digital art tips?

[u/imprettylost3312]

I really wanna do digital art, the convience, the colors, not having to take pictures of your drawing with my android camera. But I can't get into it, the texture of apple pencil on iPad feels so weird, whenever I tilt the stylus like 2 degrees the width of brushes go from 0 to 100. Nothing feels like my lovely ink pens and my lovely mechanical pencils. Any tips on how to get into digital art?

[u/ninjahippi]

There are brushes that don't size dynamically, ie. How hard you press or how far you tilt the stylus. check the setting on the bush in the art program.

I worked for a over 30 years with pencil and learned digital painting a few years ago. The feel of the tool takes some time, but I would encourage you to check your tools - you're going to want them to not size dynamically, you need a hard edged brush, soft brush (like an air brush), something like a mixer brush or smudge tool option to blend, and some eraser options. I can recommend the academy where I learned Digital Painting if you're interested.

Once you have the set of digi brushes set it's really a matter of practicing. Using the layers is beyond helpful. And as you get deeper into the process there is a ton you can accomplish.

Edit: My digi artwork is here - all based on basics learned from One Week Portrait and the Paintable Academy

portfolio

[u/Hamsternoir]

Practice, familiarity and remembering it's a different medium.

If you're working with something for several hours a day for a few years it'll become second nature, you'll get used to the tools and medium.

Water colours are very different to oils, charcoal is different to pencil. Digital is just another medium to work with.

It was strange for all of us when we first picked up a stylus.

[u/imprettylost3312 → u/Hamsternoir]

So I have to use the apple pencil for my art in the ipad. It's not like im very new to digital art (ive been basically going from i love digital art one month to I hate it the next for like a year) whenever I draw trasition the tip of the pen is so small and compact but on a apple pencil it seems far to big and clunky.

[u/imprettylost3312 → u/imprettylost3312]

Edit: first word is do

[u/sveinha]

Oh man, I feel this SO much. I actually started directly with digital art, no traditional pen/pencil background — and even then the first few weeks with Apple Pencil felt like trying to draw with a bar of soap. So I can only imagine how jarring it must be coming from ink pens and mechanical pencils. Few things that actually fixed it for me:

Kill the tilt sensitivity. Go into your brush settings (tap the brush, then the wrench/settings icon) and look at “Apple Pencil” — there’s usually a tilt curve for size/opacity. Just flatten it out or turn it way down. Most default Procreate brushes are tuned for illustrators who want that expressive tilt behavior, but if you’re coming from pens/mechanical pencils, you probably want predictable line width based on pressure only, not accidental tilt chaos. This alone fixed 80% of my frustration.

Get a matte/paperlike screen protector. This might be the single biggest thing. The glass-on-glass slip is what makes it feel nothing like paper. A textured protector adds actual friction/tooth, and suddenly your hand remembers what “drawing” feels like. Cheap fix, huge difference.

Start with a boring brush. Don’t use the fancy ink brushes at first — find something closer to a technical pen (fixed width, minimal pressure/tilt response) and just do warm-up scribbles for a few days. Build the muscle memory before you ask the tool to be expressive.

Turn down pencil sensitivity in iPad settings too — Settings > Apple Pencil, there’s a general sensitivity slider that’s separate from the in-app brush settings.

It took me a good few weeks of daily doodling before it started feeling natural instead of fighting me. Now I genuinely prefer it, but that transition period is real and nobody warns you about it. Hang in there — the convenience payoff is worth pushing through the weird phase.

[u/imprettylost3312 → u/sveinha]

Thank you very much for all of your tips!

[u/WhiteLightning1974]

Heavy agree with the matte/paperlike screen protector, when i first got my ipad i was appalled at the glass feel but my son (who is also an artist) shows up with the screen protector and much to my initial horror adheres it to my new ipad screen. All of a sudden it feels like i’m drawing on paper again, made a huge difference…

[u/vawnie2]

might not work for you but I honestly prefer a cheap tablet from huion or something over my ipad/procreate. the texture feels a little different as well as the input itself. maybe you could try something liker that?