To add a straight line in Procreate, draw a stroke with any brush and hold your Apple Pencil or finger still at the end until QuickShape snaps it straight. Tap the notification at the top of the screen to edit it, or touch a second finger to the screen to lock the angle to 15° increments. For lines that follow a structure, turn on a 2D Grid drawing guide with Drawing Assist. For smoother freehand lines, raise the brush's StreamLine setting in Brush Studio.

Quick answer: which method to use

Method 1: Draw a straight line with QuickShape

QuickShape is the closest thing Procreate has to a line tool. It works with any brush.

1. Open your artwork and select a brush (or the eraser).
2. Draw a rough line in the direction you want.
3. Don't lift the Pencil or your finger at the end. Pause for a moment and the stroke straightens.
4. While still holding, drag to change the length and angle.
5. Optionally, touch a second finger to the canvas while holding. The line snaps in 15° increments, so you can get exact horizontals, verticals, and 45° diagonals.
6. Lift your Pencil to commit.

The same gesture works for other shapes. A rough circle, rectangle, or triangle gets cleaned up, and a multi-segment stroke becomes a polyline. Holding a second finger makes shapes more regular, for example giving a triangle equal sides.

Edit the line right after you make it

Right after the snap, a notification appears at the top of the canvas. Tap it to open the edit shape menu. From there you can:

• Switch the shape type, such as turning a circle into a square.
• Adjust the transformation nodes to change length, angle, or proportions.

This menu is only available immediately after creating the shape. If you need to change it later, use the Transform tool instead.

Method 2: Draw the line on its own layer, then position it

Pointing a fingertip or Pencil at the exact start and end of a line is hard because your hand covers the endpoint. Experienced Procreate users get around this by separating drawing from placement:

1. Create a new layer for the line.
2. Draw a straight line with QuickShape. Its position doesn't matter yet.
3. Select the layer and open Transform.
4. Move, rotate, scale, or stretch the line into place with your hands away from the endpoints.

A dedicated layer per line also keeps things editable. If a line needs to be longer, thinner, or moved, you adjust one layer without touching the rest of the drawing. This matters for animation and motion work, where you'll often want to hand off separate elements.

Some artists also use shape or straight-line brushes from the community, which stamp a straight edge in a fixed orientation. You can angle the canvas to get angled lines. These are workarounds, and QuickShape plus Transform is usually faster and more flexible.

Method 3: Use a 2D Grid for aligned lines

If you're building a layout, a grid-based pattern, or anything that needs consistent spacing, use a drawing guide.

Turn on the 2D Grid

1. Open Actions → Canvas.
2. Tap Edit Drawing Guide.
3. Tap 2D Grid at the bottom of the screen.

Customize it

• Position and rotation: Drag the blue node to move the whole grid, and the green node to rotate it. Tap a node and choose Reset to return to the default.
• Color: Pick a hue that contrasts with your artwork.
• Opacity and thickness: Make the guide subtle enough to ignore or strong enough to follow.
• Grid size: Set the scale of the squares.
• Drawing Assist: This is the important one. With it enabled, your strokes automatically align to the direction of the guide lines, so a rough horizontal sweep follows the grid.

Tap Done to commit or Cancel to leave things as they were. A rotated grid with Drawing Assist can help you keep consistent line angles across a whole piece. That's useful for mechanical drawings, UI-style graphics, or hatching.

Method 4: Smoother freehand lines with StreamLine

Sometimes you want a hand-drawn line that doesn't wobble, with no straightening at all. That's what StreamLine does. It smooths your stroke as you draw, which helps for inking, lettering, and clean outlines.

To adjust it:

1. Tap the brush you're using to open Brush Studio.
2. Make sure Stroke Path is selected.
3. In Stroke Properties, find StreamLine. It's the second option from the top.
4. Raise it for smoother, more controlled lines, or lower it toward zero for a looser, more natural look.

At maximum, lines come out smooth and even. At zero they follow every tremor of your hand. Treat it as a per-brush decision: high for clean inking, low for expressive sketching. Changing it affects that brush everywhere, so duplicate the brush first if you want to keep the original behavior.

Common problems and fixes

The line won't snap. Make sure you're holding at the end of the stroke without lifting. A moving Pencil won't trigger it. Also check that you have a paint or erase tool selected.

The line snapped but I can't edit it. The edit menu only appears right after creation. Undo and redraw, or use Transform on the layer.

The angle is slightly off. Add a second finger while holding to lock into 15° steps, or use a rotated 2D Grid with Drawing Assist.

The line is the wrong thickness. Change brush size before drawing, or for more control, draw on a separate layer and adjust with Transform. Note that scaling a raster layer also scales line weight and can soften edges.

Lines look jittery. Raise StreamLine for that brush.

Getting Procreate lines into a motion pipeline

Procreate is a raster painting app, so lines you draw there are pixels, not paths. That's fine for hand-drawn texture and illustration. But if you plan to animate your work, it affects how you work.

• Keep lines on separate layers so you can export them as individual elements.
• Draw at the resolution you'll need. Scaling raster line work up in a comp softens it, so start with a canvas large enough for your delivery size.
• Use shape or vector elements for pure geometry. If you need perfectly crisp, animatable lines, consider building them natively in your animation software. Use Procreate where the hand-drawn quality is the point.
• Name layers early. Clear layer names save time when you're managing dozens of drawn elements.

Where Styleframe fits after the drawing

Once your line work is done, the next challenge is often turning a handful of drawings into motion or a consistent look across a sequence. Styleframe is an AI video and motion tool that you can look at for that step. You keep your own compositing workflow and use it for the generative steps, not as a replacement for your drawing or comp tools.

Summary

Procreate handles lines through gestures and guides rather than a dedicated line tool:

1. QuickShape straightens a stroke when you hold at the end. Add a second finger for 15° snapping, and tap the notification to edit.
2. Separate layers plus Transform give you precise placement and easy changes later.
3. 2D Grid with Drawing Assist keeps strokes aligned to a structure.
4. StreamLine smooths freehand lines to the degree you choose.

For motion work, keep lines on named layers, draw at a resolution that survives scaling, and export in a form your compositing software can use. Then bring your drawings into tools like Styleframe when you need to extend them into motion while keeping your own artwork at the center.

To add a straight line in Procreate, draw a stroke with any brush and hold your Apple Pencil or finger still at the end until QuickShape snaps it straight. Tap the notification at the top of the screen to edit it, or touch a second finger to the screen to lock the angle to 15° increments. For lines that follow a structure, turn on a 2D Grid drawing guide with Drawing Assist. For smoother freehand lines, raise the brush's StreamLine setting in Brush Studio.

Quick answer: which method to use

Method 1: Draw a straight line with QuickShape

QuickShape is the closest thing Procreate has to a line tool. It works with any brush.

1. Open your artwork and select a brush (or the eraser).
2. Draw a rough line in the direction you want.
3. Don't lift the Pencil or your finger at the end. Pause for a moment and the stroke straightens.
4. While still holding, drag to change the length and angle.
5. Optionally, touch a second finger to the canvas while holding. The line snaps in 15° increments, so you can get exact horizontals, verticals, and 45° diagonals.
6. Lift your Pencil to commit.

The same gesture works for other shapes. A rough circle, rectangle, or triangle gets cleaned up, and a multi-segment stroke becomes a polyline. Holding a second finger makes shapes more regular, for example giving a triangle equal sides.

Edit the line right after you make it

Right after the snap, a notification appears at the top of the canvas. Tap it to open the edit shape menu. From there you can:

• Switch the shape type, such as turning a circle into a square.
• Adjust the transformation nodes to change length, angle, or proportions.

This menu is only available immediately after creating the shape. If you need to change it later, use the Transform tool instead.

Method 2: Draw the line on its own layer, then position it

Pointing a fingertip or Pencil at the exact start and end of a line is hard because your hand covers the endpoint. Experienced Procreate users get around this by separating drawing from placement:

1. Create a new layer for the line.
2. Draw a straight line with QuickShape. Its position doesn't matter yet.
3. Select the layer and open Transform.
4. Move, rotate, scale, or stretch the line into place with your hands away from the endpoints.

A dedicated layer per line also keeps things editable. If a line needs to be longer, thinner, or moved, you adjust one layer without touching the rest of the drawing. This matters for animation and motion work, where you'll often want to hand off separate elements.

Some artists also use shape or straight-line brushes from the community, which stamp a straight edge in a fixed orientation. You can angle the canvas to get angled lines. These are workarounds, and QuickShape plus Transform is usually faster and more flexible.

Method 3: Use a 2D Grid for aligned lines

If you're building a layout, a grid-based pattern, or anything that needs consistent spacing, use a drawing guide.

Turn on the 2D Grid

1. Open Actions → Canvas.
2. Tap Edit Drawing Guide.
3. Tap 2D Grid at the bottom of the screen.

Customize it

• Position and rotation: Drag the blue node to move the whole grid, and the green node to rotate it. Tap a node and choose Reset to return to the default.
• Color: Pick a hue that contrasts with your artwork.
• Opacity and thickness: Make the guide subtle enough to ignore or strong enough to follow.
• Grid size: Set the scale of the squares.
• Drawing Assist: This is the important one. With it enabled, your strokes automatically align to the direction of the guide lines, so a rough horizontal sweep follows the grid.

Tap Done to commit or Cancel to leave things as they were. A rotated grid with Drawing Assist can help you keep consistent line angles across a whole piece. That's useful for mechanical drawings, UI-style graphics, or hatching.

Method 4: Smoother freehand lines with StreamLine

Sometimes you want a hand-drawn line that doesn't wobble, with no straightening at all. That's what StreamLine does. It smooths your stroke as you draw, which helps for inking, lettering, and clean outlines.

To adjust it:

1. Tap the brush you're using to open Brush Studio.
2. Make sure Stroke Path is selected.
3. In Stroke Properties, find StreamLine. It's the second option from the top.
4. Raise it for smoother, more controlled lines, or lower it toward zero for a looser, more natural look.

At maximum, lines come out smooth and even. At zero they follow every tremor of your hand. Treat it as a per-brush decision: high for clean inking, low for expressive sketching. Changing it affects that brush everywhere, so duplicate the brush first if you want to keep the original behavior.

Common problems and fixes

The line won't snap. Make sure you're holding at the end of the stroke without lifting. A moving Pencil won't trigger it. Also check that you have a paint or erase tool selected.

The line snapped but I can't edit it. The edit menu only appears right after creation. Undo and redraw, or use Transform on the layer.

The angle is slightly off. Add a second finger while holding to lock into 15° steps, or use a rotated 2D Grid with Drawing Assist.

The line is the wrong thickness. Change brush size before drawing, or for more control, draw on a separate layer and adjust with Transform. Note that scaling a raster layer also scales line weight and can soften edges.

Lines look jittery. Raise StreamLine for that brush.

Getting Procreate lines into a motion pipeline

Procreate is a raster painting app, so lines you draw there are pixels, not paths. That's fine for hand-drawn texture and illustration. But if you plan to animate your work, it affects how you work.

• Keep lines on separate layers so you can export them as individual elements.
• Draw at the resolution you'll need. Scaling raster line work up in a comp softens it, so start with a canvas large enough for your delivery size.
• Use shape or vector elements for pure geometry. If you need perfectly crisp, animatable lines, consider building them natively in your animation software. Use Procreate where the hand-drawn quality is the point.
• Name layers early. Clear layer names save time when you're managing dozens of drawn elements.

Where Styleframe fits after the drawing

Once your line work is done, the next challenge is often turning a handful of drawings into motion or a consistent look across a sequence. Styleframe is an AI video and motion tool that you can look at for that step. You keep your own compositing workflow and use it for the generative steps, not as a replacement for your drawing or comp tools.

Summary

Procreate handles lines through gestures and guides rather than a dedicated line tool:

1. QuickShape straightens a stroke when you hold at the end. Add a second finger for 15° snapping, and tap the notification to edit.
2. Separate layers plus Transform give you precise placement and easy changes later.
3. 2D Grid with Drawing Assist keeps strokes aligned to a structure.
4. StreamLine smooths freehand lines to the degree you choose.

For motion work, keep lines on named layers, draw at a resolution that survives scaling, and export in a form your compositing software can use. Then bring your drawings into tools like Styleframe when you need to extend them into motion while keeping your own artwork at the center.