Procreate Pocket has no dedicated bucket tool. Instead, you drag the active color from the Colors interface onto your canvas and release it. This is called ColorDrop, and it flood-fills the enclosed area under your finger. Before you lift, pause and slide left or right to adjust the fill Threshold, which controls how far the color spreads.

How to Bucket Fill in Procreate Pocket: The Quick Steps

1. Choose your color in the Colors interface.
2. Drag the active color swatch onto the area you want to fill, and keep your finger down.
3. Pause, then slide left or right to adjust the Threshold. A percentage appears at the top of the screen.
4. Lift your finger to commit the fill.
5. Tap Continue Filling to fill more areas with single taps.

The rest of this article covers each step in more detail, along with the other fill methods Pocket offers and how to fix fills that leak or flood the whole layer.

Method 1: ColorDrop (Pocket's Bucket Fill)

ColorDrop is the closest thing Pocket has to a paint bucket, and it's a fast way to lay down flat color.

Step by step

1. Pick a color. Open the Colors interface and choose a shade in Disc, Classic, Harmony, Value, or Palettes mode. Value mode is useful when you need an exact hex match to a brand color or an existing comp.
2. Drag the active color. The active color swatch shows what you'll paint with. Press it and drag it out onto the canvas.
3. Release over your target area. The color spreads outward from the drop point until it meets a boundary, such as a line or an area of a different color.
4. Adjust the Threshold before you lift. Keep your finger down and hold still. Slide left to fill less, or right to fill more.

Understanding the Threshold

Threshold decides how different a neighboring pixel can be from the pixel you dropped on and still get filled. A low value keeps the fill tight against edges. A high value pushes color past soft edges, textured regions, and anti-aliased line borders, and can flood the entire layer.

Procreate remembers the last Threshold you set, so a drop that suddenly floods everything usually means the previous value was set too high. This is a common reason people think the bucket is broken.

Continue Filling

After a ColorDrop, a Continue Filling option appears. Tap it and every subsequent tap on the canvas fills that region with the same color. You can also tap, hold, and drag to change the Threshold between fills. This is the efficient way to flat a whole piece of line art. Tap the checkmark, or switch to another tool such as Paint, to exit.

Method 2: Recolor via QuickMenu

Recolor is an older fill mode that Procreate kept available for people who prefer it. It's hidden by default, so you have to enable QuickMenu first:

1. Open Actions → Prefs → Gesture Controls → QuickMenu and choose how you want to invoke it.
2. Assign Recolor to one of the QuickMenu radial slots.
3. Invoke QuickMenu and tap Recolor.
4. Pick your color and tap the areas you want to fill.
5. Use the Flood slider to control how aggressively the color spreads.

Recolor works like ColorDrop with a persistent mode and a slider instead of a press-and-slide gesture. If ColorDrop's gesture feels fiddly on a small phone screen, it's worth setting up.

Method 3: Selections with Color Fill

When you need a fill that follows a precise shape rather than a flood-fill boundary, use Selections with Color Fill:

1. Tap Selections.
2. Choose a selection mode: Automatic, Freehand, Rectangle, or Ellipse.
3. Turn on Color Fill. It's enabled when highlighted.
4. Choose your color.
5. Make the selection. The color fills the selected area as soon as you complete it.

This approach avoids leak problems, because you define the shape yourself. Two caveats:

• Color Fill works on a single layer only. You can't use it on a layer group.
• The setting persists after you leave Selections, so turn it off when you're done. Otherwise your next selection will fill with color unexpectedly.

Pairing a Rectangle or Ellipse selection with Feather gives you soft-edged color fields, which is handy for gradients-in-waiting, vignettes, and background washes.

Method 4: Fill Layer

To flood an entire layer with one color:

1. Choose your color.
2. Open Layers and tap the layer you want to fill. You may need to tap it twice to open Layer Options.
3. Choose Fill Layer.

This replaces the layer's contents with a solid color, so use it on a blank layer, a background, or a layer you plan to mask. It's a good starting point for a solid backdrop under your artwork. If you don't want it to destroy existing pixels, duplicate the layer first or fill a new one.

Fixing the Most Common Bucket Fill Problems

The fill floods the whole layer

• Lower the Threshold. Press and hold after the drop, then slide left.
• Check where you're filling. ColorDrop reads the pixels of the layer you have selected. If you're on an empty layer, there's no boundary to stop the color, so the whole layer fills.

The fill ignores your line art on a different layer

Many artists keep line art on its own layer and color on layers underneath. For this to work, set the line art layer as a Reference layer: open Layers, tap the line art layer, and choose Reference in Layer Options. ColorDrop then uses the reference layer's lines as boundaries while painting onto whichever layer you've selected. Without a reference layer, ColorDrop only sees the pixels on the active layer, which is why fills on a separate layer seem to ignore your lines.

The fill leaks through small gaps

Procreate's ColorDrop doesn't have a gap-closing setting like some dedicated inking and flatting apps do. A gap of even a pixel or two in your line art lets the color escape. Your options:

• Close the gaps by painting over them on the line art layer.
• Use a Selection with Color Fill for that shape instead.
• Zoom in and check corners and thin points before filling.

A light fringe remains around the edge of the fill

Anti-aliased lines have soft edges, so a low Threshold may leave a thin halo of unfilled pixels between the fill and the line. Raising the Threshold slightly usually closes it. If you're filling on a layer beneath your line art, you can also fill slightly past the line, since the line art layer covers the overlap.

A Practical Flat-Color Workflow for Motion Artists

If you're using Pocket for character design, storyboards, cel-style frames, or textures that will end up in After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender, or Nuke, a consistent layer setup saves a lot of cleanup:

1. Line art on its own layer, set as Reference.
2. One color layer per region or material (skin, hair, clothing, background) so each can be isolated later.
3. Fill with ColorDrop or Continue Filling into each color layer, keeping the Threshold moderate.
4. Use Selections with Color Fill for hard geometric shapes that don't need line boundaries.
5. Keep a background layer separate so you can export with transparency.

Separate layers matter because it's much easier to fix a mask or recolor a region in your compositing tool when each element is already isolated.

Where Styleframe Fits After the Fills

Procreate Pocket is a good place to build flat-color keyframes, style references, and cel-style concept art quickly. Those same drawings can then be used as starting material in Styleframe.

Quick Reference

FAQ

Does Procreate Pocket have a paint bucket tool? Not as a separate tool. ColorDrop, Continue Filling, and Recolor cover the same job.

Why does ColorDrop fill my whole canvas? Most often the Threshold is too high, or the active layer has no boundaries to stop the fill. Lower the Threshold or set your line art as a Reference layer.

Can I fill on a layer separate from my line art? Yes. Mark the line art layer as Reference, select the layer you want to paint on, and ColorDrop will respect the lines.

Can I fill an entire layer with one color? Yes. Open Layer Options and use Fill Layer, or drag a color onto an empty layer, which will flood it completely.

Once the Threshold and Reference layer behavior click, ColorDrop becomes a fast and predictable way to flat out artwork on a phone.

Procreate Pocket has no dedicated bucket tool. Instead, you drag the active color from the Colors interface onto your canvas and release it. This is called ColorDrop, and it flood-fills the enclosed area under your finger. Before you lift, pause and slide left or right to adjust the fill Threshold, which controls how far the color spreads.

How to Bucket Fill in Procreate Pocket: The Quick Steps

1. Choose your color in the Colors interface.
2. Drag the active color swatch onto the area you want to fill, and keep your finger down.
3. Pause, then slide left or right to adjust the Threshold. A percentage appears at the top of the screen.
4. Lift your finger to commit the fill.
5. Tap Continue Filling to fill more areas with single taps.

The rest of this article covers each step in more detail, along with the other fill methods Pocket offers and how to fix fills that leak or flood the whole layer.

Method 1: ColorDrop (Pocket's Bucket Fill)

ColorDrop is the closest thing Pocket has to a paint bucket, and it's a fast way to lay down flat color.

Step by step

1. Pick a color. Open the Colors interface and choose a shade in Disc, Classic, Harmony, Value, or Palettes mode. Value mode is useful when you need an exact hex match to a brand color or an existing comp.
2. Drag the active color. The active color swatch shows what you'll paint with. Press it and drag it out onto the canvas.
3. Release over your target area. The color spreads outward from the drop point until it meets a boundary, such as a line or an area of a different color.
4. Adjust the Threshold before you lift. Keep your finger down and hold still. Slide left to fill less, or right to fill more.

Understanding the Threshold

Threshold decides how different a neighboring pixel can be from the pixel you dropped on and still get filled. A low value keeps the fill tight against edges. A high value pushes color past soft edges, textured regions, and anti-aliased line borders, and can flood the entire layer.

Procreate remembers the last Threshold you set, so a drop that suddenly floods everything usually means the previous value was set too high. This is a common reason people think the bucket is broken.

Continue Filling

After a ColorDrop, a Continue Filling option appears. Tap it and every subsequent tap on the canvas fills that region with the same color. You can also tap, hold, and drag to change the Threshold between fills. This is the efficient way to flat a whole piece of line art. Tap the checkmark, or switch to another tool such as Paint, to exit.

Method 2: Recolor via QuickMenu

Recolor is an older fill mode that Procreate kept available for people who prefer it. It's hidden by default, so you have to enable QuickMenu first:

1. Open Actions → Prefs → Gesture Controls → QuickMenu and choose how you want to invoke it.
2. Assign Recolor to one of the QuickMenu radial slots.
3. Invoke QuickMenu and tap Recolor.
4. Pick your color and tap the areas you want to fill.
5. Use the Flood slider to control how aggressively the color spreads.

Recolor works like ColorDrop with a persistent mode and a slider instead of a press-and-slide gesture. If ColorDrop's gesture feels fiddly on a small phone screen, it's worth setting up.

Method 3: Selections with Color Fill

When you need a fill that follows a precise shape rather than a flood-fill boundary, use Selections with Color Fill:

1. Tap Selections.
2. Choose a selection mode: Automatic, Freehand, Rectangle, or Ellipse.
3. Turn on Color Fill. It's enabled when highlighted.
4. Choose your color.
5. Make the selection. The color fills the selected area as soon as you complete it.

This approach avoids leak problems, because you define the shape yourself. Two caveats:

• Color Fill works on a single layer only. You can't use it on a layer group.
• The setting persists after you leave Selections, so turn it off when you're done. Otherwise your next selection will fill with color unexpectedly.

Pairing a Rectangle or Ellipse selection with Feather gives you soft-edged color fields, which is handy for gradients-in-waiting, vignettes, and background washes.

Method 4: Fill Layer

To flood an entire layer with one color:

1. Choose your color.
2. Open Layers and tap the layer you want to fill. You may need to tap it twice to open Layer Options.
3. Choose Fill Layer.

This replaces the layer's contents with a solid color, so use it on a blank layer, a background, or a layer you plan to mask. It's a good starting point for a solid backdrop under your artwork. If you don't want it to destroy existing pixels, duplicate the layer first or fill a new one.

Fixing the Most Common Bucket Fill Problems

The fill floods the whole layer

• Lower the Threshold. Press and hold after the drop, then slide left.
• Check where you're filling. ColorDrop reads the pixels of the layer you have selected. If you're on an empty layer, there's no boundary to stop the color, so the whole layer fills.

The fill ignores your line art on a different layer

Many artists keep line art on its own layer and color on layers underneath. For this to work, set the line art layer as a Reference layer: open Layers, tap the line art layer, and choose Reference in Layer Options. ColorDrop then uses the reference layer's lines as boundaries while painting onto whichever layer you've selected. Without a reference layer, ColorDrop only sees the pixels on the active layer, which is why fills on a separate layer seem to ignore your lines.

The fill leaks through small gaps

Procreate's ColorDrop doesn't have a gap-closing setting like some dedicated inking and flatting apps do. A gap of even a pixel or two in your line art lets the color escape. Your options:

• Close the gaps by painting over them on the line art layer.
• Use a Selection with Color Fill for that shape instead.
• Zoom in and check corners and thin points before filling.

A light fringe remains around the edge of the fill

Anti-aliased lines have soft edges, so a low Threshold may leave a thin halo of unfilled pixels between the fill and the line. Raising the Threshold slightly usually closes it. If you're filling on a layer beneath your line art, you can also fill slightly past the line, since the line art layer covers the overlap.

A Practical Flat-Color Workflow for Motion Artists

If you're using Pocket for character design, storyboards, cel-style frames, or textures that will end up in After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender, or Nuke, a consistent layer setup saves a lot of cleanup:

1. Line art on its own layer, set as Reference.
2. One color layer per region or material (skin, hair, clothing, background) so each can be isolated later.
3. Fill with ColorDrop or Continue Filling into each color layer, keeping the Threshold moderate.
4. Use Selections with Color Fill for hard geometric shapes that don't need line boundaries.
5. Keep a background layer separate so you can export with transparency.

Separate layers matter because it's much easier to fix a mask or recolor a region in your compositing tool when each element is already isolated.

Where Styleframe Fits After the Fills

Procreate Pocket is a good place to build flat-color keyframes, style references, and cel-style concept art quickly. Those same drawings can then be used as starting material in Styleframe.

Quick Reference

FAQ

Does Procreate Pocket have a paint bucket tool? Not as a separate tool. ColorDrop, Continue Filling, and Recolor cover the same job.

Why does ColorDrop fill my whole canvas? Most often the Threshold is too high, or the active layer has no boundaries to stop the fill. Lower the Threshold or set your line art as a Reference layer.

Can I fill on a layer separate from my line art? Yes. Mark the line art layer as Reference, select the layer you want to paint on, and ColorDrop will respect the lines.

Can I fill an entire layer with one color? Yes. Open Layer Options and use Fill Layer, or drag a color onto an empty layer, which will flood it completely.

Once the Threshold and Reference layer behavior click, ColorDrop becomes a fast and predictable way to flat out artwork on a phone.