How To Draw a Butterfly Step by Step in Procreate Tutorial

Hi guys, I’m Kris. Welcome to this week’s tutorial. Let’s draw together. In this week’s tutorial we’ll be drawing a monarch butterfly that’s pink, of course, in procreate, and I’m sure you can create this too, if you follow along with the video all the way to the end, or at the very least you’ll have fun doing it. So if you feel rushed, be sure to hit pause or rewind to catch up and save this video to a playlist so you can re-watch and get some extra practice in.

We’ll Be Using Three Brushes

So today we’ll be using all three brushes, just found in procreate, and don’t forget, once you finish this entire video and you’ve completed your butterfly, to share it with me on Instagram and tag me in the image as well as the description, so I can easily find your art work and hopefully, you might see it featured in the next draw together video. So let’s get to it. So for this tutorial, I’ve made you a free palette just in case you’d like to use the exact colors I’ll be using for this drawing today, and you can just tap on the link in the video description below, and so you can download it and install into procreate. Alright, so let’s jump in and grab your pencil and set up your canvas, I’ll be creating this one at 4000 by 4000 pixels, 300 dpi and sRGB.

 

So what I’m gonna do today actually is a little bit different because we’re drawing a butterfly, that’s relatively symmetrical, so I’m gonna show you how to use the drawing assist feature for our sketch, so I’m gonna go and just get a black color… That’s fine. Doesn’t really matter what color, gonna go to my pens, gonna go to the sketching section, get my wonderful 6B, I’m gonna have it at… What is this? Let’s say around 50%, 100% opacity. And next, I’m going to go over to my wrench, click on that, go to Canvas, switch on the drawing guide, and then I’m gonna go… You’ll need to make sure that you go into the edit drawing guide and see here there’s 2D grid isometric perspective and symmetry, so we want the symmetry one.

 

I’m gonna have the opacity at 25%, the thickness at 50, that’s just the line, if you can see that in between there and the opacity, that’s what that is displaying there, so we can just have it at 25, whatever your personal preference is there, it won’t adjust or have too much effect on your drawing there, and then click the options and make sure you have vertical checked and assisted drawing on as well.

 

Keep this one off. Alright, so I say done. And so now this layer will say assisted, so you can turn that on and off by clicking on it and clicking on and off the drawing assist, but for this, we do want it on. Okay, so what this does is super fun, it draws the same thing on the other side, yay, so that you can see why that’d be really useful for this butterfly, so let’s get to it, I just accidentally turned it off .  Okay, so I’m gonna go and start with the body, and for that it’s just gonna be a little head like that, you can see that, and then it’s gonna be a little sausage shape like that. Right. Okay, so then we know his little turner gonna be around here somewhere. Actually maybe a little bit more like that. Something like that.

Start The Wing Shape

And then I’m gonna start the wing shape, so kinda come around like that. So there’s that wing. And then this one is gonna come around like that. So you can play around with those shapes a little bit, so that is our sketch layer, so I’m gonna actually go click on the end, slide down the opacity and because I kinda want it to be a little bit more, I don’t know, a little bit more painterly, I guess would be the expression, I’m actually not gonna use the drawing assist again, I just wanted that for my sketch ’cause I want it to look slightly irregular, but at least we have something that is perfectly symmetrical to start from, so actually I’m gonna just make this a little bit smaller, I’m just gonna click on my arrow and just bring this in a little bit, put them back in the middle there.

 

Okay, so on a new Layer, I’m gonna start with this charcoal color, and I’m gonna get my favorite inking brush which is my dry ink brush, and then I’m going to set it at… Let’s see, that’s probably pretty good at around 10%, I can make it to show you, there we go, where it says 10%, opacity 100%, and then I’m just gonna start making some lines. Actually, I’m not sure if I want that line to come back in so let’s do this. I’m gonna end it there ’cause I’m gonna make some decisions with the pattern. And again, just playing with the pressure on my pen to create slightly different lines and this guy will outline the whole way.

 

Okay. I wanted those to be slightly off too, that’s enough, exactly perfect. So I think I’m gonna actually go back to my assisted drawing layer and pull that up a little bit and make the designs on those wings, ’cause actually, I do want those to be… Well, again, I only just draw them once, why not? It’s so much easier. So I’m just gonna go back to my sketching pencil, and I’m gonna draw in the details, so you can have fun with this, it can be whatever pattern you want.

 

Something like that.

And you can just play with this until you have all your designs in. I like butterflies there, there’s no real major rules too, you just have fun.

Okay, that’s probably enough. So again, I’m gonna bump this back down to about 25%, go back to my line layer here, so I think all this work here, I’m gonna have it in block, so I’m gonna keep on with the charcoal color and use my dry ink brush again and just go through and make all these line here.

Always Use a Reference Guide

And of course, you can always use a reference guide to just get some ideas for some interesting patterns.

Here we go.

Okay, I’m going to just bump up the size of my brush to about 60, just so I can get in here and color this, and I want it to be kind of scratchy like that.

Okay I’m just gonna erase this a little bit. Good. So, I’m gonna bring that back down to 12. Oops, that would be my eraser. Bring it down to 12. Just bump up that line a little bit. Alright, and now for the other side, maybe I’ll speed this up a little bit for you, but like I said, you can do this actually with the drawing assist on, then you wouldn’t have to do it twice, but because I want mine to look a little bit more regular, just those little extra little added bits, just looks like it’s not as digital and just a little bit more hand-done.

Do The Rest of The Wings

Okay. So now, I’m gonna go and do the rest of the wings. I’m going to do another layer, and I’m actually gonna go below that layer, below the black layer and get a new layer by hitting the plus sign. And then, I’m going to… Actually, I’m gonna use… I’m gonna fill this in with white. So I’m gonna change my color, my background color to this pink color, so we can see. I can go to my brushes select my studio pen and fill this in here. So I’m just gonna draw around where the black is, and you won’t see it yet, but there it comes just so we’re overlapping. So I’m gonna drag the white in and fill. Same on the other side. Drag it in and fill.

Now We Have White Wings

Okay, so now we have white wings. I’m gonna change this back just to white. Now, I know you can’t see anything, but we can hide our sketch layer for now. And we can put a layer by hitting plus sign above our white layer, clicking on it and clicking clipping mask. So then, I’m gonna go and take my pink color here, my mid-tone pink. Click on our brushes and go to painting, and I’m gonna select fresco. And I’m gonna bump it all the way up top to the biggest brush, but I’m gonna use a really light pressure on my pen because you can do this, or you can just layer it up. Just really gently, giving it some of the interesting texture, if you can see that. Okay, and then I’m going to go and select the darker pink, and I’m gonna put my brush down to maybe about 40%. Just gonna get some little pair of little patterns. Just trying to make it look a little interesting. Actually I don’t like that circle in the middle.

 

Okay, and again, I’m gonna bring my brush down even smaller. Let’s see. Even smaller than that to about five. I’m gonna come in here and do a little bit more, more details here. I think it gives it a really nice effect. Oops, that last little bit I don’t like. Testing little circles. Just layering it up. So a little bit too much pressure there. So I think you can see it looks pretty similar, but still there’s enough little inconsistencies, so it’s not completely robotic, and that’s what I was hoping for, so that looks good. Okay, and then I can go and take this white color and maybe just bring in some highlight, or just lighten it up a little bit. It actually doesn’t make too much effect on it, to be honest. Okay, that’s fine. Alright, then I want to do my white a little more details. So I’m gonna put a layer on top of the black layer. I’m actually gonna turn this black layer off and pop back on my sketch and turn off this white layer as well, just so I can see. And I’m going to… We will turn this background on again, just so we can see ’cause this will be white. So let’s grab our white and grab our dry ink again and come in and let’s be at, let’s say, 25… Maybe 15%. And then these are not gonna be perfect, they’re just gonna be irregular a little bit.

 

 

I just put a few flecks in just to have a little bit more detail. Okay, let’s just see how that’s looking. You can see that’ll look cool.

 

Let’s Turn Back On Those Layers

Okay so let’s turn back on those layers. And we’ll turn this back to white. And I can see I need to fix this a little bit ’cause I know it came down there, okay. Okay, great. So now we can turn off that sketch layer, probably for good. And then I’m gonna come in and do the body. And you know what? I will just make it solid black. Okay, let’s pump this back up to about, I don’t know, 50% Color this body in.

 

Okay, I think it’s looking pretty good. I’m gonna go back to my white layer, select that, select the white, bring my ink brush down a little bit to about 15%. I’m gonna give them a little details down the side? That’s probably good. Alright. Alright, I think I’m gonna just go and add a couple more things on my dark layer, I’m going to go and just get that charcoal and just make a few alterations. I’m gonna fill that in. I think I like that small, okay. I’m going to my white layer and I get to grab the white. I think I’m just going to do a few more.

That’s It!

Alright. So that’s it guy’s, great job hanging in there all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. And if you did, please hit that like button, subscribe, and don’t forget to hit the bell icon so you can be notified of new tutorials, just like this one in the future. So I love you guys, thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you in the next one.

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