Blending is a painting technique used to create smooth transitions between two colors or combine two colors to make a new color and give a finished look to an art. Procreate is a digital art making app rich with various tools that allow you to blend colors in your art without any difficulty.
In this article, we will discuss some blending techniques that you can use in your Procreate art, to create stunning results.
Blending in Procreate Using Smudge Tool
The smudge tool allows you to blend colors while using Procreate for Windows and also control the amount of blending you want to do on that place.
Smudge tool offers an extensive library of different types of brushes, with the help of which, you can create different blending effects and textures in your art which can help you finish the details of complex parts of art like skin tone, hair, etc. And you can experiment with different brush types to find out the best fit for your particular need.
To blend colors in Procreate using Smudge tool follow the given steps.
- Open your Procreate app.
- Draw/open your art in which you want to blend the colors.
- After that select the Smudge tool present at upper right corner of the screen, represented by a “Finger” icon.
- Now, select your desired brush and start brushing with your pencil at the border of the two colors to blend them.
You can change the opacity and size of your smudge brushes to get your desired blending results.
To adjust the opacity and size of your brush you can use the sliders present at the left side of your canvas.
Blending in Procreate With Gaussian Blur
Both Gaussian Blur and Smudge tools are used to create blends, but they are different from each other. Unlike the Smudge tool, Gaussian Blur applies to the entire layer and you can not apply it on some specific parts of your art, which can cause loss of some details, but, Gaussian Blur is easier to apply as compared to Smudge tool since, Smudge tool requires the selection of right type of brush and manual blending.
To use Gaussian Blur for blending, follow the given steps.
- Open/draw your art on the canvas in Procreate.
- Now go to the “Adjustments” menu by clicking on the “Magic Wand” icon present at the top left corner of the Procreate screen.
- After that, choose the “Gaussian Blur” option in the Adjustments menu.
- Now, hold your pencil at any point on your canvas and drag it to the right. As you drag it further to right, the amount of blend will increase and if you drag it to the left side then the effect of blend will decrease.
- The percentage of effective “Gaussian Blur” effect will appear in a bar present at the upper corner of the Canvas. Here the blue line represents the amount of effective blur effect.
- When you use the “Gaussian Blur,” it will blend colors but it will also spread the colors outside the outline of your art, eventually giving a messy look. To avoid it, turn on the “Alpha Lock” mode for the layer in which you want to add blend and it will maintain the shape of your element.
To do it, go to Layers (top right corner) > Layer (in which you want to blend) > Alpha Lock and after that go back to Actions > Gaussian Blur. And now check your blend.
Blending Using Airbrushing
To do blending with Airbrush follow the given steps.
- Open your art in Procreate.
- Go to the “Brush Library” by clicking the “Brush” icon present at the top right corner of the screen.
- Now go to the “Airbrushing” and select “Soft Brush.”
- After that, you can adjust the size and opacity of the brush as per your need, by their respective slider present at the left side of the canvas.
- And now manually pick the color by long tapping on the color element with your finger, brush it along the border, change your color by long tapping on another color element and do it repeatedly until you get your desired result.
This is a manual and a labor intensive method but you have all the control over it.
Blending is an important part of painting as it adds more detail to your art and gives a more complete look. The methods we discussed in this article can help you create a blending effect as per your requirement. Whether you are a new artist or an experienced one, experimenting with all the Procreate tools and their settings can help you get more out of the app.
Which is your favorite blending tool in Procreate? Let us know in the comment section.