To make a clipping mask in Procreate, put the layer you want to clip directly above your base layer, tap the upper layer, and choose Clipping Mask. The upper layer then shows only where the base layer has pixels, so strokes outside the base shape stay hidden but are not erased. You can stack several clipped layers on one base and edit, move, recolor, or change the blend mode of each one independently.

For motion designers, the rest of this guide covers the exact steps, the common failure cases, how clipping differs from Alpha Lock and Layer Masks, and how to carry clipped artwork into a motion pipeline.

What a clipping mask does in Procreate

A clipping mask ties one layer to the layer beneath it. The lower layer is the base. The upper layer is the clipped layer. Wherever the base is transparent, the clipped layer is hidden. Wherever the base has paint, the clipped layer shows through.

Two details matter in practice:

• The clipped layer still records strokes outside the base shape. They are simply masked out. If you unclip the layer, that overpainting reappears.
• The mask follows the base. If you erase part of the base or reshape it, the clipped content updates to match. You never repaint shading because a silhouette changed.

That second behavior is why artists use clipping masks for shadows, highlights, textures, and color variations.

How to create a clipping mask, step by step

1. Build the base layer. Draw or fill the shape you want to clip to, such as a character silhouette, a lettering layer, or a circle used as a crop.
2. Add a new layer directly above it. The clipped layer must sit immediately above the base, or above another clipped layer that is already attached to it.
3. Tap the new layer to open the Layer Options menu.
4. Tap Clipping Mask. A small downward arrow appears on the layer thumbnail, showing it is clipped to the layer below.
5. Paint freely. Use large brushes, textures, or gradients without worrying about the edges. Only the area over the base shape is visible.

To release the clip, tap the layer again and choose Clipping Mask to toggle it off.

Stacking multiple clipping masks

You can attach as many clipped layers as you need to a single base layer. A typical breakdown looks like this:

• Base: flat color silhouette
• Clipped layer 1: soft shadow
• Clipped layer 2: highlights
• Clipped layer 3: texture or grain
• Clipped layer 4: color accents, such as stripes or spots

Every clipped layer references the same base. You can reorder them by dragging, hide them individually, lower their opacity, and assign different blend modes to each. Because they're separate layers, you can also recolor or reposition one without touching the others.

Using a shape as the base to crop artwork

You can reverse the usual workflow. Instead of painting on top of finished artwork, draw a simple shape, such as a circle, and place it under the layer you want to crop. Clip your lettering, photo texture, or gradient to it. Now the shape acts as a window. Erase part of the base and the clipped content disappears there. Paint on the base and the clipped content appears in the new area. This is a quick way to build reveal effects and shaped crops without destructive erasing.

Troubleshooting: why your clipping mask isn't working

Most "broken" clipping masks come from a few predictable causes:

• The base layer is empty. If nothing is painted on the layer below, nothing will show on the clipped layer. Fill or paint the base first.
• You clipped the wrong layer. The Clipping Mask option belongs on the upper layer, not the base.
• Your strokes are outside the base shape. They are hidden by design. If you need to paint beyond the base's edges, use a normal layer instead.
• Colors match. If the clipped layer and base are the same color, you won't see a difference. Temporarily fill the clipped layer with a bright color to confirm the mask works.
• Wrong layer order. The clipped layer has to be directly above its base. Another unclipped layer in between breaks the relationship.
• Layer limits. Each clipped layer is a real layer, and Procreate has layer limits. Complex stacks can hit them, so merge finished clipped layers when you're done iterating.

Clipping mask vs. Alpha Lock vs. Layer Mask

Procreate gives you three related tools, and choosing the right one depends on how much you want to keep editable.

Alpha Lock

Alpha Lock restricts painting to pixels that already exist on a layer. Swipe right on a layer with two fingers, or toggle it in the layer menu. It needs no extra layers, which is convenient, but it is destructive: you are changing the original pixels, so you can't remove the shading later without redoing the work. Use it for quick recolors of simple shapes.

Clipping mask

A clipping mask keeps content on its own layer, constrained by the layer below. It uses more layers but stays non-destructive, so you can adjust opacity, blend mode, position, and color at any time. Use it for shading, texture, and anything you might revise.

Layer Mask

A Layer Mask attaches to a single layer and hides or reveals parts of that layer using grayscale. Black hides, white reveals, and gray gives partial opacity. It's the right choice for soft fades, gradients, and non-destructive erasing. Unlike a clipping mask, it doesn't take its shape from another layer. You paint the visibility directly.

A simple rule: use a clipping mask when one layer's shape should control another layer, a Layer Mask when you want to hand-paint visibility on one layer, and Alpha Lock when speed matters more than flexibility.

Why clipping masks matter for motion work

If you're an animator or motion designer using Procreate for concept art, boards, textures, or cel-style frames, clipping masks give you a layer structure that translates well into compositing. Separating base color, shadow, highlight, and texture into distinct layers gives you elements you can adjust in a compositor.

Some practical habits:

• Name layers by function. "Char_base," "Char_shadow," and "Char_hilite" are far easier to reconnect later than "Layer 14."
• Keep clipped layers directly above their bases and group related sets before export.
• Use blend modes deliberately. Blend modes may not match your compositing app's math one-to-one, so check the result after import and adjust.
• Check your layered export. If you export layered files, confirm that clipped layers and blend modes come through the way you expect. If they don't, merge the clipped layer into a flattened version before export.
• Preserve a flattened reference. Export a flat PNG too, so you have a visual ground truth when comparing against the imported layers.

Quick reference

• Create: put a layer above the base, tap it, choose Clipping Mask.
• Remove: tap the clipped layer, choose Clipping Mask again.
• Stack: add more clipped layers above the same base.
• Edit the shape: change the base layer and every clipped layer follows.
• Paint outside the base: use a normal, unclipped layer.
• Need soft or hand-painted hiding: use a Layer Mask.
• Need a fast, destructive recolor: use Alpha Lock.

Once the base-and-clip relationship is second nature, shading, texturing, and recoloring in Procreate become faster and far easier to revise. They also leave you with cleaner, better-organized layers when the artwork moves into your compositing pipeline.

To make a clipping mask in Procreate, put the layer you want to clip directly above your base layer, tap the upper layer, and choose Clipping Mask. The upper layer then shows only where the base layer has pixels, so strokes outside the base shape stay hidden but are not erased. You can stack several clipped layers on one base and edit, move, recolor, or change the blend mode of each one independently.

For motion designers, the rest of this guide covers the exact steps, the common failure cases, how clipping differs from Alpha Lock and Layer Masks, and how to carry clipped artwork into a motion pipeline.

What a clipping mask does in Procreate

A clipping mask ties one layer to the layer beneath it. The lower layer is the base. The upper layer is the clipped layer. Wherever the base is transparent, the clipped layer is hidden. Wherever the base has paint, the clipped layer shows through.

Two details matter in practice:

• The clipped layer still records strokes outside the base shape. They are simply masked out. If you unclip the layer, that overpainting reappears.
• The mask follows the base. If you erase part of the base or reshape it, the clipped content updates to match. You never repaint shading because a silhouette changed.

That second behavior is why artists use clipping masks for shadows, highlights, textures, and color variations.

How to create a clipping mask, step by step

1. Build the base layer. Draw or fill the shape you want to clip to, such as a character silhouette, a lettering layer, or a circle used as a crop.
2. Add a new layer directly above it. The clipped layer must sit immediately above the base, or above another clipped layer that is already attached to it.
3. Tap the new layer to open the Layer Options menu.
4. Tap Clipping Mask. A small downward arrow appears on the layer thumbnail, showing it is clipped to the layer below.
5. Paint freely. Use large brushes, textures, or gradients without worrying about the edges. Only the area over the base shape is visible.

To release the clip, tap the layer again and choose Clipping Mask to toggle it off.

Stacking multiple clipping masks

You can attach as many clipped layers as you need to a single base layer. A typical breakdown looks like this:

• Base: flat color silhouette
• Clipped layer 1: soft shadow
• Clipped layer 2: highlights
• Clipped layer 3: texture or grain
• Clipped layer 4: color accents, such as stripes or spots

Every clipped layer references the same base. You can reorder them by dragging, hide them individually, lower their opacity, and assign different blend modes to each. Because they're separate layers, you can also recolor or reposition one without touching the others.

Using a shape as the base to crop artwork

You can reverse the usual workflow. Instead of painting on top of finished artwork, draw a simple shape, such as a circle, and place it under the layer you want to crop. Clip your lettering, photo texture, or gradient to it. Now the shape acts as a window. Erase part of the base and the clipped content disappears there. Paint on the base and the clipped content appears in the new area. This is a quick way to build reveal effects and shaped crops without destructive erasing.

Troubleshooting: why your clipping mask isn't working

Most "broken" clipping masks come from a few predictable causes:

• The base layer is empty. If nothing is painted on the layer below, nothing will show on the clipped layer. Fill or paint the base first.
• You clipped the wrong layer. The Clipping Mask option belongs on the upper layer, not the base.
• Your strokes are outside the base shape. They are hidden by design. If you need to paint beyond the base's edges, use a normal layer instead.
• Colors match. If the clipped layer and base are the same color, you won't see a difference. Temporarily fill the clipped layer with a bright color to confirm the mask works.
• Wrong layer order. The clipped layer has to be directly above its base. Another unclipped layer in between breaks the relationship.
• Layer limits. Each clipped layer is a real layer, and Procreate has layer limits. Complex stacks can hit them, so merge finished clipped layers when you're done iterating.

Clipping mask vs. Alpha Lock vs. Layer Mask

Procreate gives you three related tools, and choosing the right one depends on how much you want to keep editable.

Alpha Lock

Alpha Lock restricts painting to pixels that already exist on a layer. Swipe right on a layer with two fingers, or toggle it in the layer menu. It needs no extra layers, which is convenient, but it is destructive: you are changing the original pixels, so you can't remove the shading later without redoing the work. Use it for quick recolors of simple shapes.

Clipping mask

A clipping mask keeps content on its own layer, constrained by the layer below. It uses more layers but stays non-destructive, so you can adjust opacity, blend mode, position, and color at any time. Use it for shading, texture, and anything you might revise.

Layer Mask

A Layer Mask attaches to a single layer and hides or reveals parts of that layer using grayscale. Black hides, white reveals, and gray gives partial opacity. It's the right choice for soft fades, gradients, and non-destructive erasing. Unlike a clipping mask, it doesn't take its shape from another layer. You paint the visibility directly.

A simple rule: use a clipping mask when one layer's shape should control another layer, a Layer Mask when you want to hand-paint visibility on one layer, and Alpha Lock when speed matters more than flexibility.

Why clipping masks matter for motion work

If you're an animator or motion designer using Procreate for concept art, boards, textures, or cel-style frames, clipping masks give you a layer structure that translates well into compositing. Separating base color, shadow, highlight, and texture into distinct layers gives you elements you can adjust in a compositor.

Some practical habits:

• Name layers by function. "Char_base," "Char_shadow," and "Char_hilite" are far easier to reconnect later than "Layer 14."
• Keep clipped layers directly above their bases and group related sets before export.
• Use blend modes deliberately. Blend modes may not match your compositing app's math one-to-one, so check the result after import and adjust.
• Check your layered export. If you export layered files, confirm that clipped layers and blend modes come through the way you expect. If they don't, merge the clipped layer into a flattened version before export.
• Preserve a flattened reference. Export a flat PNG too, so you have a visual ground truth when comparing against the imported layers.

Quick reference

• Create: put a layer above the base, tap it, choose Clipping Mask.
• Remove: tap the clipped layer, choose Clipping Mask again.
• Stack: add more clipped layers above the same base.
• Edit the shape: change the base layer and every clipped layer follows.
• Paint outside the base: use a normal, unclipped layer.
• Need soft or hand-painted hiding: use a Layer Mask.
• Need a fast, destructive recolor: use Alpha Lock.

Once the base-and-clip relationship is second nature, shading, texturing, and recoloring in Procreate become faster and far easier to revise. They also leave you with cleaner, better-organized layers when the artwork moves into your compositing pipeline.