Transcripts
1. Intro: Are you tired of creating patterns that just
don't look quite right, that are unbalanced, and that don't
feel professional? I totally understand
the frustration, but don't worry, I'm
here to help. Hi there. I'm Maja Faber, I'm a surface pattern designer
and online teacher and I'm excited to welcome
you to this class all about making professional
patterns in Procreate. I know the struggle
of creating patterns that just don't seem
to come together. But I'm here to show you
how to make patterns that aren't only
visually appealing, but also flawless and
professionally made. This class is made
for you who are already familiar
with making patterns in Procreate and are looking to take your skills
to the next level. If you never have created a
pattern in Procreate before, I suggest that you have a look at one of my other classes, such as for example create an editable pattern in Procreate
with color variations, or three ways to make a half-drop pattern in Procreate before you watch this class. In this class, we will
explore the techniques and principles behind creating professional patterns
in Procreate. You will learn how to select the right tools and techniques, and then I will share
my personal tips and tricks to make
professional patterns. Of course, we will talk
about how to avoid getting those nasty white lines in your patterns that will make your pattern
repeat correctly. Before we dive into the class, I just wanted to
mention that if you want to dive deeper
into exploring pattern design in Procreate and how to grow your
signature design style, check out my membership
pattern rebels. You will join a community of like-minded artists who are passionate about pattern design. I created this membership
to help artists like you grow and
improve your skills. As a member, you
will get access to new pattern design
courses every month, feedback from me
and other members in the community, Q&A sessions, free downloads such as Procreate brushes
and color palettes, daily drawing prompts and more. I'm always adding
new courses and resources to keep you inspired
and on top of the game. If you're ready to
learn how to create more professional
patterns in Procreate, let's get started
with the class.
2. Your Project: In this class,
your project is to apply the techniques
and tools and tips and tricks that I show you
in class and use on a pattern that you already created or make a
brand new pattern. Share the pattern with the
class in the project and resources tab and
provide some feedback on how your pattern making
process has improved with the use of the tips and techniques shared in the class.
3. Canvas Size, Resolution and Color Mode: In this lesson, we
will talk about the very basics
of your patterns, the Canvas size,
resolution and color mode settings so
tap the plus sign, tap new Canvas and
here we will discuss the different settings
that I recommend using when creating professional
patterns in Procreate. When creating patterns,
it's important to use a large Canvas size
that will allow you to use the pattern for all
purposes in the future. Let's say that you only create patterns to share on
Instagram right now. But then a future
or potential client reaches out and want to
license that design. Or let's say that you decide to sell it on a print
on demand site, then it will be really
annoying to have a small camera size because that will probably force you
to redraw the pattern. My standard size that
I never go below is 3,000 pixels square. I usually create my patterns as squares but if you are
creating rectangles, just make sure that the
lowest pixel size that you use on either side
is 3,000 pixels. You should also make sure to set your resolution to 300 DPI, which is the standard size
for high-quality print work. A lower DPI is fine for example sharing
your artwork online, on your website or
on social media. But to use your
patterns for print, you need to have
at least 300 DPI. The next setting
that I wanted to show you is the color profile. You can choose the RGB or CMYK color mode depending on
the purpose of your pattern. If you are creating a pattern for clients that are supposed to print the pattern
with the CMYK printer, then choose a CMYK color mode from the start on that pattern. But if you create patterns
to share online and, or for example to sell on
print on demand sites, I will recommend to use RGB color mode when
creating your patterns. I create all my patterns
in RGB nowadays, not only those that
I only share online, but I've also found
that many clients and different printing
houses nowadays use digital printing
techniques which allow the file to be in
RGB color mode. The standard to use amongst the color modes
are sRGB for RGB, I usually go for the first
one here I found that, that one works good
for me and for CMYK, at least here in
Europe where I am, the standard color mode
is coated [inaudible] 39. There are two of those here. I usually go for the first one. By using these settings, you will ensure that
your patterns are high-quality and suitable
for a variety of uses.
4. Plan Your Pattern: In this lesson, we will
talk about the importance of planning your pattern
before we start creating it. Taking the time to
plan your pattern, including sketching
the entire design, can make your
process much faster, more efficient, and you will avoid those
frustrating moments of unbalanced patterns that you find out once you
try out the repeats. Then you might
need to go back in the process to make
the pattern look good. Spending time in the
idea and sketch phase of your pattern process will allow you to create more
professional patterns easier. It will make it more
likely to end up with a pattern that you're
happy with from the start, rather than needing to
go back and forth in your process and redo
it all over again. Before you begin creating
your pattern in Procreate, spend some time in the
planning and sketch phase. This will help you to
visualize the final design and ensure that it's a well-balanced and
professional pattern. I usually sketch out my whole pattern tile and try it out in the pattern tester
there on my website, which I will show you in a
lesson further on in class.
5. Resize and Move: In this lesson, we will talk
about how to resize and move your motifs within your
pattern in Procreate and what can happen if
you do this too much. It's important to note
that you can never scale up a motif without
losing resolution. Losing resolution means
that it will print blurry. If you scale up your motifs, you will get a blurry and
very unprofessional pattern. Make sure that you always
draw your motifs as large as you ever would
want them in your pattern. Because you can
always scale down, but you can never scale up. You can also move and
rotate your motifs. But there is, however, a limit to how much
you can move and rotate without
losing resolution. I've heard it being said
that you can't move, rotate and scale a pattern in Procreate without
losing any resolution. Which means that whenever you move motif or rotate
it just a little bit, you will lose resolution. That might be so, but if that actually
is true, the amount, the resolution that you lose
for every time you twist, turn scale and move
a motif is so small, so most of the time
you can see it. I've heard that
you should choose bicubic as the setting
in interpolation in the transform tool when you
move and rotate and scale your motifs to
make sure that you get as little loss of
resolution as possible. That might be true. I have never noticed
any difference, but I would recommend it, as I've heard from
the Procreate forum, that this is how it works. Important to mention,
as I said previously, is that there is a limit to
how much you can rotate, move, and scale your motifs. Or in fact, layers until
you see the blurriness, which means that your
pattern will in fact be lower solution.
Where is the limit? Well, I'm not completely sure. It only happened to me three times during the last two years. During this time, I've created more than
thousand patterns. Now when that happened, when I got a blurry result, when I moved and
rotated my motifs it was because I had done
that for a very long time. I will guess about
an hour or so. This is also a good
reason to why you want to plan your patterns that
you create in Procreate. As I mentioned in
the previous lesson. That you don't need to adjust
your pattern too much, which might make you
lose resolution. If you know how to
create patterns in Procreate and how to plan
your patterns in Procreates, then you won't get
a blurry result.
6. Pattern Preview Tool: In this lesson, we will discuss the lack of a pattern
preview tool in Procreate, unfortunately, and how
to work around it. Procreate don't have a built-in pattern
preview tool as you have in for example Photoshop nowadays and Adobe Illustrator. But a little trick that I
have figured out myself actually is to use the reference window as
a pattern preview tool. It's not a perfect
solution but it's the best as we get with what we have to work with at this time in this version of Procreate
that I'm using at the moment, and that is 5.3. To do this, what you
need to do is to tap the Actions
panel, tap Canvas, tap the reference window and when you get your
reference window here, you can choose three
different settings down here. You can import an image, face. I don't know what that
is maybe my face will show up then and then canvas. What we use is canvas over here and then we tap and drag in the lower right side here to increase the size of
the reference window. I want to increase
it so that I get as large canvas as
possible over here, but at the same
time that the edges will meet up over here. I can't go this high in size in the reference window because my edges of the
pattern won't show. As you can see somewhere
around here would work great. Then I re-scale my canvas so that I get the edges to line up. It doesn't need to be
perfectly but as close to perfect as possible
is good because then you can see how your
pattern changes. As I mentioned, it's a little
bit clunky and it's not a perfect solution but
it's a work-around that Procreate don't have a pattern preview
tool at this moment. What will happen then, I've already drawn this pattern, but I will show you
what happens when I move and rotate my motifs. If I would just select
the red star over here, and I close the shape, I tap the transform tool. When I rotate and move
the motif on my canvas, just remember that the
canvas is to the right. Sometimes I try to draw to the left in the reference
window and that just won't work so just remember your
canvas is to the right. Then when I move my
motifs and scale them, you can see the change in the reference
window to the left. This means that when you
create your pattern, you will see your pattern tile, how it will repeat to the left. For me it works best to have the reference
window to the left. You could also have
it to the right, but I think it's a little bit clunky because you have
all the patterns there. For me usually I put the
reference window to the left. It won't work to put it on
the top or on the bottom because it just doesn't
fit on those directions. This is a technique
that works only in the horizontal repeats of
your pattern and in my case, how I like to use
the reference window it's the pattern tile that is repeated to the left of
your original pattern tile. For me, this makes the process of creating
the repeat much smoother because I can see how my motifs actually
are repeating. If I only work with my original
pattern tile over here, it can be hard to understand. What will happen if I place this motif here because you can only see your pattern tile. But once you see how your pattern is repeated,
you can see that, well if I place this
star over here, it will be balanced with
this star that is over here. But if you only see your the original
tile it might be hard to understand how your
pattern is repeated. Although this isn't
a perfect solution, is the best workaround
available until a pattern preview tool
is added in Procreate, which I and probably
you are hoping for that Procreate will
add to us in the future.
7. How to Avoid White Lines: Let's talk about how to avoid these nasty white lines that
can appear in your pattern. We all probably have seen these white lines from time
to time in our patterns, but why do they appear when they print and
how do you avoid them? First of all, white lines can appear when you
accidentally nudge a pixel. Basically what that means
is that if you are creating your pattern and maybe you are using the tap
and drag technique, or maybe you're using the selections technique or some other technique
to create patterns, as I mentioned previously, if you have no idea what I'm talking about with these
different techniques, this class that you are
watching is more of an intermediate
class for those who already know how to create
patterns in Procreate. I suggest that you watch one of my other classes, for example, create an editable pattern in Procreate with color variations, or how to create a half-drop repeat pattern in Procreate before you
watch this class. When I mention these techniques, I am thinking that you know
what I'm talking about. You don't need to know exactly, but you need to know the basics
of creating a pattern in Procreate to understand what
I'm talking about here. Moving back to
what I was saying, if you accidentally
move a pixel, let's say that we are
using the tap and drag technique to
create a pattern. I have just flattened
my image here now to show you an
example, but usually, I have my patterns in
layers and it's divided in colors and there's a whole technique that I
use to create patterns. I teach this in my other classes here on Skillshare and also in my membership Pattern Rebels. Check that out if you don't
know what I'm talking about, just as I mentioned previously. But one reason that
white lines can occur is that you nudge a pixel. What that means is that you have placed your pattern correctly or your selection
if you're using the selection technique
to create your pattern, but then you
accidentally just tap, not that obvious that I did now, but you just accidentally tap somewhere
on-screen or tap with your hand and you
don't even know it and that will move
your selection, just a pixel which will create
those nasty white lines. That is one reason that can
bring you those white lines. Another reason the white lines might appear is that if you're using that snapping and magnetics tool under
the transform tool, and snapping and magnetics
is turned on over here, and you're just tapping and dragging either your
pattern or, for example, the selections when you're
creating a pattern with the selections that save
selections actions. Then if you don't zoom in, but you just trust these
lines and place your tile, you might end up not
snapping it right. Let me show you how
I do it to make sure that the snapping
works correctly, and that is that I drag
it up and it snaps. Usually, for me, it
snaps correctly, but then I zoom in really closely and I have my
drawing guides turned on. Let me just show you that. I have the drawing guides turned on, Edit Drawing Guides, 2D Grid, and Grid Size maximum. Then I tap done.
What happened there? Then I have my
selection over here in the center that I have pulled
up to the top left corner. When I place it, I make sure that it snaps
perfectly in the center. I zoom in to maximum. Then as you can see if
I accidentally tap, it will nudge your pixel, so I make sure that I place my square at the
exact right position. You can actually only know
that the snapping works good if you zoom in
to the maximum size, because if you don't zoom
in to the maximum size, the snapping might work still, but you might nudge a pixel. Then this seems
like it has worked, but then when you're
creating the pattern, you will get those
white lines anyway. These are two of the mistakes
that you might have made in your pattern that will make you end up with these
nasty white lines. There might also be other mistakes that you have made when creating the pattern, and the conclusion is that
if you get white lines, you have made a mistake
that you need to fix. The white lines
won't just appear. Somewhere somehow you
have nudged a pixel, which is really easy to do without even knowing
that you did it, or something is
placed uncorrectly. Will these white lines print? Yes, they will print actually. Turning off the Drawing Guide, zooming in on this nasty
white line over here. The white lines mean that your pattern aren't
repeated correctly. You need to fix the mistake and fix those white lines
before you print. Otherwise, your
pattern will be very unprofessional and
your customer or clients won't be happy when
they get their product and there's a white line showing up in the repeat over and over. How do you avoid getting
the white lines? The Number 1 rule is to be very detailed when you create
the actual repeat. It's very easy to make
mistakes and especially if you are a beginner at
creating patterns in Procreate. Be very thorough and mind
the details and take all of the steps slow to make sure that you don't get
these white lines. If you get the white lines, you need to move back
in the process to before the white
lines showed up. Usually, that is before you
create the actual repeat and when you have
only your motifs and they are not repeated. Another tip that I have when you create a pattern
in Procreate is to always use a background box which means the
background color, but don't use the
background color, use the background box when
you create your pattern tile. In some techniques to create
patterns in Procreate, you move your tiles by tapping and dragging
and dropping, and in some motifs like my favorite technique
at the moment, you use selections to twist your tiles around and
make your repeats. In either technique you use, make sure that you have
a background box in your pattern that fills
the entire canvas. When you move your
motifs around there, when you make the actual repeats you also select your
background box. I usually place it in a group. Again, I'm showing this in my other classes about making
patterns in Procreate. You have a background
box and then when you move your repeat, you will make sure that you have lower risk of creating
those white lines. My next step is that
when you create patterns with the
selections technique, which I'm showing
you in, for example, my class, three ways to create the half-drop
pattern in Procreate. You create squares, and with these squares, you will re-size them to half
of the size of your canvas. Just let me show you quickly how to resize the squares
to make sure that they are perfectly
aligned to the edge and that they are the
perfectly right size. You can, as I'm
actually showing you in some of my classes when you have the transform
tool, magnetics, and snapping turned on, you can tap and drag until it snaps in the center,
so 1800 pixels. This canvas is 3600 pixels. That is half of its canvas size. But if you accidentally
nudge a pixel here before you let go and
untap the transform tool, you might end up with
those white lines. Another tip that
I have is to use the blue nodes and change the dimension of
your squares this way. You do this by tapping
in one of the blue nodes and you write in half of
the size of your canvas. This canvas is 3600 pixels, but it can be 3000, it can be 4000 or whatever, and you just divide that by two. Make sure that you have your
chain symbol tapped in, and then you write in half
of the size of your canvas. That will perfectly
align a half size the box to the top left corner when you tap the
top left blue node. Then you just tap the
transform tool again, and then you can do the same
with all of your boxes. This will ensure you
that you will get the exact right size and that it will be placed in the exact right position on your canvas that
you want it to be. Another tip that I've
heard is that if you are using the snapping and magnetics technique
when you are changing the size of your
selection squares, if you're using that
pattern-making technique or when you're tapping and dragging your squares with your pattern, you should choose nearest
neighbor in the interpolation. I have never noticed
a difference here. This is just a tip that I've heard and it can make
a difference if you, for example, have a problem
with correct snapping. You can always try that out. For me, it doesn't really
matter which one of the interpolation
settings that I have, but nearest neighbor
is recommended, and I've also read this
in the Procreate folder. I just want to remind you again, if you have no idea what
I'm talking about with these different techniques
of creating patterns, have a look at my classes
on Skillshare, for example, create an editable pattern in
Procreate with calibrations or three ways to create the half-drop pattern
in Procreate, to learn these
different techniques. With those tips and tricks, I hope that you will
minimize your risk to create these nasty white
lines in your patterns.
8. Pattern Tester: My last tip is to use my
pattern tester on my website, it's completely free to see
how your patterns repeat. Using a pattern
tester can help you see how your patterns repeat, and then you can make any
necessary adjustments before finalizing your designs. It will speed up the process. It's really simple to
use and as I mentioned, you can use the pattern
tester free on my website. It's really simple when you have created your pattern
in Procreate. I have flattened my image you
can do this, for example, with copy all and then paste, and then you get a flattened
image of your pattern. Then I had to split view top corner of Procreate,
three little dots, split view and then I tap Safari where I have opened the pattern
tester on my website. You can find it on My Website, Resources, Pattern Tests there. I will also link to it in the
description of this video. When you have made a
pattern in Procreate, you can just tap and drag your image to
the pattern tester. I will just increase the size of that window
and here you can scale up and down to see
how your pattern repeats. You can see how it repeats in small-scale and in large scale. My pattern tester only works
with full drop patterns, but if you have created
half-drop patterns, let me show you how to do. This is a half-drop pattern. When you have your pattern tile, you paste it and
then you repeat it just as I'm showing
you in my class, three ways to create a half
drop pattern in Procreate. You will paste your
different ties as they would repeat in this half-drop pattern and then we swipe down
with three fingers, copy all, swipe down
with three fingers and paste and that will give
you a flattened image. I will just tap and
drag that to the top in my layers panel and then
I tap split view again, the pattern tester and here
I tap and drag and let go. As you can see, the pattern is perfectly repeated
because we have actually created a
full-drop pattern tile of the half-drop pattern. That is how we can use my pattern tester even with
full dropped patterns. Really simple, really
efficient and this will help you make more professional patterns
in Procreate, faster, more efficient, and will actually
save you a lot of frustration as it
will save time when seeing how your pattern
is repeated before you make adjustments to your pattern and finalize your design.
9. What's Next: I hope that you enjoyed this class and found
these tips useful. Before we wrap up this class, I want to invite you to join my membership pattern rebels. If you're looking to take your
pattern decided skills to the next level and learn more about creating
patterns in Procreate. This is the perfect
place for you. You will have access to in-depth
pattern design courses, personal feedback from me, free downloads such as Procreate brushes
and color palettes, Q&A sessions, daily
drawing prompts, and a supportive community
of like-minded artist. Checkout, patternrebels.com
to read more and join. That's all for this class. I hope you that found
it useful and helpful, if you did hit the
Follow button by my name to keep up with
my future classes. You can also visit my
profile page here on Skillshare to access all of my classes
available to watch. If you have any
questions or comments, please don't hesitate to post them in the discussion
section here in class and feel free to leave a review to let me know if
you enjoyed this class. Your feedback is
always appreciated. Thanks again for taking
this class and I look forward to connecting
with you in the future, either here on Skillshare or within the Pattern
Rebels Community.
Maja Faber, Surface Pattern Designer
