DrawWithMike.net

Procreate has so many possibilities, but I personally enjoy the fact that I can just draw traditionally on my screen. My experience is with graphite pencil drawing, as well as pen and ink and a little watercolour, and so these are the things I gravitate towards

I love exploring textures and I love drawing birds. Hornbills fit the bill perfectly! There is a saying that you are as beautiful or as ugly as you believe you are, and looking at them it seems to me that they believe they’re quite magnificent. I agree!! They also look like modern day flying dinosaurs which adds to their appeal.

I’m using reference of Rhinoceros Hornbill from Pexel for this project.

Focusing mainly on the head and neck allows me to explore their impressive bill, since the head and neck feathers are contour feathers and can be represented similarly to fur or hair. There may be just a suggestion of covert feathers on the folded wing.

The “horn” is called a casque and it is thought to help amplify the male’s call, although in some species it may be used in combat. It may even help in searching and digging for food, or in nest building.

I imported my reference into Procreate, then I created a layer above and outlined areas I want to pay attention to. This is personal, but I like to study changes in hair or in this case feather growth, and the complex areas of texture on the beak and casque. Any pencil available in Procreate will work, but I’m using mainly the Narinder pencil.

An interesting feature of Procreate is the preview window. You can access it by selecting the wrench icon at top left, then canvas, and toggle on reference. A small window appears which you can resize and move around your screen and you can import your reference image into this window. You can zoom into your reference image to see details. You can even select colour from this reference window if you’re working in colour. It allows you to keep your reference image at hand for quick referral. I personally don’t use it much because I find it clutters the iPad’s already small screen, but that’s a personal choice.

Before we can start drawing, I’d like to talk about 3 tools that can help us draw traditionally in Procreate.

Firstly, we need a brush that looks and feels like a graphite pencil. Procreate has several of these in the sketching category. The HB and 6B are the most popular, but there are other choices available. As with traditional graphite pencils, you can use these to draw a fine line by holding the iPad pencil normally, that is at an angle or perpendicular to the screen. You can also lay the tip of the pencil quite flat to the screen and sweep back and forth to cover larger areas as you would with a traditional wood pencil. Below are some samples .
You can see that the brushes have varying textures meant to simulate different papers. If, like me, you’re used to drawing on a relatively texture-free paper like Conqueror or Olin, then the HB, Derwent and Peppermint seem like better choices. Also, if you’re used to tapering your strokes as we do with fur and whiskers, I would stay away from Narinder.

As you can see I created a pencil brush which works well for me. If you’d like to try it, just message me and I’d be happy to share it.

Next, we can talk about paper texture. There are many you can download online. Again, I created one which is very subtle, and as with the pencil brush, I’m happy to share this too. Paper textures are almost always used in Multiply mode, above the drawing layer. This is how they look when used together.

The third tool is optional. It can be used as a colour palette. If you’re used to working with a value scale, or if you’re just beginning to learn Procreate, this can be useful. Later on, I think you’ll find that you can get a range of values using the same pencil, by either layering or applying more pressure. Once again, you can message me for it, or take a screen grab here.
Now we’re ready! In the next post, we’ll start drawing.

I’ll start with the beak area as this is where the most interesting texture is.

I set the red outline layer to multiply, and reduce the opacity, just to make it more subtle. I keep the reference available on separate layers, both in colour and in greyscale, just so I can occasionally refer to it when needed. I grouped them together just to keep my work surface neat and organized . I explained earlier that you can also use the preview window, but I prefer working this way. Of course, you can always print out your reference and keep it nearby. I also sometimes work that way.

Here is a screenshot of my layers so far. Notice that I’ll be drawing on a layer below everything else.
In my red outline layer, I designated some areas on the beak and casque as L, M or D, meaning light, medium or dark. On the greyscale colour palette I provided, I show which values I used for L, M and D.

I’ll be using my pencil brush which I offered in the previous post, but any pencil brush you like will do.

Because I’m trying to make this easier for beginners, we’ll use the greyscale colour palette I provided, just to get started.

Here are the beak and casque filled in as described, using L, M or D values. I drew each on its own layer because this way I can make corrections to each value without affecting the other two. It’s easier to draw the whole area in the light value, then go over the medium and dark areas with the medium and dark values, the same way we would layer graphite pencils when drawing on paper. Once we’re satisfied, we can flatten the 3 layers ( click on a layer and select merge down).

I could continue in this manner, selecting my values from the palette above the drawing, and drawing using one of the pencils. I could press harder for a darker value, or select a darker value from the palette in the same way that we might move from an HB pencil to a 2B pencil.

However, since we have the ability to work digitally in Procreate, I can show you different methods that are still intuitive, but take advantage of this software. Similar software such as Krita which is free to download should have similar commands.

In graphite drawing, we depend on lights and darks to give us a sense of depth and contour. In Procreate we can achieve this by using blend modes. I like to principally use Multiply for shadows and Overlay for highlights, but you can explore some of the other modes. I will also abandon the palette now because I find it easier to gently move up or down in value using the Color Panel in classic mode (image 1) and the Opacity sliders (image 2).
In Image 1, you can see how you can slide up or down the extreme left side of the Color Panel to select a lighter or darker grey. In Image 2, opacity slider 1 allows me to reduce the opacity of the current brushstroke, whereas slider 2 controls the opacity of the whole layer.

At this stage I like to turn the opacity of the red outline layer down. It’s there just as a guide, and can be distracting at this point. The original reference becomes more and more important, and I refer to it often.

The marks on birds’ beaks (or bills, if you prefer) change as the the beak grows and as the bird utilizes it. Beaks serve many functions such as foraging for food, preening, building nests, defending themselves and many more. That means that the beaks and in this case, the casque too, can take a beating and develop cracks and nicks. It’s not important to duplicate these precisely as they appear in the reference, because in real life they are constantly changing. All I’m trying to do is convey a feeling of contour and texture.

I explained earlier that I keep the reference available on separate layers, both in colour and in greyscale, just so I can occasionally refer to it when needed. This is a screen shot of my layers so far.
I add a layer above the flattened beak layer, set the blend mode to multiply, and rename it Shadow. A helpful hint is to set this new layer to Clipping Mask, which only allows you to draw on the beak. If you draw outside that area, your strokes will be hidden.
I like to use the Soft Airbrush under Airbrushing to begin. I select a grey tone somewhere between the lightest and the middle to the Color Panel (see Image 1 above). There are no set rules for this. Try a grey tone and if it’s too light or dark, undo your strokes, and slide up or down the Color Panel. This is digital art and everything is correctable…well, almost everything!

Here is a before and after of this stage. The effect is subtle and natural, but you can definitely see the difference. I take my time, shut off the red outline layer from time to time to get a feeling of how the beak looks without it, and I look at my reference often.

A benefit of working digitally, is that you can try things on a different layer, so that the original drawing remains untouched. In this case, I felt that the shadow layer wasn’t dark enough. There are several ways of dealing with this, but I wanted to try darkening it without affecting the original shadow layer, in case I chose to leave it as is.

An easy way to achieve this, is to simply duplicate the original shadow layer. Because the blend mode is set to Multiply, these layers are transparent, not opaque. The shadow therefore appears twice as dark. This is too much, in my opinion. The method I usually use is to turn the opacity of the duplicate layer all the way down to 0%, by sliding the opacity all the way to the left. Then, I slowly slide it to the right, until I like what I see. In this case I stopped at 57%.
This is a screenshot of my layers.
Here is a comparison of the original flattened layer without shadows, the addition of the first shadow layer, and finally the addition of the duplicate shadow layer at 57% opacity. Quite a difference!

So much knowledge
Honesty, artwork comes one way to admire, but the information you are sharing is priceless Laurene
I’m enjoying it a lot…
I’m short with words ~ it’s so informative and professionally described

Thanks for your interest in my Procreate work Artur!

It’s coming along slowly. I’m finding it’s not easy to explain every step, because I tend to work intuitively at this point. I’m trying not to skip any steps though.

I’ve also had to dig myself out of the heaviest snowfall in three days since 1898 in my part of Canada!!! . It’s very pretty now, after the storm, but I hope the worst is over for this year anyway!

Laurene wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2025 7:25 pm Thanks for your interest in my Procreate work Artur!

It’s coming along slowly. I’m finding it’s not easy to explain every step, because I tend to work intuitively at this point. I’m trying not to skip any steps though.

I’ve also had to dig myself out of the heaviest snowfall in three days since 1898 in my part of Canada!!! . It’s very pretty now, after the storm, but I hope the worst is over for this year anyway!

Yes, I'm sure it's not easy task to explaining single steps in order
I'm very like you - I'm just adjusting things sort of guessing/feeling rather than stiff procedure...
I can draw, but ask me to teach what I'm doing lol lol lol

Funny is - I've got a friend from Canada and he's posted yesterday screenshots from forecasting app - it was -37C
I can only imagine the condition you're facing now ...
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