From Procreate to Pattern

1. Welcome to the Class!: You are an avid procreate user or you'd love to be one, but you don't really have the hang of it right now. Well, in my class from procreate pattern is just right for you. In this class, we built a seamless pattern together. Even if you have no experience using Procreate art drawing digitally. If we haven't met yet. Hi, my name is Maria. I'm an artist and graphic designer and teacher. The first time I got in touch with digital products was actually in 2008 when I first launched my website, which design resort.com. And there's a fairly large design our classes where I help artists, illustrators, and designers to build their own business. But just to have fun with other like-minded people. Personally, I love to create digital products for recurring revenue. One of my favorite products are definitely seamless patterns because you can do so much with them no matter if you create a geographic sets, was patterns for other designers, papers for crafters, or if you use this seamless patterns to upload them to print on demand sites to help them create fabric of physical products for you, there are so many ways you can use seamless patterns. In this class, you'll learn how to create the right document and procreate how to clip out to your Canva, arrange them, and finally move the patterns pieces in a way that makes it seamless. At the end of the class, you do not only have a new hobby, credit patterns, but also a skill you can create your own business with me now. 2. Are Patterns a great digital Product for Sale?: Let's quickly talk about which programs you basically could use for pattern creation. In this class, we're going to use Procreate, but this is of course not the only program you can use to create patterns. There are several others which are as good or yeah, in some cases, even better to use for pattern creation. There is, of course, on the one hand Adobe Photoshop. Then there is Adobe Illustrator, and then there is Affinity Designer. And maybe also, maybe there's also of course, Procreate. So what they have in common, what they have not in common if that some are vector-based and some pixel-based. So if you work in Procreate or in Photoshop, these are pixel-based programs. Pixel-based means that if you cannot scale up your images, if you do, they get blurry. And on the other hand, there are vector-based programs just like Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Designer, which are vector programs. And they create or let you create elements which can be scaled up to whatever size you want because they are vectors. So you need to decide upfront what you are going to produce. Those is asked here. It doesn't really matter which one you choose. It just that you need to know when you create images. When you create raster images are pixel images, you really cannot scale them up. So when we now start creating our Canvas or to that and to sell and buy two cells and pixel. And that is a good size to create your canvas, you could increase in six sound by 6M to really not two variables the size anymore, I was also a good idea. But then you need PNG files which are a colony big. So this is why I use in this class to cells and buy to sell. But you can check the size of your PNG files. You can draw yourself or purchase somewhere and then create your own patterns from that. So make sure you check that upfront because it's important to know what program you use, what you want to use. And once you go for. So another word here, when you work with Adobe, no matter if you work with Photoshop or Illustrator, both have a problem. A problem in quotation marks, because they are subscription-based. So you can have a subscription for Photoshop only. Then you pay for right now for something about 10:12, $15, something like that. And when you want to have illustrator, you need to pay much more. I say much more because it depends on the license you purchase. And then you pay monthly. If you want the other hand purchase. Affinity Designer, which is also a vector program, or your poach it per chase, appropriate. You don't need to very about that because bows non-subscription base. So you pay a onetime fee, which is not that high, and then you can basically use it forever. So I guess when you are just starting out, you might prefer to use just Procreate or Affinity Designer. And for this class, we definitely use procreate. 3. Which Programs can you use to create Patterns?: Let's talk about the question, if patterns are a great digital product. I believe, yes, they are. Why? Because you can do so many different things with patterns. Actually. You can create a pattern or a seamless pattern as we create in this class for creating fabric, e.g. so why do we do in this class is completely ready at the end to upload e.g. to Spoonflower and to have them create fabric for you, your very own printed fabric. Isn't that cool? It's cool, right? So you could definitely do that and create tons of different patterns. Was different color variations. And upload them to spoon flour and have them create fabric for you. Let's complete legitimate business model as you could go for that and go with it actually. But you can also use these patterns here, e.g. for selling digital products. It's not just a pattern you have, but you can create more of that. And all that fit together like a collection, e.g. collection of Bogle patterns as we have here. And you can sell this package on sites like Creative Market, Etsy, design crafts, design bundles. There are so many and sell them as a bundle. So you can go for that and sell your patterns as a digital product. That's also totally nice and the great business model, because people can go ahead and use your pattern then e.g. to create prep again. Or you can give them our cell, these S packages, e.g. for scrap bookers for crafts. Because they can also use these patterns as backgrounds and print them at home. And use them for crafting, not just for scrapbooking, but for many other crafts as well. You see, all in all, there is a really good reason to create patterns as a digital product and to learn how to create seamless patterns is nearly it's super necessary because you need to have, you need to be able to let people put them together or use them for POD sites, e.g. what I said was Spoonflower, That's one thing. You can also upload your patterns to size like Society six red bubble, or to prettify or print full and connect with your Etsy shop to help them create products for your one-year customer buys them. So you see there are many possibilities just for this one skill you can learn here in this class. 4. Set up your Canvas: Let's get started by creating our document. And for that, I have opened Procreate. And now I click here on top right on the plus. And I have a lot of templates ready here. Most probably you don't. So if not, go here to the top right on this plus on the black ground. And then you can set whatever you want here. So let me start on top. So first of all, I give the entire singer named beakers. I know I needed more often because I create patterns more often, so I just name it pattern. And I want this thing into cells and Th2 cells. And because I think that's enough and make sure you set that to pixel. You don't need to have inches, centimeters, millimeters, whatever. If you have pixel, you have a feeling how big it is. So if you prefer inches, of course you can do. I said it now to choose cells and by 2000. And then what is also important is you need to keep in mind that you set your DPI at least 2300. I like to set it to 300. That's enough. That's not. It gets sharp and you have enough layers here most probably. This size here depends on the size of your iPad, the age of your iPad. So it might be different for you. It might be lower or higher is it depends. It also depends on the size of the documents. So make sure you have something here you can work with. At least you should have, let's say ten layers, so that's fine. Or maybe '20s better because we need some layers when we start adding our elements here. So make sure you have a good amount here. And if not, then make these size here smaller. So such just howls and pixel there. It doesn't really matter because it's, it gets repeated. So it doesn't matter if it's low or high, but I like to work in this high. So for me that works fine. Once you have that go to Color profile. And this is also something we need to talk about it, RGB color, and you have CMYK color. Usually, I would say go with CMYK because patterns are usually there for printing. We want to create clothes and we want to create maybe wallpaper or something like this. So you would go with CMYK. But if your work e.g. for Spoonflower, they want you to use RGB. Rgb is here, RGB display. The first one is just fine. And you just ignore the CMYK thing for in this case. And I prefer that as well because there are the colors that are much brighter. They're more colors. I like the RGB color profile much better. So maybe go with me. So click Display P3, and that's it. You can ignore these two things. And just make sure your dimensions are right. And the color profiles. Once you've done that, click Create on top right, and you have created your document. And even better you have now a template you can always pull up again. 5. Adding Clipart to the Canvas: To create a pattern, we now need clip art in any kind, in any form, we need some clip art. So we need elements here. There are several ways you can get clipper. So first of course, you can draw them. You can draw them here in Procreate. Let's check what I have. So maybe here is one pattern and I have several. Here. There are several clip arts in the entire, in the groups here. So each of them is a clipboard. These we have created in Affinity Designer withdrawn, hand-drawn these, and exported them as a PNG file. It's important to have a PNG file because you need a transparent background to work with that. A JPG background usually has a white background, so that is not what is working for this. So you definitely need a PNG file or you need a vector file, which is also possible. In this case, you do not really need a vector file because this is a pixel based program procreate. So it would be overboard if you have a vector file here, it wouldn't make any sense. Actually. The second thing, whether you have hand-drawn them here in Procreate or your hand-drawn affinity, you need to export them and save them in a folder. And then you need to import them into procreate in any way to create your pattern. You can also, if you just don't want to draw, you can also purchase PNG files nearly at any website which offers files or which offers digital files for design, something like that. She goes to design cars or Creative Market or somewhere else. So it's hungry jay pack or design bundles. There are tons of websites. You can purchase heads with PNG files. So before we start no, to import them, let me quickly make sure our background gets a color for that. I first prepare my documents. So first of all, obviously there's something on that document, so let me delete that. Maybe I have clicked somewhere. I cleared it up. So what you need now is a background and they usually create in Procreate layer. So make sure you are on that layer. And once you are, you can go to your color palettes. I use my dishes owners or color palette now, you can of course, use whatever you want or you can go here to disk and pick a color from the air. It doesn't really matter. The main point is that you have a color of your choice or it's some which fit together. So I click into that and then the color appears here on top right. And now I just keep that color. Click with my Apple Pencil and you see there is something coming up here and then the entire canvas filled with a color. That is what I had to work on first, second thing, before we forget, we need to work here. We have that Snipping Tool. Click here and make sure that you have snapping and magnetics. This will be important later on, right now, it's not that important, but we have that unkeyed than halfway. Keep it in mind. So now I go here to that setting tool. Click on Add, and then I click Insert a file. I have saved my PNG files in the iCloud Drive. You can also use Dropbox or whatever you have, doesn't matter. And then you can navigate to your folder. You can go basically here and navigate the fall as you need. I have mine here and a favorite so I can quickly access them. You can also drag that folder under Favorites so you can easily go in. And now I just decide whatever element I want here, I have a few. And this totally up to you what you prefer now I just pick some which are not that common to have. I have some use over and over again. Usually I wouldn't recommend to make that bigger just because it's a pixel-based image. So if you make it bigger, it might get blurry. In this case, I can a little bit, but not much, because they are saved in a very high-quality. And I could do that. So next thing, I'm going to insert another file. You see it always jumps back to whatever folder. So it's quicker if I can just go in there. So let's see, Let's use that one. It looks better anyway, if you don't have that big elements here. So that's what I prefer. And again, I usually go for three, maybe not that many. Why? Because it gets complicated later on them. So I think that's just fine with three if you want to get started. Okay. Now we have our document and we have the elements we need. And now we can go from there and start setting up our pattern. 6. Let's create the Pattern: So now we need to put our pattern together. And for that purpose we need to duplicate the several elements we have here. Before we do, let me quickly talk about the other tools we have here is a brush one. We don't need that right now, but it's better to keep that in mind in case you want to include e.g. this flower here in the pattern. You could definitely do that on its own layer just by tapping here and clicking in the, in the pattern and having that on its own layer. But for you, it might look different. I have some the brushes which are already here of course. And then I have bought some and have imported them. They are here. And this is why it might look different for you because you might have bought other brushes here. Then we might need the smudge tool right now we don't, but in case you know it better, I explain it quickly. So if you e.g. have one of the brushes here, let's say you have such a brush here and you want the same one here. You just keep that Apple pencil press and you see it's getting these same one as before. So here you go. So you make sure that if you smashed from left, you draw something with a brush and you smash with it, then you have the same, yeah, The same brush. You can do that. Same happens here to the razors. So you can definitely use those. Now you see it's here on the Gale pen. But if I go back here and then click on that and keep the DOM, I am now jumping to the other one which is now the same API Alice here. It's very handy. You might appreciate it later on when you need that. But for now we're mostly working here with our layers and of course with the colors. So one thing I want to show you quickly, you can recolor these elements, these flat elements can be easily recolored. So I just click here and pick whatever color I want here. Let's say I would want such blue. I could just go here and fill this thing and now it's blue. You can do that was flat elements. You cannot do that with more complicated elements and we would need to recolor. It was two fingers. Now, I can go back and have my color back here. So now what you need to do is you need to duplicate this single elements as often as you want the entire document. The main point now is that you do not go over the edges. What I mean with that is you don't place it, something like that because it then cuts off and your pattern won't get seamless. But you can just turn it around here a little bit. Or you can click here on flip vertically or flip horizontally, whatever you want. Just don't go over the edges. So it's important. Now we're keep filling the entire document to our liking. You see a swipe to the left click Duplicate. Then I work with that one. Go close to the edge because I don't want to have that much space later, but never over the edge. That's important. If you don't see the bottom here, you just make it a bit smaller. And you can better fill here the bottom. Make sure you don't stretch it and make it too big because it might get blurry zone. So make sure you don't do that. You can, of course, use more elements, of course, but it gets a bit more complicated later on when you go ahead and merge it altogether. So I stick to three for now. But you can easily add more. Just be aware, it gets more complicated than. But in case, once you're used to the process, Let's not that hard. I will leave for now. It's okay. I need to fill a bit more here, but let's balance so far, but maybe I can fill everything with a star. So let's go for it right now. But we might switch back to the other elements in a bit. Okay? I think it looks okay. Now, we might change that later on, but for now, it's fine. And now I'm going to merge all the stars on one layer, one layer. So I'll just pinch that, all those. Okay, let's do it again. How those 21 layer, you see, now they are all on one. I do the same with this one, and the same with this one. Sits. Now, I made a mistake. Okay? Do that again. Now I have three layers. Can see now it worked just fine. And now I need to group those. And for that, I have marked the first one. And then I swipe to the right and have it altogether. And now they are all Mart and I just say group. And they are now in one group. And I can close that one of course. And now I duplicate that four times, four more times. So I have five groups here because I want that one as my safety group. So I turn it off, swipe it to the left and say lock. So nothing can happen to that group anymore. And now we can work with. So now I go to the top and turn all the others off and move the layers to their place. Now, what is really super important is that you have the snapping turned on and then you see now the yellow lines here. When I go bid, you really need to see books. Now I just see the vertical one and, but I also need to see the horizontal one. So I might need to go a bit four and back. Now I see both. Once I have, I can release and make it and said it because this makes the entire sink seamless. So let me go to the next one, turn that on. And again, I move it to the top right. And you see again the yellow lines are there. And then I can release it. And the next one to the bottom right now, I know it's sometimes a little bit tricky with these yellow things, but it's so super important, otherwise, your pattern won't get seamless. So it's well-worth to play around a bit and see where they are. So now you see it's yellow and I can release it the wrong layer. Okay, So at this point, we have a seamless pattern. And now we need to test it. 7. Make it Seamless: Basically, you are done at this point because this is your seamless pattern and you could already use it. But we want to test it. And to do so, we need to go to our Layers palette and open all these groups. So 1234, it's a little bit tricky to grab all the images which belong together. But don't worry, we just go through each group and do so. So I marked the first one, and now I'm going to mark the one from the second group. And as long as I can do for nothing should happen. 34. And then I say group here on top right. And now all of them are in one group. And now I click here on this line and say flatten. Now whatever was there is flat. And now I do the same with the second one. So I mark the first, second swipe to the right, 3.4. And again, I put them in one group. And then I click on this thing here, unclick flat. And now they are under the other one. And the same again, 1234. And click group. Make sure you start on the top. Then it goes to the top here. If you start with the bottom one, it will go to the bottom. So maybe you keep that in mind. Okay, and we can merge Platon that as well. So now I can delete these empty groups, three. And I have my group done now. I'm going to duplicate that one again four more times, 1234. And again, if we mess things up, we can go back to the course. I'm going to lock the bottom one. And now I turn the other three off and start with the top one. And click again here on this. And now I make it smaller again until it snaps. So once it does, I can release. And now I go on with each of these groups. You don't see it right now. Just because of the layer I've picked out of the group, I haven't turned it on its own now, again, transformation tool. And again, wait for the snapping. Now bottom left. And it magically fills, I think. Okay, let's check it. But you see, it just looks fine and it's a seamless pattern. And at this point we're done. 8. Your Project: Now let's get to your project. Of course, I want you to try that out because it's important to practice that again and again. Because as you might imagine, I haven't done the first time and it was right the first time. So I have practiced that quite a few times to make it look good. So I want you to create a document into cells by two cells or smaller. Then I want you to use PNG files, import them into your document, place them somewhere, and then make it seamless. And at the end, please also test your pattern, which I believe is important as well. And once you have your pattern ready, It would be great if you can post it. If you have any questions, problems, concerns, suggestions, please feel free to contact me or just post in the common section and I'll be there in no time to help. I hope you enjoyed this class. We move on with the next one, but that basically is digital product. If you create a few more, you have an entire collection ready, which you can sell.