To color a drawing in Procreate, put your line art on its own locked layer, then block in flat color on separate layers beneath it using ColorDrop (drag a color from the wheel into a closed shape) or a brush. Add shadows and highlights on clipped Multiply and Overlay layers, then fine-tune the palette with Hue, Saturation, Brightness, Color Balance, or Curves. Keeping line, color, and shading on separate layers means you can change any one of them later without redrawing.

Set up the canvas and line art

Start with the right canvas. If the drawing is headed for video, match the final aspect ratio and resolution now (1920×1080 or 3840×2160, for example), because resizing painted work later softens it.

Bring your sketch in one of three ways:

• Drew it in Procreate: keep it on its own layer.
• Copied from another canvas: use Copy on the layer, then Paste from the Actions menu in the new canvas.
• Drew it on paper: use Actions > Add > Take a Photo. Light the page evenly so you don't fight shadows later.

For a scanned or photographed sketch, clean it up before coloring:

1. Open Adjustments > Hue, Saturation, Brightness and pull saturation down to remove color casts.
2. Open Adjustments > Curves and drag the white point left until the paper turns white and the pencil stays dark.
3. Erase stray marks with a soft eraser.

Finally, rename the sketch layer "Line Art" and lock it. Swipe left on the layer and tap Lock so you can't paint on it by accident. This one habit prevents most coloring mistakes beginners run into.

Method 1: flat color with ColorDrop

ColorDrop is the fastest route to clean, flat color, and it suits graphic or cel-style work, where each region needs a solid fill.

1. Create a new layer below your line art for the fill.
2. Make sure your outlines are fully closed. Even a tiny gap lets the color leak across the whole canvas.
3. Drag the color swatch from the top-right corner into a shape. Keep your pen held down after dropping and slide left or right to adjust the Threshold, which controls how aggressively the fill reaches the edges.
4. If the fill leaks, either close the gap on your line art layer or set Line Art as the Reference layer. In the layer menu, tap the line art layer and choose Reference. Then fill on a separate layer and Procreate reads the outlines from the reference layer without you having to fill on the same layer.

ColorDrop can leave a thin fringe of unfilled pixels where anti-aliased lines meet fills. Setting the threshold a little higher, or painting a quick pass with a hard brush underneath the line art, usually closes that halo. This matters more for animation than for stills, because fringing flickers when it changes between frames.

Method 2: painting by hand under the lines

Painting gives you a looser, more illustrative result. The workflow is:

1. Add a new layer under the line art.
2. Choose a brush from the Painting, Airbrushing, or Inking sets. A textured gouache or watercolor brush gives you edge variation; a Studio Pen-style brush gives you crisp edges.
3. Paint over the lines slightly. Because the color is under the line art, the lines still read on top and any overlap is hidden.

If your line art is black on a transparent layer, this works with no blend modes at all. If your line art sits on a white background layer, set it to Multiply so the white drops out and color layers underneath show through.

To separate areas for easier editing, use one layer per major element: skin, hair, clothing, background. You can always merge layers later, but you can't split them easily.

Keep color inside the shapes: Alpha Lock, clipping masks, and selections

Three tools let you shade or texture without spilling outside a shape.

• Alpha Lock: turn it on for a layer and Procreate protects transparent pixels, so you can only paint where pixels already exist. It's quick, but destructive, because the shading lands on the same layer as the base color.
• Clipping Mask: add a layer above the base color, tap it, and choose Clipping Mask. Anything you paint there shows only where the base layer has pixels. This is the better option for production work because the base color stays untouched and you can delete or adjust shading on its own.
• Selection tool with Color Fill: select a region, then fill it. It's helpful for hand-drawn, irregular shapes where ColorDrop leaks.

As a rule of thumb, use Alpha Lock for quick sketches and clipping masks for anything you may revise.

Add shadows, highlights, and depth

Once flats are down, build form in clipped layers above each base color:

1. Shadows: add a clipped layer set to Multiply. Pick a desaturated purple or blue rather than black, and paint with a soft or textured brush at lower opacity. Overlapping strokes build up darker values.
2. Highlights: add another clipped layer set to Overlay or Soft Light. Paint with a warm, light color in the areas facing your light source.
3. Accents: use a small hard brush on a Normal layer for specular highlights, rim light, or color accents.

Decide on your light direction before you start. Figures and objects look flat when shadows fall in inconsistent directions, and in animation inconsistent lighting reads as shimmer from frame to frame.

A useful trick for beginners: shade in grayscale first on a Multiply layer, then color underneath. The shadows pick up the hue of whatever color sits below them, which keeps the result cohesive. You can also tint your line art by using Curves on the line layer, shifting black outlines to a warm dark brown or red for a softer look.

Choose and manage colors

You don't need an elaborate palette to start. Open the color panel and try:

• Harmony tab: pick a base color and let Procreate show harmonious options, such as complementary colors.
• Palettes tab: save your swatches in a named palette for the project so you can return to exact values.
• Import from a photo or file: create a palette from a reference image, which is handy for matching a client's brand colors or a film's color script.

Limit yourself to a base color, one shadow, and one highlight per object at first. Fewer colors make a drawing look intentional and make it easier to match across a sequence of frames.

Adjust and recolor with Adjustments

Procreate's Adjustments menu works on the active layer:

• Hue, Saturation, Brightness: the quickest way to shift a whole layer's color or mute it.
• Color Balance: push shadows, midtones, or highlights toward a different color. Useful for putting a warm or cool cast across an element.
• Curves: adjust contrast and color, with a histogram as a guide.
• Recolor: tap a new color onto your artwork to replace existing color.

Run adjustments on a separate group when you want to preserve your originals, or duplicate the layer first. For colorway variations, this is far faster than repainting.

Export so the coloring survives your pipeline

How you export depends on where the art goes next. Before exporting, hide any background or sketch layers you don't want, name your layers sensibly, and keep files at a resolution you won't have to upscale in the edit. If the art is going into another program, test how your Multiply and Overlay layers look there before judging the result.

Troubleshooting common coloring problems

• Color covers my lines: the color layer is above the line art. Move it below, or set the color layer to Multiply.
• Fill leaks everywhere: there's a gap in the outline. Zoom in and close it, or use Reference mode with a higher threshold.
• White halo around fills: anti-aliasing on the edge. Raise the threshold, or paint a hard-edged color layer under the fill.
• Shading spills outside shapes: use a clipping mask or Alpha Lock.
• Can't change a color without repainting: keep flats and shading on separate layers, and use Hue, Saturation, Brightness or Recolor on the base layer.

A quick workflow to remember

1. Set canvas size and import or draw the sketch.
2. Clean and lock the line art.
3. Block in flat colors on layers beneath it, using ColorDrop or a brush.
4. Add clipped Multiply shadows and Overlay highlights.
5. Adjust colors with HSB, Color Balance, or Curves.
6. Export your finished art.

The core principle is separation: lines, flats, shading, and adjustments each get their own layer. That keeps your drawing editable in Procreate and makes it far easier to carry into motion work.

To color a drawing in Procreate, put your line art on its own locked layer, then block in flat color on separate layers beneath it using ColorDrop (drag a color from the wheel into a closed shape) or a brush. Add shadows and highlights on clipped Multiply and Overlay layers, then fine-tune the palette with Hue, Saturation, Brightness, Color Balance, or Curves. Keeping line, color, and shading on separate layers means you can change any one of them later without redrawing.

Set up the canvas and line art

Start with the right canvas. If the drawing is headed for video, match the final aspect ratio and resolution now (1920×1080 or 3840×2160, for example), because resizing painted work later softens it.

Bring your sketch in one of three ways:

• Drew it in Procreate: keep it on its own layer.
• Copied from another canvas: use Copy on the layer, then Paste from the Actions menu in the new canvas.
• Drew it on paper: use Actions > Add > Take a Photo. Light the page evenly so you don't fight shadows later.

For a scanned or photographed sketch, clean it up before coloring:

1. Open Adjustments > Hue, Saturation, Brightness and pull saturation down to remove color casts.
2. Open Adjustments > Curves and drag the white point left until the paper turns white and the pencil stays dark.
3. Erase stray marks with a soft eraser.

Finally, rename the sketch layer "Line Art" and lock it. Swipe left on the layer and tap Lock so you can't paint on it by accident. This one habit prevents most coloring mistakes beginners run into.

Method 1: flat color with ColorDrop

ColorDrop is the fastest route to clean, flat color, and it suits graphic or cel-style work, where each region needs a solid fill.

1. Create a new layer below your line art for the fill.
2. Make sure your outlines are fully closed. Even a tiny gap lets the color leak across the whole canvas.
3. Drag the color swatch from the top-right corner into a shape. Keep your pen held down after dropping and slide left or right to adjust the Threshold, which controls how aggressively the fill reaches the edges.
4. If the fill leaks, either close the gap on your line art layer or set Line Art as the Reference layer. In the layer menu, tap the line art layer and choose Reference. Then fill on a separate layer and Procreate reads the outlines from the reference layer without you having to fill on the same layer.

ColorDrop can leave a thin fringe of unfilled pixels where anti-aliased lines meet fills. Setting the threshold a little higher, or painting a quick pass with a hard brush underneath the line art, usually closes that halo. This matters more for animation than for stills, because fringing flickers when it changes between frames.

Method 2: painting by hand under the lines

Painting gives you a looser, more illustrative result. The workflow is:

1. Add a new layer under the line art.
2. Choose a brush from the Painting, Airbrushing, or Inking sets. A textured gouache or watercolor brush gives you edge variation; a Studio Pen-style brush gives you crisp edges.
3. Paint over the lines slightly. Because the color is under the line art, the lines still read on top and any overlap is hidden.

If your line art is black on a transparent layer, this works with no blend modes at all. If your line art sits on a white background layer, set it to Multiply so the white drops out and color layers underneath show through.

To separate areas for easier editing, use one layer per major element: skin, hair, clothing, background. You can always merge layers later, but you can't split them easily.

Keep color inside the shapes: Alpha Lock, clipping masks, and selections

Three tools let you shade or texture without spilling outside a shape.

• Alpha Lock: turn it on for a layer and Procreate protects transparent pixels, so you can only paint where pixels already exist. It's quick, but destructive, because the shading lands on the same layer as the base color.
• Clipping Mask: add a layer above the base color, tap it, and choose Clipping Mask. Anything you paint there shows only where the base layer has pixels. This is the better option for production work because the base color stays untouched and you can delete or adjust shading on its own.
• Selection tool with Color Fill: select a region, then fill it. It's helpful for hand-drawn, irregular shapes where ColorDrop leaks.

As a rule of thumb, use Alpha Lock for quick sketches and clipping masks for anything you may revise.

Add shadows, highlights, and depth

Once flats are down, build form in clipped layers above each base color:

1. Shadows: add a clipped layer set to Multiply. Pick a desaturated purple or blue rather than black, and paint with a soft or textured brush at lower opacity. Overlapping strokes build up darker values.
2. Highlights: add another clipped layer set to Overlay or Soft Light. Paint with a warm, light color in the areas facing your light source.
3. Accents: use a small hard brush on a Normal layer for specular highlights, rim light, or color accents.

Decide on your light direction before you start. Figures and objects look flat when shadows fall in inconsistent directions, and in animation inconsistent lighting reads as shimmer from frame to frame.

A useful trick for beginners: shade in grayscale first on a Multiply layer, then color underneath. The shadows pick up the hue of whatever color sits below them, which keeps the result cohesive. You can also tint your line art by using Curves on the line layer, shifting black outlines to a warm dark brown or red for a softer look.

Choose and manage colors

You don't need an elaborate palette to start. Open the color panel and try:

• Harmony tab: pick a base color and let Procreate show harmonious options, such as complementary colors.
• Palettes tab: save your swatches in a named palette for the project so you can return to exact values.
• Import from a photo or file: create a palette from a reference image, which is handy for matching a client's brand colors or a film's color script.

Limit yourself to a base color, one shadow, and one highlight per object at first. Fewer colors make a drawing look intentional and make it easier to match across a sequence of frames.

Adjust and recolor with Adjustments

Procreate's Adjustments menu works on the active layer:

• Hue, Saturation, Brightness: the quickest way to shift a whole layer's color or mute it.
• Color Balance: push shadows, midtones, or highlights toward a different color. Useful for putting a warm or cool cast across an element.
• Curves: adjust contrast and color, with a histogram as a guide.
• Recolor: tap a new color onto your artwork to replace existing color.

Run adjustments on a separate group when you want to preserve your originals, or duplicate the layer first. For colorway variations, this is far faster than repainting.

Export so the coloring survives your pipeline

How you export depends on where the art goes next. Before exporting, hide any background or sketch layers you don't want, name your layers sensibly, and keep files at a resolution you won't have to upscale in the edit. If the art is going into another program, test how your Multiply and Overlay layers look there before judging the result.

Troubleshooting common coloring problems

• Color covers my lines: the color layer is above the line art. Move it below, or set the color layer to Multiply.
• Fill leaks everywhere: there's a gap in the outline. Zoom in and close it, or use Reference mode with a higher threshold.
• White halo around fills: anti-aliasing on the edge. Raise the threshold, or paint a hard-edged color layer under the fill.
• Shading spills outside shapes: use a clipping mask or Alpha Lock.
• Can't change a color without repainting: keep flats and shading on separate layers, and use Hue, Saturation, Brightness or Recolor on the base layer.

A quick workflow to remember

1. Set canvas size and import or draw the sketch.
2. Clean and lock the line art.
3. Block in flat colors on layers beneath it, using ColorDrop or a brush.
4. Add clipped Multiply shadows and Overlay highlights.
5. Adjust colors with HSB, Color Balance, or Curves.
6. Export your finished art.

The core principle is separation: lines, flats, shading, and adjustments each get their own layer. That keeps your drawing editable in Procreate and makes it far easier to carry into motion work.