To add perspective lines in Procreate, tap Actions (wrench) → Canvas, switch on Drawing Guide, tap Edit Drawing Guide, choose Perspective, and tap the canvas to place a vanishing point. Tap again to add a second or third point (up to three), drag the nodes and horizon line into position, then tap Done. To make your strokes snap to those lines, turn on Drawing Assist for the layer you're drawing on.

The rest of this guide covers each step, the differences between one-, two-, and three-point setups, and how to carry the result into a motion or compositing pipeline.

Step-by-step: turn on and edit the Perspective Guide

On iPad

1. Tap Actions (the wrench icon) → Canvas.
2. Toggle Drawing Guide on.
3. Tap Edit Drawing Guide. This opens the Drawing Guides screen.
4. Tap Perspective at the bottom of the screen.
5. Tap anywhere on the canvas to drop your first vanishing point. Thin guide lines fan out from it across the artwork.
6. Tap Done to commit, or Cancel to leave without changes.

On Procreate Pocket (iPhone)

The path is slightly different. Expand the top toolbar with the ellipsis, tap Actions → Canvas, and then choose Perspective and Edit Drawing Guide. The settings sit in a collapsed toolbar at the bottom. Swipe up on the grey handle to expand it, and swipe down to collapse it. Commit with the blue tick.

Choose one-, two-, or three-point perspective

The number of vanishing points you place decides the type of perspective. Procreate supports up to three.

• One point (parallel): Surfaces facing the camera keep their true shape. Verticals and horizontals stay parallel to the canvas edges. Only lines running toward or away from the viewer converge. This suits corridors, roads, interiors, and any shot looking straight down an axis.
• Two points (angular): Verticals stay parallel, while horizontals converge toward one of two points on the horizon. It's the practical default for buildings seen from a corner, and it reads as more realistic than one-point.
• Three points: Every axis recedes, which gives height as well as width and depth. Use it for towers seen from a steep low or high angle, or for dramatic camera moves where you want strong vertical convergence.

If a vanishing point is wrong, tap it and choose Delete. In Pocket, tapping a point also lets you Select it so you can change the color of that point's guide lines independently.

Position the horizon and vanishing points

Dragging is where most of the real setup happens.

• Move a point: Drag its blue node. Points can sit inside the canvas or far outside it. Off-canvas points often look more natural, especially for wide shots, because the convergence is gentler.
• Rotate the grid or move the horizon: On iPad, drag the horizon line. On Pocket, drag just outside the outer circle that appears around a vanishing point. This adjusts the horizon and the angle of that point's lines.
• Think in camera terms: The horizon line is eye level. Put it low for a heroic, looking-up shot and high for a looking-down shot. If you plan to rebuild the scene in 3D later, decide on camera height now.

A known limitation is that fine adjustment gets fiddly when points are far apart, and there's no numeric entry for coordinates. Procreate users have asked for horizon-level snapping, a fourth point, and isometric or fisheye-style presets, none of which the standard guide offers. Plan around three points and eyeball level horizons, or hold your reference against a straight edge.

Style the guide so you can actually see it

On the Drawing Guides screen you can change how the lines look without affecting your artwork:

• Color: Use the hue bar at the top. Pick something that contrasts with your underpainting.
• Thickness: Ranges from invisible to noticeable.
• Opacity: Fade the lines so they help without dominating.

In Pocket's expanded settings, these options apply per vanishing point. Select a point first, then adjust. Giving each point a different hue is a quick way to keep left-going and right-going edges straight in your head during a two-point drawing.

Make strokes snap with Drawing Assist

The guide alone is just an overlay. To get clean lines, you need Assisted Drawing.

• In the guide editor, enable Assisted Drawing so strokes follow the line direction.
• Then tap the layer you're working on and turn on Drawing Assist. This is a per-layer setting. If your lines aren't snapping, it's usually because this is off for the active layer.
• Start strokes from the edges of the canvas and work inward, so the snapped line has room to follow the guide.
• When you need a line that doesn't follow the grid, such as an awning curve or an arc inside a box, turn Drawing Assist off for that layer.

Holding a finger down can help you draw a perfectly vertical line, and keeping verticals truly vertical is a good habit in two-point work.

A reliable workflow: construct, then loosen

A clean method from architectural sketchers and illustrators is to separate construction from final art:

1. Block the big volume first. Draw the nearest vertical edge, then follow the left and right vanishing points for the widths. Choose one depth and commit to it. That first thickness governs all the others.
2. Place details using the face's own vanishing direction. Anything sitting on a surface follows that surface's converging lines. Keep verticals vertical.
3. Find true centers. Draw corner-to-corner diagonals across a face, then run a line from the intersection to the correct vanishing point. This beats eyeballing for handles, windows, and doors.
4. Lower the construction layer's opacity. Create a new layer on top, and ink or paint with whatever line quality you want. The guide has done its job, and the final drawing doesn't need to look mechanical.
5. Add a rough color plan beneath the line work before rendering.

Using Procreate perspective in a motion or VFX pipeline

If you work in After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender, or Nuke, perspective drawing in Procreate is most useful at the pre-production and asset stage:

• Boards and styleframes: Locking camera height and vanishing points early means your boards are consistent with the 3D or camera-projected version you build later.
• Matte and backdrop painting: Paint environments on separate layers (foreground, midground, background) with a shared horizon. Export them and use them as camera-projection or parallax layers in After Effects, Blender, or Nuke.
• Layout reference for 3D: A quick two-point sketch is a cheap way to communicate lens feel and camera angle to a layout artist, or to yourself, before you block geometry.
• Matching the horizon: If your 3D camera sits at a certain height and tilt, set the Procreate horizon to match, so painted elements and CG elements agree in perspective.

Keep in mind that Procreate perspective is an artist's guide, not a physically exact camera model. For shots that must lock to a tracked plate, use your 3D or compositing tools for the final match and treat the Procreate work as design.

Troubleshooting common problems

• Lines won't snap: Check that Drawing Assist is on for the active layer, and that Assisted Drawing is enabled in the guide editor.
• Guide lines are invisible: Raise opacity or thickness, or change the hue to contrast with your canvas.
• The scene feels distorted: Move your vanishing points farther off-canvas. Points placed too close together exaggerate convergence.
• Need more than three points: Procreate stops at three. For curvilinear or fisheye looks, sketch by hand or construct in a 3D app and paint over a render.
• The guide lines aren't part of my artwork: Guide lines are an overlay on your artwork. If you want them visible in a reference, draw them on a layer.

Quick recap

Open Actions → Canvas → Drawing Guide → Edit Drawing Guide → Perspective, tap to place up to three vanishing points, drag to set the horizon, and tune color, thickness, and opacity. Turn on Drawing Assist per layer to snap your strokes. Then separate construction from final art, and export layers into your 3D or compositing pipeline. Starting with a deliberate horizon and camera height makes every later step, such as parallax in After Effects, easier to control.

To add perspective lines in Procreate, tap Actions (wrench) → Canvas, switch on Drawing Guide, tap Edit Drawing Guide, choose Perspective, and tap the canvas to place a vanishing point. Tap again to add a second or third point (up to three), drag the nodes and horizon line into position, then tap Done. To make your strokes snap to those lines, turn on Drawing Assist for the layer you're drawing on.

The rest of this guide covers each step, the differences between one-, two-, and three-point setups, and how to carry the result into a motion or compositing pipeline.

Step-by-step: turn on and edit the Perspective Guide

On iPad

1. Tap Actions (the wrench icon) → Canvas.
2. Toggle Drawing Guide on.
3. Tap Edit Drawing Guide. This opens the Drawing Guides screen.
4. Tap Perspective at the bottom of the screen.
5. Tap anywhere on the canvas to drop your first vanishing point. Thin guide lines fan out from it across the artwork.
6. Tap Done to commit, or Cancel to leave without changes.

On Procreate Pocket (iPhone)

The path is slightly different. Expand the top toolbar with the ellipsis, tap Actions → Canvas, and then choose Perspective and Edit Drawing Guide. The settings sit in a collapsed toolbar at the bottom. Swipe up on the grey handle to expand it, and swipe down to collapse it. Commit with the blue tick.

Choose one-, two-, or three-point perspective

The number of vanishing points you place decides the type of perspective. Procreate supports up to three.

• One point (parallel): Surfaces facing the camera keep their true shape. Verticals and horizontals stay parallel to the canvas edges. Only lines running toward or away from the viewer converge. This suits corridors, roads, interiors, and any shot looking straight down an axis.
• Two points (angular): Verticals stay parallel, while horizontals converge toward one of two points on the horizon. It's the practical default for buildings seen from a corner, and it reads as more realistic than one-point.
• Three points: Every axis recedes, which gives height as well as width and depth. Use it for towers seen from a steep low or high angle, or for dramatic camera moves where you want strong vertical convergence.

If a vanishing point is wrong, tap it and choose Delete. In Pocket, tapping a point also lets you Select it so you can change the color of that point's guide lines independently.

Position the horizon and vanishing points

Dragging is where most of the real setup happens.

• Move a point: Drag its blue node. Points can sit inside the canvas or far outside it. Off-canvas points often look more natural, especially for wide shots, because the convergence is gentler.
• Rotate the grid or move the horizon: On iPad, drag the horizon line. On Pocket, drag just outside the outer circle that appears around a vanishing point. This adjusts the horizon and the angle of that point's lines.
• Think in camera terms: The horizon line is eye level. Put it low for a heroic, looking-up shot and high for a looking-down shot. If you plan to rebuild the scene in 3D later, decide on camera height now.

A known limitation is that fine adjustment gets fiddly when points are far apart, and there's no numeric entry for coordinates. Procreate users have asked for horizon-level snapping, a fourth point, and isometric or fisheye-style presets, none of which the standard guide offers. Plan around three points and eyeball level horizons, or hold your reference against a straight edge.

Style the guide so you can actually see it

On the Drawing Guides screen you can change how the lines look without affecting your artwork:

• Color: Use the hue bar at the top. Pick something that contrasts with your underpainting.
• Thickness: Ranges from invisible to noticeable.
• Opacity: Fade the lines so they help without dominating.

In Pocket's expanded settings, these options apply per vanishing point. Select a point first, then adjust. Giving each point a different hue is a quick way to keep left-going and right-going edges straight in your head during a two-point drawing.

Make strokes snap with Drawing Assist

The guide alone is just an overlay. To get clean lines, you need Assisted Drawing.

• In the guide editor, enable Assisted Drawing so strokes follow the line direction.
• Then tap the layer you're working on and turn on Drawing Assist. This is a per-layer setting. If your lines aren't snapping, it's usually because this is off for the active layer.
• Start strokes from the edges of the canvas and work inward, so the snapped line has room to follow the guide.
• When you need a line that doesn't follow the grid, such as an awning curve or an arc inside a box, turn Drawing Assist off for that layer.

Holding a finger down can help you draw a perfectly vertical line, and keeping verticals truly vertical is a good habit in two-point work.

A reliable workflow: construct, then loosen

A clean method from architectural sketchers and illustrators is to separate construction from final art:

1. Block the big volume first. Draw the nearest vertical edge, then follow the left and right vanishing points for the widths. Choose one depth and commit to it. That first thickness governs all the others.
2. Place details using the face's own vanishing direction. Anything sitting on a surface follows that surface's converging lines. Keep verticals vertical.
3. Find true centers. Draw corner-to-corner diagonals across a face, then run a line from the intersection to the correct vanishing point. This beats eyeballing for handles, windows, and doors.
4. Lower the construction layer's opacity. Create a new layer on top, and ink or paint with whatever line quality you want. The guide has done its job, and the final drawing doesn't need to look mechanical.
5. Add a rough color plan beneath the line work before rendering.

Using Procreate perspective in a motion or VFX pipeline

If you work in After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender, or Nuke, perspective drawing in Procreate is most useful at the pre-production and asset stage:

• Boards and styleframes: Locking camera height and vanishing points early means your boards are consistent with the 3D or camera-projected version you build later.
• Matte and backdrop painting: Paint environments on separate layers (foreground, midground, background) with a shared horizon. Export them and use them as camera-projection or parallax layers in After Effects, Blender, or Nuke.
• Layout reference for 3D: A quick two-point sketch is a cheap way to communicate lens feel and camera angle to a layout artist, or to yourself, before you block geometry.
• Matching the horizon: If your 3D camera sits at a certain height and tilt, set the Procreate horizon to match, so painted elements and CG elements agree in perspective.

Keep in mind that Procreate perspective is an artist's guide, not a physically exact camera model. For shots that must lock to a tracked plate, use your 3D or compositing tools for the final match and treat the Procreate work as design.

Troubleshooting common problems

• Lines won't snap: Check that Drawing Assist is on for the active layer, and that Assisted Drawing is enabled in the guide editor.
• Guide lines are invisible: Raise opacity or thickness, or change the hue to contrast with your canvas.
• The scene feels distorted: Move your vanishing points farther off-canvas. Points placed too close together exaggerate convergence.
• Need more than three points: Procreate stops at three. For curvilinear or fisheye looks, sketch by hand or construct in a 3D app and paint over a render.
• The guide lines aren't part of my artwork: Guide lines are an overlay on your artwork. If you want them visible in a reference, draw them on a layer.

Quick recap

Open Actions → Canvas → Drawing Guide → Edit Drawing Guide → Perspective, tap to place up to three vanishing points, drag to set the horizon, and tune color, thickness, and opacity. Turn on Drawing Assist per layer to snap your strokes. Then separate construction from final art, and export layers into your 3D or compositing pipeline. Starting with a deliberate horizon and camera height makes every later step, such as parallax in After Effects, easier to control.