Procreate is a digital drawing app that allows you to bring all your artistic creativity to the surface fast. Procreate has the feel of traditional drawing, letting you do what you do naturally, but it also encompasses the convenience of digital. You can draw fast, erase easily, and edit as if nothing changed. Want to draw a perfect shape? Procreate’s QuickShape tool makes it feel natural.
What Is Procreate’s QuickShape Tool?
Procreate's QuickShape tool allows for a snap-to-shape way to draw. This can be helpful when trying to draw precise shapes like equilaterals or perfect circles, as it allows you to draw the rough shape, and then QuickShape automatically snaps to the intended shape.
QuickShape is set up in the default settings and is certainly a great trick to mastering Procreate. You don’t have to do anything to turn it on or activate it. You can draw as normal without even acknowledging QuickShape, for the most part.
You can use the QuickShape tool to create precise circles, ovals, and perfect squares. It can also be used as a straight-line tool, ensuring your wobbly hand isn’t affecting your art. Need a perfect arch? You can do that too. It’s all in-built to Procreate’s technology.
How Does the QuickShape Tool Work?
There are two main ways you can use QuickShape: one to straighten or add precision to your line work, and the other to make a perfectly equal shape.
Straighten Lines
When drawing, if you’re drawing a rough shape—such as a circle or square—that you want to neaten up a little, just hold your Apple Pencil down after drawing the shape. Do not lift the pencil; simply draw the shape and continue to hold at the last point. After just a couple of seconds, your line will snap into shape. This technique works with all Procreate brushes you can use.
This first technique only neatens the lines. If you’ve drawn a rough circle, your lines will become tighter and steadier. The same with a rough equilateral shape. However, just doing this alone won’t create an equal shape.
You can also color your Procreate art in many ways.
Draw Equal Shapes
To take your rough drawing or unequal shape from your wobbly lines, or even your newly precise lines into being a totally equal shape, you just need to touch the screen with your finger while continuing to hold your Apple Pencil in place.
Holding the Apple Pencil in place neatens the linework, then holding a finger on the screen simultaneously snaps your unequal shape into the nearest equal shape that Procreate can recognize.
If you draw a shape that’s somewhere between a square and a rectangle, Procreate will choose whichever it seems closest to. This is the same if you’ve drawn somewhere between an oval and a circle. QuickShape largely gets it right, but if not, you’ll have to redraw your initial shape.
How to Change Procreate QuickShape Settings
While QuickShape’s snap-to-shape tool can be a benefit for many users, it can also be a detriment to some art types, such as single-line art or anyone who draws a little slower. You might think your Apple Pencil is glitching in Procreate if your lines suddenly snap straight, but you can easily change the settings.
Since QuickShape works if the Apple Pencil has been held on screen for just a few seconds, if you’re drawing something slowly without lifting the pencil, it will snap-to-shape. Once snapped, you can’t undo back to the pre-snap line, and you’ll have to start the line drawing from the beginning.
To access the QuickShape settings, tap Actions (Wrench icon) > Prefs > Gesture Controls > QuickShape. From there, you can choose how the QuickShape tool is activated. As previously mentioned, it’s set to Draw and Hold by default in Procreate, meaning if you draw slowly or with long lines without lifting the pencil, snap-to-shape will activate.
Change the Delay
You can easily customize Procreate settings and gestures, especially to overcome common Procreate issues. Firstly, if you like the draw and hold option—but you do draw slowly—you can change the slider for the delay amount. If you use QuickShape often, you can speed up the time, but if you need more breathing space, you can slow it down.
The default is set right in the middle. You can speed it up to 0.10 seconds or slow it down to 1.50 seconds.
Use A Different Gesture
If you don’t wish to use the draw and hold method, or it’s not a tool you use often enough to warrant that gesture, you can change the type of gesture to get QuickShape. There are five different options, other than the default one:
- Tap the Square icon
- Touch the screen
- Three-finger swipe on screen
- Four-finger tap on screen
- Tap Apple Pencil twice.
Bear in mind that most of these gestures are set as other things by default, so if you change the gesture for QuickShape, you might have to change another gesture as well. For example, by default, a three-finger swipe on screen brings up the Copy menu, so you’d have to change that gesture if you turn three-finger swipe on for QuickShapes. All other gesture controls can be found on the left menu of this screen.
Create Precise Drawings in a Snap
Procreate’s QuickShape tool is one that’s easily hidden and possibly thought of as glitching or a mistake, but it can be super helpful. If you draw a lot of polygons, circles, squares, or other shapes that require a bit more precision, then QuickShape is your next best friend. And if you don’t want to use it, the settings can be easily changed, so it doesn’t become a problem in your Procreate illustrations. The great thing about digital illustration is you can make it work however works best for you.
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