You finally have your nice, clean, full-sized mockups, nicely numbered. Now that you have created your mockups, meet me in our next lesson to see how to check your work and how to fix any mistakes you may have made. See you there.
8. Check Your Work: Before using our mockups and posting them on Instagram, let's check if our background actually works better safe than sorry, in this lesson, I will show you how I check my work and how I fix mistakes I may have made. So let's start by exploiting our mockups. Let's do it one by one in the right order. So begin with our first MOOC. I just go to Actions, Share, and then export your image as a JPEG or PNG as module. And you want to undermine as PNGs. So the first, then the second, et cetera, It's the truck. And let's export the blank image as well. So let's just hide all layers. You can kick off background colors and the fixed box seats as well. Then I'm going to use for Instagram and doesn't use in preview. It has some feature that you have to pay to use. The basic features that WE Day are completely free. There are some other similar apps to preview Instagram feed. So if you're already using one of those that leads to the event as well. So you can pause this video. We'll get one of these preview apps and new kids to your Instagram account. Now this is what preview looks like. It shows you your incident when you have these little gray logo here, it means that this image is already posted on our county is black image here. It doesn't have a logo. It means that it's just image that I uploaded on the app to prevent that actually, on my account. I've actually read a bunch of black images for us to focus just on today's background and not the one I'm currently sharing on Instagram. So now just click on the plus sign here, then go to your library. That reasons. And then you can just click on your mockups indirect order to upload them. And this is where the magic happens. Selected your images in the right order. It should decree. Nice. Now, if not, you can move your images around by just holding them and dragging them around. Don't worry, you can play around as much as you want. It doesn't change anything on your Instagram accounts and all that, the post anything. Now, to check our work, Let's pay close attention to our junctions. Actually made the mistake on purpose here to show you how to change it. So we can see that the junction between our 2 second image and or fifth image doesn't work. So that's something to keep in mind for later. Let's take for any other mistakes before going back to Procreate. Aside from this spot here, we can see that it actually looks quite nice to see any mistake on your design. Just take notes of where it is and all the images it touches. So mine is between my second and my fifth logo. So that's where we are going to have to correct it. Now to check our design, we also have to check it in other configurations. So let's add a blink in edge. And now we can see these junctions here that we didn't see before. They look, alright, so we can see that there is a slight offset between the two here in my diagonal line. But as I said before, this is what it looks like on a tablet still the lines between the images are really thin. They're going to be a bit thicker on our phones. So that's why we can have slight offsets. If we have a line that's almost parallel to our separation lines. So if you see a small offset like this one, don't worry, it will look nice on your phone. Now to be sure, let's add another blank image to see what it looks like in author configuration. So I can still see the mistake here. But all the other junctions look nice to me. Now we take your time to train, see the mistakes you've made. This way, we can correct them all at once on Procreate. Make sure to check also the spaces around your foregrounds to make sure that you've called O of M. Now that I'm seeing that they can see that here, it misses a little bit of yellow. So that's something that you're going to have to go back and correct as well. So on my image. So I have to change something in between my second and May fifth, and I have to change something on my sixth. So let's go back to procreate and change that. In order to change our mock-ups, we have to go back to our working progress. I said I had changed something. It's my second and my fifth image. I have to choose whether I'm changing the mistake on my second image, on my fifth image. So I'm going to keep my fifth image as cheese and use it as a reference for my second image. So what I'm going to do is the same principle that I did earlier. So I'm going to duplicate my fifth image, hide the top one, and then drag it down over my second image that I'm going to show as well. For my second image, I need the reference from the bottom of my image. So I'm going to take my fifth image, the RL2, and then I'll save up and stop at the third line from the top. So 123 going to stop here. And then here, we can see that if we hide it, this orange box is moving. So I'm only gonna keep what I'm interested in. Let's go ahead and actually put the fifth one underneath, show it. And then I have nanoscale that's going to fit with my image. So what you want to do is do the same process as what you did when you were creating your mockups with going back and forth between them, try and think about what you want to correct and where you will have to correct it. I also had to correct my image. I can see here there is a mistake, so let's take my brush and correct it. Don't forget to merge your predictions and rename this if it's not correct. So now that we have guaranteed the mistakes that we wanted to correct, we are actually going to do the same processes over again. So go back to gallery, then duplicates our progress, and then we can rename it to put it here. And then, and you want to go back to actions, then can thus prevent resize settings, a 1180 pixels by 100 pixels stepping and then centered, then Done. And now you can export the mock-ups that you've changed. So for me, I change the second and the sixth one. So let's do that. This is my second share in G. Image. And my son. We save image. Now let's go back to preview. And we are going to add the images that we've changed. Now you want to move them to the right place. The next two are around the image. Then you want to select and delete your old market. And now adjunction is looking really nice. Then my 6123456. Here, delete the old one. And now my background should look really nice. Let's delete these two blank images that you see it again in Auth0 configuration. So office configuration. Let's look at all the junctions. I think it looks right. Let's add hobbling image. I'll second configuration looks nice as well. And let's have a fun one. And it looks arise, please, way too. If you spot any mistakes now out of his day to go back to Procreate, do the same process again. So go back to working progress, correct the mistakes, then duplicate your work-in-progress called V3, V4, V5, et cetera. It's a draft profits Xbox, the images that you change and then go to your preview app and see if that works. Congratulations, you've created your mock-ups for your very interesting background. Please remember to take some screenshots of your background in different configurations on your previous. Happy to share with us as your class projects. I can't wait to see what you've created and see you next lesson for some tips on how to use the mockups you've just made.
9. How To Use Your Mockups: In this lesson, I will share with you some tips on how I use my mock-ups. Now that you've checked your background on your preview app, you know that you design work in your last version. So let's go to US version, and let's work on actually adding content to your backgrounds. You can either create a new layer and put anything you want on top. But then you have to be careful not to go over your foreground. Unless that's something you want to do. You can also create a new layer on top of your foreground square and use a clipping mask. And then you won't be able to go over your limits. So that really depends on what you created your background for. If you are going to import photographs, you can just import them straight into your Canvas and slap them on top. But otherwise you do best is to create friends that I'd be able to put on top of all my other layers. This way I won't have to worry about not going over my foreground. Citizen. That's what I do. First and foremost, I'll duplicate my background groups just to make sure that I don't lose anything. Then if like me, your design has a background color that is still visible. You're going to have to add it to each square. So just duplicate your base and lock it. Let's put it in our group here. Height, the volume group. Then you want to duplicate your base and put one under each of the square. Let's bit tedious, but it is necessary. Then make sure that you make everything visible. And then you can merge your layers two-by-two, making sure that your background color is on the bottom. So imagine and rename them as you go. So make sure to keep renaming them even if it takes some time because it's way easier to keep track if your numbers are correct. So now goes through your foreground layer. Click on it, click on Select, and then you have a selection that's exactly the size of your foreground. Then click on your first layer and cut and paste. This way you have two layers, one with your frame and want with the middle parts that you don't need it. So you can delete the New Paltz and do the same all over again for all of your layers. So click on foreground, click on Select. Go to your second layer. Cut and paste, delete the new robots. Because your foreground become select, Consume, clear, and paste them robots. Then you can rename this group frames. And you can go and put the group on top of everything else. If like me, you made a frame around your background saying this layer and put it on top of everything. So I'm going to do is I'm going to save these foreground layer here and take it out of the group. And I'm going to delete this empty group now. From now on, as long as you keep working on layers underneath your friends group, you can do anything you want. As it's going to stay under your frame. You can draw, you can import photographs and put them under your frames layer. You can add text, you can add anything you like and it wants to go over your frame. But I do for my illustrations is that I just duplicate this canvas. Let's rename it. And then go to this new Canvas. Take my top plane here and my first mock-up out of this group. And then I can delete everything else that I don't need. So basically everything I can even unlock and the base. And then as long as I keep working underneath my frames, I can do anything. I want. I have a clean canvas to start drawing. And for my sake and post, I will just have to do the same. So duplicating my right version of the mockups, rename it to then getting my frame out of the group and deleting everything that I need. And then I'm free to throw all my second mockup as well. There you go. You're all set. Now you just have to print some content to put in your mockups and to share on Instagram. Next lesson is a bit of a bonus. If you want to go beyond nine posts, is not make sure to meet me in the last lesson anyway for some final thoughts, as you in a minute.
10. Bonus Lesson: In this bonus lesson, I will tell you what to do if once you're all done with your nine posts for our class projects, you want to keep creating posts and expanding your background. First, let's go back to our reference image. Let's take our man by 1909. So this one, if we want to add other posts to our initial nine ones, design is going to continue up here. So we have to reference the top box. I want sign for that. Let's duplicate our mind my nine design, but it on top of everything. And let's group all, of all groups and call them form. To magnify. This way, we know that in this group we have our original posts. So with this one, you want to duplicate your foreground, duplicates your breathing. It's warm, green front of everything. And then you take these three layers and you slide them down. Make sure to hide this. So here you have a blank space to create the rest of your design. But you're going to do now is alpha lock. This layer here. Take some black and click on Fill Layer, then take some white, go back to ben. And then we are able to number on your breed. And now what we're going to do is create a new layer, creates and everything actually going to put occurs above it. And now you can start on creating the rest of your design. We're going to follow the same principle as our first time. So begin by the inner junctions. And now we have the top of our initial designs take care of as well. So I'm going to color my background blue with my base color. Once again, we're going to clean up later, so don't worry about how it looks outside of the lines. Then you can add another layer and start working on your inner junctions. So I know that I have to have some blue here because I have some blue on top of my initial design. So it's going, it's going to go like this. And we're going to take care of these later when we move our design. I know that I'm going to have some orange here, but we have been willing to take care of it later. Let's add some yellow here. Just do exactly the same as you did before. Which you don't like how these junctions which you can always change them if you haven't posted them yet on your Instagram. But remember, if you change anything to go back to your original post and change the design here as well. So now that I've taken care of my needle junctions here, we're going to do the same process we did in our previous lessons. So much the colors. Select two rectangle, cut and paste, then erase what you don't want. Merge the colors, and then take a whole group. Take the select tool. First, duplicate it. Let's say. So this form was the seven. And this form we be D eight, so high E7. And with this one we take our Select tool, rectangle the right column and move it down n lefts. And human makes the here. And now you can take care of these junctions here. So doing the same, making sure that you don't go over the lines on the right are on the left. So I'm actually going to add something on my initial design here, each oxygen, so make sure that you haven't considered yet on your instrument and that you only do the sub-parts. So that's something that I have to remember. I have to go back to my mockup and changed it. I will keep going and keep adding whatever you like, just as we did in our initial lesson. Once you're happy with your design, just do the same algebra again. Much your colors, select Rectangle, clean. Your colon here. Because it tastes good, it's what you don't want. Then duplicate this version. When I meet the line height. And then we're going to put it back on the right. You can go to your initial version here and duplicate the reads to make it look a bit cleaner. And delete your grids. And here you go, we can see what are the extra posts will look like. Is going to claim that a bit. Once again, you don't really need to be extra precise as it is just our reference image. And now let's see what it looks like in our third configuration. Let's duplicate our V nine. The bottom group, rename this one. We then and then select rectangle. Take these two writes columns here among them down and F's. Put them, William two. And now you can see plots of background may look like at the end. Now we have offering configuration, so offers configuration here. And when we've added an extra burst, and then when we've added two extra costs. So now let's do the same as we did earlier. Take our nine by nine extra posts, go to actions, share, PNG, save image. We have only reference image. And then let's go to our mockups, working progress. And now what we do is just to exactly the same as we did before. So actions reference image in bots, in both on your reference image. Adjust our window as we like, and then go emphasis as we did before. So I'm going to add magneto white circle here that I've just added on my design. So if you've made any change on your top three images, do them right now and then we can go back to represent the process that we did earlier. So duplicate online image, hide the bottom one, we name this form. Then. Then we see our true snapping and magnetics. We're going to slide it to the right. Stopping apps. Our third vertical line from the right. And then since our tenth image is on double seventh image, we're going to simply gate in the seventh. Show each, and then we're going to stay down. So if you are offered a horizontal line from the bottom, and then again start drawing all ten smokers. And then manage all of your colony. Yes. Duplicating its ID swan, rename this 111. Okay, trades. Then taking our eighth image, duplicating it, showing it, and then moving it down. And repeating the same process all over again. And they've said in the beginning of this class, you can choose to add as little or as many goals as you'd like, depending on the nature of your project. If you want to add more than 90. So first, just keep repeating the same process. Of course, you can create a figure reference image. When designing your background. I need to delete nine posts at a damn sweet. It's not too overwhelming. The treaty it, once you've got the basic principles in mind that you can adapt my method your own way according to your own needs. I need you here for this lesson, read the rest of our process, and I'll see you in our last lesson for some final thoughts. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hello. Okay. Okay.
11. Final Thoughts: Congratulations on finishing this class. I hope you liked it and found it useful. Please remember to document your work via screenshots in your design on your preview app and then sharing it with the community by clicking on the projects and resources tab and then on Create Project, please feel free to reach out to me in the discussion study if you have any questions. This is a class that you can come back to if you want to create a shifting background for any of your future projects, friendly around with the concept and make it your own. Please use the hashtag, shifting background and tag me on Instagram. If you share a design survey, can see it and share it in my stories. Thank you so much for taking this course. I hope you liked it and I can't wait to see what you create.
Marianne Renard, @grande.tempete
