Symmetry Masterclass: Unlock The Potential of Symmetry in Procreate

1. Introduction: One to create iPad illustrations in half the time. One-fourth, the time. When eight, the time. Procreate symmetry is your new best friend. I'm a freelance lettering artist and illustrator with a background in fashion and a top teacher on Skillshare. This is a class on symmetry in Procreate. It's one of my favorite features on the app. It is so useful you guys. It's not only super fun to use and watch an action, but it also helps you cut down on the time you take to create your masterpiece is by creating real-time replicas of every stroke you make on the goal. As a bonus, symmetry makes your process videos look real exciting, which then becomes fabulous content via social media. In this class, I'll take you through how you can access this symmetric features within Procreate. Show you how assisted drawing works and demonstrate in detail what happens with each of the symmetry options in the app. I'll also show you lots of examples of artwork created using these different types of symmetry. So you're left with lots and lots of ideas and inspiration to take Procreate symmetry on a spin. I also take you through how I create two full symmetric illustrations from start to finish. So you're all set to create your very own symmetrical project pieces for this class, you will need the Procreate app and iPad that supports it, and a stylus like the Apple pencil to follow along with me in this class. Well, it is a beginner friendly class, is also perfect for Procreate artists of any skill level to discover features and techniques you've never tried before. What this class is not as a step-by-step beginner's guide to every feature in Procreate. Which means a basic understanding of how to get around and use the app is beneficial. So if you're ready to take your Procreate game to the next level, I'll see you in class. 2. Getting Started: Welcome to the class. I'm so excited to have you here. You're going to have so much, well, let's dive right in with some very basics of using Procreate symmetry and how to access the symmetry tools within the app. So first of all, to get started, we need a new canvas. Of course. Right now, I'm just going with this screen size option to walk you through some of the symmetry tools available to us on Procreate. First of all, where are these symmetry settings? The symmetry stuff in Procreate live here under this wrench icon. So let's tap on it. Then you'll find a couple of different tabs. Go to the Canvas tab. And under the Canvas tab, you will find this toggle called Drawing Guide. Turn that on, and this 2D grid shows up, which is what comes by default when you turn on the Drawing Guide in Procreate. But this is not what we want. Once you've done this drawing guide on, if you noticed, this edit drawing guide option also shows up. Tap on that. And you get all these options. There's 2D grid, which is what is currently active. There's isometric perspective and symmetry. Now we're not going to talk about 2D grid isometric perspective because this class is the symmetry glass. So let's tap symmetric. Now we have a couple of different options within symmetry, which are vertical, horizontal, Quadrant, and Radial. There's also a rotational symmetry that you can turn on and off. Assisted drawing that you can turn on and off. Now we'll be looking at each of these options in detail in the coming lessons. But I just wanted to quickly show you that these are what's available to us. Now, whichever of these options you choose, e.g. now it's vertical. This here is your symmetry axis. This is the axis about which your artwork is going to be symmetric. And this axis has a center point. And it has a handle to adjust the angle. So if you don't want the symmetry axis to be in the center of the canvas. You can move it around like this by dragging this point to wherever you want it to be. And similarly, you can also move this handle around to whatever angle you want your symmetry axis to be at. This applies to whichever type of symmetry you choose. It doesn't matter. You can always move this point around and you can tilt the line itself. This can come in handy if you want to create an illustration that is symmetric, but not symmetric about the exact center of the canvas. You might instead want it slightly off center and slightly tilted. And you can do this. Now you're experimenting with all of this. And if you realize that you do in fact prefer to keep it in the center of the canvas. You can use two fingers to tap and it will undo. So two fingers to undo, and three fingers to redo a standard throughout procreate. And that applies even heal when you're setting up your drawing guides. So if you tap Undo again, it comes back to its original position right in the center of the canvas. There are also these other options like opacity of the guide itself. You can change the opacity, you can change the thickness, and you can change the color appeal. Depending on the color of your Canvas. You can pick something that works for you. Once you're happy with all the settings, you can just tap on done. And you'll have your symmetry settings showing up in your Canvas. In the next lesson, we'll look at assisted join in detail and see how it massively helps us cut down our drying time. 3. Assisted Drawing: We saw a glimpse of the word Assisted Drawing come up in the previous lesson. Now we're going to take a deep dive. So what is assisted drawing in the context of Procreate symmetry? Assisted join or drawing assist is a feature that when used along with the symmetry drawing guides, assist you in creating a symmetric illustration by reproducing what you draw on one section of this symmetric Canvas in real time, on the remaining symmetric sections. Let me demonstrate what I mean. So you can see the magic of drawing assist in action. I have a square canvas open here. Now first, there are two ways to access the drawing assist feature. The first one, you've already seen this one because it is right within this imagery settings. So once again, drawing guide, edit, drawing guide, symmetry. Let's say we stick to vertical symmetry. And like we saw before, there is this assisted drawing option here. We can turn this off or on. So this is our first way to get to Assisted Drawing. Now since we turned it on over here, notice that if we open up our layers panel, this layer has the word assisted below it. That means that this layer has assisted drawing is turned on. Now if I create a new layer, it will not by default have Drawing Assist turned on, even if it's turned on in this symmetry settings, you have to do it for each layer. Which brings me to the second way to access Drawing Assist, which is through the last panel itself. Just tap on your specific lab. You'll find this option called Drawing Assist. Tap on it right away, the word assisted shows up here, and that means drawing assist is now turned on for this lab. And you can also turn it off the same way if you need to. Right now, we don't need this lab. So I'm just going to swipe left and tap Delete. We'll work on this layer for now. We're Drawing Assist has already been taught on. So now let's see what it does. This is my symmetry axis. Whatever I draw on one side of the axis gets replicated on the other side. So essentially drawing assist is what makes this symmetric tools so efficient. Because I just do once and automatically and simultaneously Procreate creates the exact same thing for me on the other side. And it doesn't have to be on any specific side that you draw. You can be drawing on this side instead. It'll get replicated in the exact same place, but on the opposite side. It's a mirror image of whatever you draw on this side. Good. Now, I'm going to create a simple symmetric illustration so you can get a better, more practical sense of the drawing assist features in action. What it can and cannot do, and how best to take advantage of it. Alright, so first off, I want to draw some guides. I'm going to draw an archway with some florals inside of it. So let's create some vertical guides. Here's a tip. If you hold before releasing the Apple pencil from the screen at the end of a stroke, just like this, you can get a nice straight line and you can drag it around to position the line in whatever angle you want to as well. And if you want to get a perfectly vertical line, you tap with one finger on the screen. See now your line is constrained to the vertical and then to some other specific angles, including the horizontal. Now I want a perfectly vertical line, so I'm just going to leave it here. And then I also want to do a horizontal line to indicate where my arch is going to start curving trunk. So it's going to start from somewhere here. Again, I want a perfectly horizontal line, so I'm going to hold the stroke and tap, and that gives me a perfectly horizontal line. Now, I'm going to use this layer as a guide to create the sketch for my arch. So I'll just reduce the opacity of this layer so that it's not in my face. And open a new layer right above it. Also, don't forget to turn on Drawing Assist. And scattered away. Here is, well, if I just hold the stroke, I'll get a nice smooth curve and I can adjust the position before releasing the stroke. And then the horizontal line. Again. Tap with one finger to get it nice and perfect and release. Now I'm going to turn my guide layer off. And I want to move this archway to the center of my canvas. For that, we'll tap on this arrow here, the transformation tool. And we can move this around. Now, if you go to this snapping option over here and make sure that both snapping and magnetics are turned on. Then it becomes a lot easier to find the exact center of the canvas. You see this orange line that shows up. This indicates the center of the canvas. This is now the vertical center, and this is the horizontal center of the canvas. Now we need to place this so that our archways maps to both the vertical and horizontal center lines. Yep. So that's perfectly aligned to both and we can release this. Now I know for sure that this artery is in the middle of this canvas. All right, so I'll open up a new layer for the florals. Again, drawing assist. And I'll put down some very simple flowers. We can also draw some leaves here. Now if you draw this guide lines will crossover, which is fine if that's what you want. I think I don't want it to cross over right now. And maybe another flower here and some more leaves. And finally some little fillers. I love my fillers. Maybe one more leaf here. Now, just like Drawing Assist works when you draw with a brush tool, it works in the exact same way with the eraser tool as well. So now if I want to erase this little bit here to have the leaf over the stem, I'll just do it on one side. And the same thing happens on the other side as well. I'll just finish this off with a few more filler buds here in there. Now, on one side, I want to draw a sun and on the other a moon. Of course the sun and the moon and not going to look the same, they have to look different to be identifiable as the sun and the moon. But I want them to be symmetrically placed in the artery. So I'll make a new layer and I'll turn on drawing assist. And I'm going to draw some circles here as guides. So just draw a rough ellipse like this. And then press and hold to get a perfectly smooth ellipse and to get it perfect, so good. Tap on the screen with one finger. You can also adjust the size of the circle and its angle by dragging this around before reducing. Maybe somewhere around here, it looks good to me. Now we discussed that both the pen tool and the eraser tool work effectively withdrawing a substrate. But the transformation tools do not work the same way with drawing assist. So if you want to change the size, position, or angle or distorted, it does not get replicated. So if I tap on my transformation arrow, since both these are in the same layer, both get selected. And when I drag, both of them move together, but not symmetrically about the center. If you want to move just one of the circles, you typically just select it like that transformation arrow and then move it. But when you move it, only this one moves. The other one does not move. Same with resizing, distorting all of that. So transformations do not get automatically replicated on both sides. This is something to keep in mind about drawing assist. Now if you do want to change them both, the best way to do it, according to me, is select both, reduce or increase the size, and then snap it back to the middle so that it's still symmetrically positioned. Alright, so let's continue. Since these circles are just guides and reduce the opacity of this layer. And then I can either open a new layer without drawing assist. Or I can go back to this layer itself, the sketch layer, and just turn off the Drawing Assist. That does not mean that everything I drew before is going to disappear. No, it just means that from the next stroke onwards, it's not going to be replicated on both sides. So let's turn this off and we can draw a moon here. Notice it's not getting replicated on the other side because drawing assist is turned off. Then the sun over here. I'll just add some rays here on the sun and some stars next to the moon. Then I'm going to turn off the guide layer. And we have our sketch. I'll just pinch these two lists together to merge them into a single layer. I'll reduce the opacity of this layer and change it to multiply mode. So I can see it more clearly going forward. Underneath that, I'll open up new layers where the final illustration will be drawn. First, I'll pick a background color and just drop it in to fill the whole canvas. And on a new layer, this is the layer I'm going to draw the archway in. So I'll turn drawing assist on. And go for the outlines. And I'll fill it in with this color. Then I want to fill orange in just one side of this. So I'll open up a new layer to a clipping mask. Now, a clipping mask clips your active lead to the layer underneath it. And it's so super handy. If you want to learn about how I use clipping masks in more detail, you should definitely check out my Procreate floral illustration class. Okay, So in this new clip, clip, I draw a vertical line down the center like that. Close the shape and drop color. Now in a new layer with drawing assist on, I'll start with the flowers in yellow, first the outlines, and then fill them. The good thing is you can draw on whichever side you're comfortable with. You can do one petal here and another hill. And it's all the same in the end. Now another new layer underneath the flower layer, turn drawing assist on and draw the stems. And the outlines of leaves. And drop color. Next are the little stems of the buds. And then on a new layer, the buds themselves. I tried to dedicate a new layer for each new color I use so that my illustration is optimized for future edits. And now a new layer clipped over the archway for the Sun and Moon. And I think I'll change the star shapes to these sparkles. I find that these sparkles look best when the lines coincide perfectly to the vertical and horizontal. So I make it a point to tap with one finger at the end of each stroke to get nicely vertical or horizontal lines. And then just connect them like that to get the diamond shape. I like drawing them separately instead of just duplicating the same one. Because this way, each one looks slightly different from the rest, which I can add some nice personality to the piece. Now, I want to add a darker green to one-half of each leaf. But I'm not going to turn drawing assist on because I don't really want this to be symmetric. So I'll just draw a darker section over this on this side. Now, if Drawing Assist was turned on, this would also have been duck. But I want this to be the darker side heel. I want each one to be colored opposite to the other side. So I do them each individually without taking any help from Drawing Assist. So you can decide where you want to use it and where you don't want to use it. So it's symmetric, but not exactly, Which is how I personally like to do it. Now, a darker yellow for all the middle petals. This time, I want it to be replicated on both sides. So I do it with Drawing Assist turned on. And now we can turn off the sketch layer, turn off the drawing guide as well. And that's it. We were able to create a nice and symmetric illustration in very little time thanks to the magic of drawing assist. Now before we move on, I want to quickly summarize the most important takeaways from our exploration of drawing assist in this lesson. Firstly, you can access the drawing assist feature either from the symmetry settings or from the layer options in the layers panel. Each individual layer has its own drawing assist toggle. While drawing assist is turned on, every stroke made by the Brush tool and the eraser tool will get replicated on others symmetric sections. However, the transformation functions do not get replicated. And finally, you can toggle Drawing Assist on or off according to your requirements without affecting the strokes you previously made. In the next lesson, we'll take a closer look at vertical symmetry, which probably is the most widely used type of symmetry in Procreate. 4. Vertical Symmetry: Now we're going to take a more detailed look at the different symmetry options available to us and appropriate. Starting with vertical symmetric. You've already seen vertical symmetry in action in the previous lesson. But let's take a quick walk through so you can appreciate how it compares to the desk. So again, drawing guide, edit, drawing guide, symmetry, and vertical symmetry. As you know, with vertical symmetry, everything on the right side of the symmetry axis gets mirrored onto the left side and vice versa. Right? We'll keep rotational symmetry turned off for now and let assisted drawing stay on. And done. Now in a new layer with Drawing Assist turned on. I'll start drawing a simple little motif here on the right side, while it's simultaneously gets replicated on the left side. So this is vertical symmetry for us. Pretty straightforward at this point, isn't it? And yet, vertical symmetry, given all its simplicity, might be the most widely used type of symmetry among procreate artists. How about we take a look at some applications of vertical symmetry in creating different types of artwork. Vertical symmetry is great for drawing faces, whether they're of humans or even animals. And by the way, I'm not saying any of these things need to be perfectly symmetric. You can, by all means Joel faces and pretty much everything else I'm about to show you. Without using symmetry. It's just an option out there that procreate offers if you're striving to achieve symmetry. Alright? Vertical symmetry is also helpful with drawing the human body either as a whole or just body parts, or even to draw multiple similar figures in one canvas. Speaking of body parts, It's also great to draw clothing that is symmetric on either side. Another very popular application of vertical symmetry is to illustrate insects, bugs, and butterflies, and any kind of wings in general. I also use vertical symmetry when I have to draw a perfectly symmetric objects like mugs or light bulbs, flower visas and other vessels. I wear an umbrellas as some other types of objects that can benefit from vertical symmetry. You can also of course use vertical symmetry to create symmetric floral illustrations like this. This one we just created in the previous lesson. Another way I love using this is to create symmetric embellishments around the main subject using Florida and other related motifs, or even a symmetric frame. And being a lettering artist, my favorite case of this is when the main subject is lettering itself. Symmetric embellishments just bring an entire sense of balance to lettering compositions that may otherwise not be very balanced. And they don't have to be 100% symmetric. You can create some asymmetric elements or erase out certain parts to fit snugly around your lettering. I also use vertical symmetric a ton to create guide sketches for my artwork. They're especially useful for drawing archways like these. Hard shapes and even banners in lettering compositions. Is that enough ideas to get you started? Or what? Vertical symmetry, as you can see, is exceptionally versatile and extremely handy on well-being, super simple to use and understand. In the next lesson, we'll talk a little bit about its closest sibling, horizontal symmetric. 5. Horizontal Symmetry: Now the next type of symmetry we have is horizontal symmetry. So again, we'll tap on Edit Drawing Guide and we'll select Horizontal symmetric. So everything on the top of the canvas gets mirrored onto the bottom of the canvas and vice-versa. Now on a new layer, turn on drawing assist. And we'll draw a similar little floral motif, just like we did with vertical symmetric. As expected, every stroke gets symmetrically replicated on the go across the horizontal axis. So this is what horizontal symmetry does. Again, pretty straightforward and very similar to how vertical symmetry works. Now let's look at some examples of horizontal symmetry in use. Drawing fish is one of the most commonly seen uses of horizontal symmetric. E.g. in this piece, I created every fish separately using horizontal symmetry and then put them together to create this pattern. Another way you can take advantage of horizontal symmetry is while creating what escapes or any kind of artwork where reflections in water might be involved. You can also create decorative illustrations like this, either with floral motifs, geometric motifs, or any other subjects of your choice. I'll be honest with you, I couldn't really find a lot of examples of horizontal symmetry in use, which made me realize that I also don't use a lot of horizontal symmetry in my pieces. I'll be thinking, I'm guessing. It's just something that doesn't occur a lot in nature. And generally around us we don't see a lot of things that are horizontal asymmetrical around us, which probably somehow affects the artist will collectively, I don't know. But it could be a sign for you to take it up as a challenge and see how many unique horizontally symmetric pieces you can create. Just a thought. In the next lesson, we move on to quadrant symmetry. 6. Quadrant Symmetry: Let's look into the third type of symmetry that procreate offers quadrant symmetry. Once again, we'll go back to the symmetry settings. And we will do quadrant symmetry, which means anything on one quadrant gets replicated onto all four quadrants. Let's see this in action now. Turn on drawing assist. And then we'll draw a little floral motif. Again. You can draw on whichever quadrant you're comfortable drawing on. And that's it. So with quadrant symmetry, your motif gets mirrored about both the horizontal and vertical axes. And you end up with four symmetric motifs like this. And as you can imagine, this can be useful to create a wide variety of artwork. Shall we take a look at some examples? Firstly, floral illustrations like these, which are just a little bit more intricate than the one we just created with a single motif. Not only can you create symmetric pieces that are pleasing to the eye, but you only need to think about the composition in a small section of the Canvas. The rest of it just happens before your eyes, which is both super cool and super efficient. Here's another example with some pretty, pretty fall elements. Quadrant symmetry is also great for doing pieces like this, where there is two of a symmetric object, in this case a butterfly. Scuff prints have gained a lot of popularity in the recent years in the fashion industry. And quadrant symmetry in procreate is perfect degree these, It's also great to embellish corners in an artwork and to complement lettering compositions, giving them a well-balanced appeal to God. This example where the lettering itself is heavier on the right side than it is on the left. But the symmetric florals around the code just work really well and bring everything together. This is how a touch of symmetry can transform something. Here's another example. And in this case, the symmetrically placed illustrations provide both visual contexts as well as a nice balanced space for the lettering. This set inside of. You can also use quadrant symmetry to create frames or borders like this around your artwork in one-quarter of the time. So quadrant symmetry, although might seem limited, is actually quite useful. And you can come up with some creative ways to incorporate it in your artwork. The next lesson, we'll take a similar look at the next type of symmetry, which is also one of the most exciting to watch, an action. Radially symmetric. 7. Radial Symmetry: Radial symmetry is our next symmetric option available on Procreate. So let's see how that works and how we can best take advantage of it. By now you know the drill within symmetric settings, the vector radial symmetry option. So what this does is it divides the canvas into eat radial sections. And anything drawn on any one will get replicated on the other seven sections. Now, one thing to notice, we pretty much stuck with this number eight sections is all we have. Nothing more and nothing less at this point at least. So if we want to create a clock, e.g. we cannot because we need 12 sections for o'clock and we have only eight. I'm really looking forward to a future update from procreate, where we can play around with a number of sections too. But for now, there's tons of things we can do with what we do have. So let's check that out. So once again, on a new layer with Drawing Assist turned on. I'm drawing our simple little floral motif. As you can see, just as I'm drawing this seven more of the same exact strokes are being made almost simultaneously on the Canvas. Can you imagine the amount of time this saves in creating more complex pieces? In just a fraction of the time it would otherwise have taken me. We have a full radial floral illustration done. Now, let's look at some examples of some of the ways in which we can use radial symmetry in our creation process. First and probably the most commonly seen are Mandela's. And really the sky is the limit when it comes to what elements you're Mandela is made of. You can use minimal floral illustrations too, which is what I like to do. Or even to a very quirky one like this with medical equipment. Because why not? Besides Mondelez, you can also create other radial objects like spider webs, for instance, or use it to add Radial embellishments around a central subject. A very interesting use of radial symmetry is in lettering itself. Pieces like this are both fun to create and to look at fun fact, a video of Stefan creating this pumpkin pie was what first got me curious about Procreate itself and put the drawing app on my wishlist because it just looks so exciting. And finally, what I find myself using radial symmetry the most these days, to create a radial lines in the background of my lettering and illustration pieces. I find this simple addition brings a lot of energy and focus towards the center of the piece. So if you haven't tried out radial symmetry yet, you now know there's a lot more you can do with it besides create Mondelez. So definitely give it a try with the added bonus of how exciting it looks in action. It's perfect for you to record your process for videos which are all the rage right now. In the next lesson, we'll look at rotational symmetry, which I bank is nothing short of a hidden gem within procreate. 8. Rotational Symmetry: Let's take a look at our last option within the symmetric features and target mutations energy. Rotational symmetry is my favorite, you guys, it is what I use the most. Now. It's not exactly a fifth type of symmetry per se. It is a variation that you can add onto any of the other four types of symmetric. So by default, Procreate symmetry guides use mirror symmetric, which means your strokes are reflected, flipped across the guideline. But when rotational symmetry is turned on, your stroke is both reflected and rotated. Which means essentially it's flipped both horizontally and vertically at the same time. This will make a lot more sense when you see this in action. So let me show you how rotational symmetry works. Firstly, we'll head to asymmetric settings as usual options. So let's pick vertical and we're going to turn Rotational Symmetry on this time. Nothing changes here. So it doesn't look any different so far, but you'll see what it does in a bit. I'm going to open up a new layer right here. And again, I'm going to turn drawing assist on to demonstrate to you how this is different from vertical symmetry without rotational, I'm going to turn this layer on and reduce its opacity. So it's there for us to compare as we draw. I'm going to trace over one side of this and we'll see what happens. See, I'm starting joining from Hill and this started from here, not from here. Okay? Now you see what's happening. It's not only getting reflected, but it's also getting rotated. So I do the exact same thing on this side. But what we ended up with on the other side is not quite the same. Without rotational symmetry or motif is flipped this way, and that's it, That's what you get. Whereas in this case, with rotational symmetry, what we have here not only flipped this way, It's also flipped this way, right? Both these transformations happen simultaneously. So that is what rotational symmetry does. It's still symmetric, but in a different way. It's just so balanced and perfect. I love it. Now that rotational is always the best way to do it. There's of course, a time and a place to use both variations. But if you look at these two, the one on the left is definitely more top heavy, whereas the one on the right feels more balanced. Which is why I personally really enjoy using rotational symmetry in my work. Now, let's quickly look at how this works with the other three symmetry options as well. Let's do horizontal width, rotational symmetry turned on. I'm doing the same thing with the opacity of our original horizontal layer turned down and tracing it on this side, you can see how rotational symmetry FX the result on the other side. There you go. So we have both of them side-by-side. And again, in this case, it's just flipped like this. And with rotational symmetry turned on, it's flipped like this and like this. Next, let's do the same with quadrant symmetry. With rotational symmetry turned on. I'm going to trace over the motif in this quadrant. Here we are. Without rotational. What happens is this is flipped like this, then this is flipped like this, and then this like this. But in this case, if you observe, you'll see that each of these is just essentially rotated by 90 degrees. And if we overlap the two will also notice that these two are identical in both cases. And it's only the other two that are different. Just something worth noting. And finally, let's try it. Radial symmetry with rotational symmetry turned on. So what happens here is that this gets measured here, this gets made out here, and so on. Whereas with rotational symmetry, the motif gets rotated by 45 degrees about the symmetric center. Again, if we put this one on top of the other, we can see that every alternate one is identical in both cases. So that is rotational symmetry for us. A very versatile feature that can be taken advantage of and multiple creative ways. So let's take a look at some of them. Thanks to that perfect balance that rotational symmetry offers, It's great to create anything with a union kind of a concept. Whether it's a standalone Jian Yang interpretation like this, or even to divide your canvas into two symmetric hubs in a non basically. It also makes rotational symmetry perfect to illustrate objects like boots that snugly fit in with each other. Or even just botanical illustrations like this that form a nicely balanced tile. Rotational symmetry is also amazing to create a wreath. It helps you create repetitive elements efficiently without really looking like you repeated them. So without using rotational, this wreath would probably have looked something like this, which is not bad, but it is very obviously symmetric and not exactly a read, write. And by extension, rotational symmetry is useful to create these kind of Mandela's with a twist. Quite literally. It looks like it has a twist starting from the center and moving radially outward because of the rotational aspect. Another very fun way I use rotational symmetry is to create these radial background effects around my subjects to add some interest to the otherwise plain background, bringing a blast of energy to the piece. Also direct the viewer's eye towards the center. A specific case of rotational symmetry in use is for illustrating playing cards. We usually see the illustrations flipped and rotated on playing cards. So they look the same irrespective of how their health. So rotational symmetry is perfect to create such illustrations. And my most favorite way to use it is to illustrate around my lettering. So it takes away half of the Lord when I'm creating these kind of intricate pieces, while also making everything look nice and balanced without looking in your face symmetric. Sometimes I use it to also draw guides for my lettering itself. It really helps me come up with well balanced lettering compositions. In this case is well, the two hands holding cash look nice and balanced and make the composition look more snug. And not only can you use this for full-fledged lettering compositions, but also to decorate symmetric individual letters like this, 0 as well. There's so much you can do with rotational symmetry. These are just some examples. So I want to definitely encourage you to play around with this feature. And I'm sure that soon you'll fall in love with it, just like I did. In the next lesson, I'll take you through some guidelines for creating your class projects. 9. Your Class Project: Now that we've had an in-depth look at every feature in the symmetry settings on Procreate and seen several different ways in which these can be used. I'm guessing you're feeling inspired and confident enough to tackle your very own symmetric pieces on procreate, this will be your project for this class and you're welcome to create whatever you like. Only condition being that you have to use one or more of the symmetry features on the app. You can use any subject matter, any color palette, any canvas size, any illustration style, just use symmetric. I would really recommend that you actually create a project piece right away because that's the best way to put to use and reinforce all the new techniques you've picked up throughout this class, you might be tempted to think that you've learned a bunch of things and you will eventually use them as you progress in your art journey. Which is fine by doing a dedicated project for this class, using what you've learned here will profoundly help any new concepts and techniques that you've learned really stick. And I encourage you to definitely do the project and also upload the project so that I can see it. Your fellow students can see it. We can all take joy in just looking at all the different possibilities that this symmetry features in Procreate can lead to. If you're on developing an illustration style or you already have a well-developed style. You're more than welcome to use that style of creation in this project. In fact, I would totally encourage you to pivot away from my style of illustration that you've seen me demonstrate and put your own creative voice into your projects. Because I'm super excited to see all the diversity in styles that's going to fill up the project gallery for this class. That said, if you're feeling stuck or unsure of how and where to begin, I'm going to show you an example piece in the next lesson where I use vertical rotational symmetry to create a stylized floral illustration. And you're welcome to recreate that piece or a piece inspired by it. If you do choose to recreate my project piece, you're welcome to share it both in the project gallery for this class and on social media. But please ensure that I'm credited and accidentally passing it off as your own creation. So I'll see you in the next lesson with my project example. 10. Project Example: As promised in this lesson, I'm going to let you watch me as I create this symmetric floral illustration using both rotational and vertical symmetry. I've introduced you to most of the techniques that we'll be using to create this. So I'll speed through most of the video, but I will still walk you through the entire process from start to finish to reinforce the workflow and the features that we'll be using. So let's jump right in, starting with a sketch. I have a twelv by 12 inch square canvas open here. I start by drawing a very freehand square frame. Press and hold, Edit Shape square root. So I have a nice clean square. I move this square to the center, making sure both snapping and magnetics are turned on and snapping it to both the vertical and horizontal center lines. Next, I go here, turn on drawing guide, edit, drawing guide symmetry. I pick vertical symmetry with rotational symmetry, turned on. With Drawing Assist turned on, I start sketching some semicircular, cup-shaped guides for my flower. I want to open up the cup a little bit more. Next, I reduce the opacity of this guide layer and on a new layer and turn on drawing assist and start sketching the actual flower using the cup as a guide. Adding some details to the center of the flower. Now I turn this guide layer off and continue sketching, this time drawing the stems of the main clause. Next, I add a leaf right here. Make it a little bit bigger to fill up some more of that central space. And another leaf in this corner. Next I draw a smaller flat right here, and another one, just like that over here. Now I add some simple buds in some of the bigger empty areas. Angle them and call them based on the shape of the negative space. Next, I add some flowy COVID lines around my elements to add some movement and energy to the piece, as well as to fill up the spaces and make the composition feel more snug. I'm just having fun with this by playing around with different elements that can fit nicely within each given space. The idea of laying down this square frame was to use it as a guide to lay all the elements tightly within it so that even without the actual line of the frame being visible, the elements themselves form that square by populating the area within it. This is why I make sure I take all of the lines as close to the square frame as possible. I see an opportunity here to add another shape similar to our buds. I'd like to also sprinkle my composition with dots. As you may have noticed across many of my pieces, I feel they really bring in a lot of fun and energy. Next, I turn off the guides. I like how it looks. I can see the square shape even without the square frame. So that worked out well. I think I feel like the main flower, however, needs some more detailing. So I add some simple lines to break up that blob of empty space, and my sketch now feels complete. Next, I reduce the opacity of my sketch layer and set it to Multiply blend mode. Then I add a new layer under it, where I will start with the colored illustration. First, I drop in this bright blue color for the background. And then on a new layer with Drawing Assist turned on. I start by tracing over the shape of my front petals. Then drop color on a new layer underneath it. With drawing assistant on our outline, the back petals with a slightly darker yellow. Close the shape and fill color. Next I open a new layer in-between these two layers. And with Drawing Assist turned on, I use a dark orange to draw these details. Again, close off the shape and drop color. I open up another new layer above this and draw this white detail, close the shape and fill it in. Then with a slightly bigger brush size. I draw in these two curves on a layer above the yellow front petals. And then turn on clipping mask on that layer to trim the lines to shape. Next I move on to all the greenery. So on a new layer under all the flat lays, I start with drawing the main stem using a bigger brush size. Then I reduce the brush size and outline believes and drop color. And then I continue with the stems, reducing the size of my brush as I move to the smallest stems. On a new layer, above my green layer, I draw in the little flowers with white and add yellow back petals on another layer, below the white layer. Next on a new layer, I outline all the buds and fill them in. Then I trace over all the filler lines with pink on yet another new layer. At this point, I turn off the sketch layers and guide layers and take a look at how everything feels. I think the leaves need some more dimension to break up that big shape. So on a new layer above the green layer with both Drawing Assist and clipping mask turned on. I added darker green to one-half of each leaf. And that looks good to me. So I'm calling it done. And that's how I created this stylized, symmetric floral illustration. I cannot wait to see your version of it if that's what you choose to do for your project. I'll catch up with you in the next lesson with some final thoughts before wrapping up this class. 11. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for going on this synergy exploration with me. I hope you've learned a new thing or two and gotten loads of inspiration to explore entrepreneurs. If this was new to you, I want to encourage you to keep using these features so that they will only stick. As you use these features more and more even go from creating simple, symmetrical pieces to more complex and clever ones. And even combine more than one type of symmetry to create some really stunning art. This is one of those things that you can have so much fun with just by playing around. I cannot wait to see what you've created with me on this class. So don't forget to upload your projects to the project gallery and maybe even show a few new creations still friends outside of Skillshare by sharing images and classes, videos on social media. If you enjoyed this class, it means so much to me if you left a review for it. I also have a bunch of other classes on Procreate lettering and watercolors, if you'd like to check them out. That follow button on my Skillshare profile page. If you'd like to be notified every time I publish a new class. I also shared process videos and behind the scenes from my personal projects and client projects over Instagram. So follow me there if you'd like to tag along on my journey. It's been a pleasure teaching you. And until next time, bye bye. And I've been creating.