How To Do Symmetry on Procreate: The Complete Guide

Who doesn’t love taking on any and all chances to improve and make our digital workflow much faster? We all would appreciate whatever aid we can get to create more amazing designs- this is where Procreate’s Symmetry Tool jumps in to ease the work!

With just a little tinkering around in the panel menu, you can generate concepts with ease and create stunning patterns within seconds. Play around it and doodle and you can even come up with new and interesting patterns you never would have thought of initially!

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Here’s a comprehensive guide on every symmetry tool guide available on the Procreate app and how you can use them to create your perfect artwork!

Where can I find the Symmetry Tool?

To start off, you will find the Symmetry Tool in the Actions > Drawing Guides menu. This will only be available when the Drawing Guide option is toggled on (toggled off by default) and the “Edit Drawing Guide” option is not grayed out. 

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Tapping on this will show you 4 powerful digital art tools and in the rightmost option, the tool we will be focusing on.

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In this panel, you can choose which guide you’d like to use, adjust the opacity and thickness of your symmetry line, and even change the color to your liking!

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Different Symmetry Guides

The Symmetry Tool consists of four guide options-- Vertical, Horizontal, Quadrant, Radial. In this guide, we will go through each one and how you can fully utilize them in the best way possible. We will also explore the “Rotational Symmetry” option and how it changes the symmetry game!

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Vertical Symmetry

As the name suggests, this option will create vertical symmetry. Basically, whatever mark you create on the left side of your canvas will be mirrored exactly on the right side, and vice versa. If you’re a concept artist, this tool will be superb in generating tons of ideas quickly and efficiently as it cuts down the brainstorming time literally in half!

Horizontal Symmetry

Like the Vertical Symmetry, this option also simply mirrors whatever mark you make on the upper portion of your canvas directly to the bottom portion of your canvas. 

Quadrant Symmetry

This symmetry divides your canvas into four equal sections.. To put it simply, it’s a combination of the Vertical and Horizontal Guides. Your strokes will get mirrored left to right and top to bottom! 

Radial Symmetry

The last of the bunch, Radial symmetry is a more advanced version of the Quadrant Symmetry in which it divides your canvas into 8 equal parts, instead of 4. The marks will be mirrored in each section! This guide is useful for making intricate patterns such as mandalas!

Is that all?

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Absolutely-- NOT! Now that you’ve learned the basics, let’s dive into how you can manipulate these guides further to make more advanced designs.

First, on your symmetry line you’ll find two different colored dots- one green and one blue. The green dot can be used to rotate the symmetry lines to any angle you’d like and the blue dot is used to move the line to wherever location in your canvas. 

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Now you can create symmetries anywhere and at any angle your piece needs!

Another tip (or trick!) is the Rotational Symmetry toggle. This option can be applied to all four symmetry guides and it will help spruce up where the symmetry marks will appear. Think of it as your marks being mirrored accordingly and then flipped vertically. 

It might sound and look confusing but rest assured, this will bring a certain hint of fun with experimentation and it’s best to play around and see what amazing new things you’ll come up with! Here are only a few of what you can do with this toggled on.

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Finishing off

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When you’re done with the Symmetry Tool, you can disable it by opening the layer panel, tapping on your layer and disabling ‘Drawing Assist’.

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Note that toggling off the ‘Drawing Guide’ will only hide the symmetry line and not disable the symmetry itself!

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To finish off this guide, it’s important to use each and every tool available to not only create an awesome work, but also be the best possible version of artist you can be. Now that you’ve learned what Symmetry Tools are and how you can use them, go ahead and let your imagination explore! You have exciting things in store for ya!

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