To change brush size in Procreate, drag the top slider on the left side of the canvas up to enlarge the brush or down to shrink it. For finer control, tap and hold the slider, then slide your finger horizontally away from it, which makes the adjustments smaller and more precise. Each brush's size range comes from its Brush Studio settings (Properties > Size limits), so a brush that won't get bigger or smaller usually has Max or Min size set too tight.

How to change brush size in Procreate (the basic method)

Procreate keeps its two main sliders at the edge of the canvas, on the left by default. The upper slider controls size, and the lower one controls opacity.

1. Open your canvas and select a brush.
2. Put your finger or Apple Pencil on the top slider.
3. Drag up to make the brush larger, or down to make it smaller.
4. Release, then draw a test stroke on a spare layer or in a corner of the canvas.

One thing trips up people coming from desktop tools: the readout is a percentage, not a pixel value.

How to adjust brush size with precision

The size slider is sensitive, and a few pixels of finger movement can mean a big jump in line weight. The fix is built into every Procreate slider:

• Tap and hold the handle of the slider.
• Keep your finger down and slide it horizontally away from the slider, toward the middle of the canvas.
• Move up or down. The farther you are from the slider, the finer the increments.

This works on every slider in the app, including opacity, color adjustments, and canvas dimension fields. Once it becomes a habit, you can match line weights across sessions instead of eyeballing them, which matters if you're returning to a drawing days later and need strokes to look consistent.

How to save and recall a brush size

If you keep reaching for the same two or three sizes (say, a thin contour line and a heavier silhouette line), you don't need to rebuild them by hand each time. Tap the size slider and use the plus control to store the size you're on. You can save multiple sizes per brush, and the same approach works for opacity. After that, you can jump to a saved value instead of dragging for it.

A practical approach for production work:

• Save a thin, medium, and heavy size on your main inking brush.
• Save a low and high opacity on your shading brush.
• Keep the same saved values across a whole sequence of frames or boards so line weight doesn't drift from drawing to drawing.

Why Procreate shows percentages, and how Size limits work

The percentage readout confuses a lot of experienced artists, because Photoshop and Sketchbook Pro show pixels. In Procreate, the slider doesn't map to an absolute pixel count. It moves across a range defined by the brush itself.

That range lives in Brush Studio. Open the brush library, tap a brush to open its settings, and go to Properties. There you'll find size limit controls for a maximum size and a minimum size, both expressed as percentages of the brush's built-in shape scale. The size slider then sweeps between them.

Some quick mental math:

• Max 100%, Min 0%: the slider covers the brush's full natural range.
• Max 50%, Min 0%: the slider at 100% gives you half the brush's natural size. The whole slider is compressed into that smaller range.
• A raised minimum means the smallest slider position is still a visible, nonzero size.

So if a brush feels too small even with the slider at the top, the cause isn't the slider. The brush's maximum is capped low. If it feels too big at the bottom of the slider, raise the maximum less or lower the minimum.

Editing max size safely

Before you change anything in Brush Studio, duplicate the brush. In the brush library, swipe left on the brush and tap Duplicate. Edit the copy, which keeps your original intact if you decide the change was a mistake. Then open the duplicate, go to Properties, and drag the maximum size slider until the top end of the main slider gives you the largest stroke you actually need.

If it's a textured brush, check the grain settings too. Grain scaling can behave independently of stroke size, so after you enlarge a brush, the texture may look too fine or too coarse. Test a stroke and adjust.

Why the same brush size looks different on different canvases

Slider percentages are relative, but pixels aren't. The same brush at the same percentage will look noticeably different on a 1,000 px canvas than on a 3,000 px one, even at 300 dpi:

• On a large canvas, the smallest strokes read as even thinner, and grain or texture can disappear.
• On a small canvas, 100% looks chunky, and texture is more pronounced.
• Filling a big shape on a high-resolution canvas takes more strokes, since the brush covers less of it.

If you routinely work at high resolution, raise the maximum size on duplicated working brushes rather than fighting a too-small ceiling. And whenever you compare brushes or share a brush recipe with a colleague, note the canvas size alongside it.

Troubleshooting: when the size won't change the way you expect

• The slider moves but the brush barely changes. Check Max and Min in Brush Studio. A narrow range makes the slider feel dead.
• The brush is huge at the lowest setting. The minimum may be set high. Lower it in Properties on a duplicate.
• Strokes vary in width while you draw. That's pressure or tilt dynamics from Apple Pencil, which are separate from the base size. Look at the Apple Pencil and dynamics sections in Brush Studio if you want a more uniform line.
• You can't hit the exact size you want. Use the tap-and-hold, move-away technique, then save the result.
• A texture looks wrong after resizing. Adjust grain scale or movement, not just the main size.

Where brush size consistency matters in a motion pipeline

You may not live in Procreate all day, but plenty of motion designers, animators, and concept artists use it for style exploration, storyboards, and hand-drawn keyframes on an iPad before moving into After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender, or Nuke. In that handoff, line weight consistency is a production issue, not just an aesthetic one. If your hero frame has a 12 px contour and your end frame has a 20 px contour, interpolation and style matching downstream will inherit that mismatch.

A few habits keep the handoff clean:

• Decide your line weights up front, and save them as presets on each working brush.
• Work at the final delivery resolution or an exact multiple of it, so brush percentages translate predictably.
• Keep ink, color, and shading on separate layers, and export with transparency where you can, so compositing stays flexible.
• Name and number your frames, then export a PNG sequence rather than a single flattened image.

Quick reference

Frequently asked questions

Does Procreate show brush size in pixels?

Not on the main slider. It shows a percentage of the brush's defined range, which depends on the brush's Max and Min size limits and the canvas dimensions.

Why does my brush look smaller on a bigger canvas?

The percentage stays the same, but the canvas contains more pixels, so the same stroke covers a smaller share of it. Raise the maximum size on a duplicated brush if you need a bigger ceiling.

Can I set a default size for a brush?

You can save sizes on the slider for quick recall, and you can reshape the range in Brush Studio. Duplicate the brush first so your original stays unchanged.

To change brush size in Procreate, drag the top slider on the left side of the canvas up to enlarge the brush or down to shrink it. For finer control, tap and hold the slider, then slide your finger horizontally away from it, which makes the adjustments smaller and more precise. Each brush's size range comes from its Brush Studio settings (Properties > Size limits), so a brush that won't get bigger or smaller usually has Max or Min size set too tight.

How to change brush size in Procreate (the basic method)

Procreate keeps its two main sliders at the edge of the canvas, on the left by default. The upper slider controls size, and the lower one controls opacity.

1. Open your canvas and select a brush.
2. Put your finger or Apple Pencil on the top slider.
3. Drag up to make the brush larger, or down to make it smaller.
4. Release, then draw a test stroke on a spare layer or in a corner of the canvas.

One thing trips up people coming from desktop tools: the readout is a percentage, not a pixel value.

How to adjust brush size with precision

The size slider is sensitive, and a few pixels of finger movement can mean a big jump in line weight. The fix is built into every Procreate slider:

• Tap and hold the handle of the slider.
• Keep your finger down and slide it horizontally away from the slider, toward the middle of the canvas.
• Move up or down. The farther you are from the slider, the finer the increments.

This works on every slider in the app, including opacity, color adjustments, and canvas dimension fields. Once it becomes a habit, you can match line weights across sessions instead of eyeballing them, which matters if you're returning to a drawing days later and need strokes to look consistent.

How to save and recall a brush size

If you keep reaching for the same two or three sizes (say, a thin contour line and a heavier silhouette line), you don't need to rebuild them by hand each time. Tap the size slider and use the plus control to store the size you're on. You can save multiple sizes per brush, and the same approach works for opacity. After that, you can jump to a saved value instead of dragging for it.

A practical approach for production work:

• Save a thin, medium, and heavy size on your main inking brush.
• Save a low and high opacity on your shading brush.
• Keep the same saved values across a whole sequence of frames or boards so line weight doesn't drift from drawing to drawing.

Why Procreate shows percentages, and how Size limits work

The percentage readout confuses a lot of experienced artists, because Photoshop and Sketchbook Pro show pixels. In Procreate, the slider doesn't map to an absolute pixel count. It moves across a range defined by the brush itself.

That range lives in Brush Studio. Open the brush library, tap a brush to open its settings, and go to Properties. There you'll find size limit controls for a maximum size and a minimum size, both expressed as percentages of the brush's built-in shape scale. The size slider then sweeps between them.

Some quick mental math:

• Max 100%, Min 0%: the slider covers the brush's full natural range.
• Max 50%, Min 0%: the slider at 100% gives you half the brush's natural size. The whole slider is compressed into that smaller range.
• A raised minimum means the smallest slider position is still a visible, nonzero size.

So if a brush feels too small even with the slider at the top, the cause isn't the slider. The brush's maximum is capped low. If it feels too big at the bottom of the slider, raise the maximum less or lower the minimum.

Editing max size safely

Before you change anything in Brush Studio, duplicate the brush. In the brush library, swipe left on the brush and tap Duplicate. Edit the copy, which keeps your original intact if you decide the change was a mistake. Then open the duplicate, go to Properties, and drag the maximum size slider until the top end of the main slider gives you the largest stroke you actually need.

If it's a textured brush, check the grain settings too. Grain scaling can behave independently of stroke size, so after you enlarge a brush, the texture may look too fine or too coarse. Test a stroke and adjust.

Why the same brush size looks different on different canvases

Slider percentages are relative, but pixels aren't. The same brush at the same percentage will look noticeably different on a 1,000 px canvas than on a 3,000 px one, even at 300 dpi:

• On a large canvas, the smallest strokes read as even thinner, and grain or texture can disappear.
• On a small canvas, 100% looks chunky, and texture is more pronounced.
• Filling a big shape on a high-resolution canvas takes more strokes, since the brush covers less of it.

If you routinely work at high resolution, raise the maximum size on duplicated working brushes rather than fighting a too-small ceiling. And whenever you compare brushes or share a brush recipe with a colleague, note the canvas size alongside it.

Troubleshooting: when the size won't change the way you expect

• The slider moves but the brush barely changes. Check Max and Min in Brush Studio. A narrow range makes the slider feel dead.
• The brush is huge at the lowest setting. The minimum may be set high. Lower it in Properties on a duplicate.
• Strokes vary in width while you draw. That's pressure or tilt dynamics from Apple Pencil, which are separate from the base size. Look at the Apple Pencil and dynamics sections in Brush Studio if you want a more uniform line.
• You can't hit the exact size you want. Use the tap-and-hold, move-away technique, then save the result.
• A texture looks wrong after resizing. Adjust grain scale or movement, not just the main size.

Where brush size consistency matters in a motion pipeline

You may not live in Procreate all day, but plenty of motion designers, animators, and concept artists use it for style exploration, storyboards, and hand-drawn keyframes on an iPad before moving into After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender, or Nuke. In that handoff, line weight consistency is a production issue, not just an aesthetic one. If your hero frame has a 12 px contour and your end frame has a 20 px contour, interpolation and style matching downstream will inherit that mismatch.

A few habits keep the handoff clean:

• Decide your line weights up front, and save them as presets on each working brush.
• Work at the final delivery resolution or an exact multiple of it, so brush percentages translate predictably.
• Keep ink, color, and shading on separate layers, and export with transparency where you can, so compositing stays flexible.
• Name and number your frames, then export a PNG sequence rather than a single flattened image.

Quick reference

Frequently asked questions

Does Procreate show brush size in pixels?

Not on the main slider. It shows a percentage of the brush's defined range, which depends on the brush's Max and Min size limits and the canvas dimensions.

Why does my brush look smaller on a bigger canvas?

The percentage stays the same, but the canvas contains more pixels, so the same stroke covers a smaller share of it. Raise the maximum size on a duplicated brush if you need a bigger ceiling.

Can I set a default size for a brush?

You can save sizes on the slider for quick recall, and you can reshape the range in Brush Studio. Duplicate the brush first so your original stays unchanged.