Hey everybody! Welcome back to another video :) In (late) celebration of the new year, I thought I'd put together some tips and tricks that can hopefully be useful to anyone who wants to get started with digital art. This video isn't necessarily a comprehensive drawing tutorial per say, it's just a compilation of helpful things that I've collected over the past year and a half of learning about digital art specifically using Procreate to work with. Here's a brief outline of the topics, starting out with equipment information, tips that are relevant to drawing, and ending with some personal advice I want to share with you. (check description for timestamps!) This video is mostly catered towards beginners with little to no experience but maybe some of it might be helpful to you too, who knows ;o Thanks for being here and let's get started~ For some context, I use an iPad for all of my art stuff. Specifically, I use the iPad Pro 12.9 inch and the 2nd gen apple pencil. I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend you look into purchasing a matte screen protector for your iPad. (slightly controversial/unpopular opinion plz don't get triggered) There are really good ones available on Amazon usually for less than $10 USD they work perfectly fine and there is a significant difference between drawing on tempered glass (vs matte) it'll feel as if you're just drawing directly on like a piece of paper! One thing I wish someone told me about when I was first starting out with digital art is to DRAW BIG and no, I don't just mean filling up the entire canvas instead, use a large canvas for your drawings a good baseline would be draw on a canvas dimension no smaller than 3000 by 3000 pixels at 300dpi large canvas sizes let you zoom in on little details without your drawings looking too pixelated to work with. and also it's safer to downsize a canvas rather than to upscale it. On Procreate, there's this thing called Gesture Control* To find it, you go to the "Actions" tab, and then go to "Preferences" There's a whole list of actions you can do using your hand I'd recommend you look through it and adjust the settings to fit your preferences. Some important actions that I would recommend is the "Eyedropper" and "Quickmenu". For my drawing process, I set the gesture mode where If I press down and hold the screen with my finger, the eye dropper pops up. And then I drag my finger around the screen to select colors directly from the canvas to use to start drawing with. The second shortcut from Procreate that I think is really useful is the Quick Menu. For me, I set my settings so that when I swipe down on the screen with 3 fingers the quick menu box pops up, and then I can use that to easily flip the canvas back and forth. I can't emphasize enough how important and helpful it is to build a habit of flipping your canvas. The flipped image refreshes your eye and you'll be able to notice little things that feel off or notice parts of your drawing you didn't notice previously. and you'll be able to fine tune your overall drawing that way. So everyone's art process is a little different. and depending on your preference, you may or may not like using layers. But from my experience, I've noticed that most artists utilize layers to some extent so I'll go over them briefly for you. When you're doing digital art, think of each layer as a piece of paper. Adding a new layer on top is basically taking a piece of paper and placing it on top. Anything you draw on or change on one layer will not affect the other layers. This is useful when you're drawing one thing such as the hair of a character and you want to adjust it without having to worry about the other part of your drawing, such as the head, getting messed up. If you set your layer to Alpha Lock you will only be able to draw on top of whatever is already drawn on the canvas. Clipping a layer is similar to alpha locking except now you have a little bit more flexibility in adjusting. Each clipped layer limits you to draw only on top of what is drawn on the base canvas but gives you the option to continue stacking individual layers rather than having everything on one layer. and while we're on the topic of layers, I also would recommend familiarizing yourself with layer modes On Procreate, go to your Layers, click on a layer, load the options, or click on the "N" to show the different modes available. I personally love setting a layer on Multiply when coloring in shadows because...I think the Multiply mode helps darken the colors by adjusting it to whatever color is underneath it and another layer mode I like using is the Overlay or Screen one. To put it simply, they are opposites of Multiply, where it tends to lighten whatever color you're applying adjusting it to the color that is underneath it I like using these modes for doing lighting and highlights in my pieces. One of the pitfalls of digital art is that you're able to zoom in and undo your mistakes. These features are like a double edged sword. While you have the ability to fine tune every little mistake, it can also become a distraction in the bigger picture. If you like working super zoomed in with all the little details, I'd recommend using the Reference Tab so that you can look back at the full canvas without having to zoom in and zoom out every time. One thing that took me a long time to realize is that not everyone will notice the specific details the same way that you see it. And I don't mean to discourage anyone from perfectionism! All I'm saying is that sometimes a circle can look like an oval when you're zoomed in, but when you zoom out and look at the final picture, the difference between that circle and the oval might be too miniscule for most people to notice. At some point in your drawing journey, you're bound to come across something known as the "art block". Art block is essentially a mental block where you lose inspiration or motivation or you just hate everything youre drawing and how it turns out and you feel like you've forgotten how to draw and you will never ever be able to create something ever again. One tip that I have that can help you overcome this is to put together what I like to call "an inspiration board". Basically I just spend hours scrolling through Pinterest, Twitter, or Instagram looking at other artworks and drawings to gather inspiration. I create groups for them, like "art styles to study" or "color palettes I like" or "composition ideas that I want to try later. When you start feeling art blocked or you just don't have that creative drive or inspiration, having a collection of different artworks and ideas might be helpful to get you out of that funk. Most people who are determined to start learning something new will first look up some tutorials, feel a lot of motivation, but end up giving up too quickly, because they are discouraged by the initial outcome. Like most other activities, drawing is one of those things where you will never really see the progress happening in real time. Everyone learns and improves at a different pace, But some people pick up topics or skills quicker than others and I think that's pretty normal. For me, I've been drawing literally for over 10 years and my drawings looked like this at first. Then one day, I decided to properly sit down and learn how to draw and over the span of months (years tbh) I was able to finally see myself slowly getting better with each drawing I made. I would highly encourage you to take maybe even 30 minutes a day to focus on practicing one thing, whether it's a warm up drawing, some loose sketches, or even reading up or watching tutorials about a specific topic. You have to put in time if you want to really hone your craft, and I think daily practice would be ideal but overall, having a determined and consistent mindset is also what really matters the most at the end of it all. You might feel a compulsive urge to burn up any trace of your past artwork Just store them away safely somewhere in your computer and try to forget about it. Then, look back at them every 6 months or so and study your old drawings. Try to see if your artist eye has developed and see if you can catch little mistakes that your younger self couldn't notice quite back then. Being able to cringe and feel like your older pieces aren't satisfying to you is a sign that you've grown and learned more about drawing. So in the end, it's a good thing! Don't be ashamed about it :) Starting out with digital art and entering the online community can be a little bit overwhelming and lonely at first. You're basically entering a whole new community, showing the most vulnerable side of yourself by sharing your creations to strangers. but you don't have to enter this journey alone. It can be intimidating at first, but put yourself out there and join different groups and communities that are open and welcoming of other artists. Now I'm just going to shamelessly plug this in my own video but I do have a (art) discord server of my own. It has about 100 members I think, maybe less or maybe more It's a small community with artists coming from all sorts of backgrounds, skill levels, and art mediums. Everyone's really kind and really fun to talk with We talk about things more than just art, such as favorite TV shows, food, pets, and all other things. (so please join!) Overall, my point is that I think surrounding yourself with people who are supportive of your goals and providing you with helpful criticism will not only make your art journey more enticing, but also just really fun and encouraging. My final and last advice for this video is that you need to be your own #1 fan. We often tend to be our greatest critics, and when you're attempting to challenge yourself with something it's so easy to only see the worst outcomes and fill our heads only the most disappointing and discouraging thoughts. There will always be room for improvement, but don't forget to pat yourself on the back for what you've accomplished so far. And that concludes the 10 tips and tricks that I have to share with you on what it's like to start out with digital art or wanting to become a better digital artist. I know I couldn't get too in depth with some of the topics, and not all of these points might be applicable to you but overall I hope there were at least one or two things that was helpful to hear. If you have specific questions or would just like me to further expand on a topic in another video please let me know in the comments. I love hearing input or feedback on how I can be more helpful for you guys too :) Thank you so much for watching until the end of the video I really appreciate all of your support, and it encourages me to continue making videos for this channel. See you next time, bye! :D