How to Draw Flat Characters in Procreate

We are going to create a flat character or what is frequently called “cartoon yourself” in Procreate. It’s a fairly simple way (even if you are not great at drawing) to transform a picture into a flat cartoon.

Making cartoon drawings in Procreate is similar to flat character illustrations.

For this tutorial, we will be using a woman stock photo as reference. You can find more brushes, color palettes and other great Procreate tools to use in this project on Design Bundles.

Step 1: Open your reference image

First, create a new Canvas, use the size and resolution that you prefer. In this case, we used the Square template from Procreate. If you want to print it make sure that the resolution is 300 dpi.

Import your reference image into your canvas and resize it if necessary.

Step 2: Add the contour

We will start by creating the outline or contour of the character. Create a new layer on top of the reference image.

Lower the opacity of the reference image to about 60% (Click on the small N on its thumbnail to open the layer blend modes). This step should help you to see better when drawing on top of the dark portions of the image.

Select an inker brush (we used Studio Pen), make sure that you are using black as color, and start tracing around the character.

It doesn’t matter if your lines are not even because we are making a cartoon so the lines can be a bit messy.

Step 3: Remove the background

Create a duplicate of your reference image and hide the original one for now (uncheck the visibility box).

Use the eraser with a monoline brush and start erasing the background around the contour line you just created.

Once you erased around the character, use the selection tool with the freehand setting to select around the character again.

Include the background, and finish closing the selection.

After you finish selecting the background tap and swipe down with three fingers to bring out the cut/copy/paste menu and choose cut.

Here's the resulting image.

Step 4: Add the details to the outline

Create a new layer and add the details to the character (you can add them to the contour layer if you prefer). Start tracing the contour of the face, hair, and clothing.

When doing the outlines of the subject make sure that all of your lines touch in case you want to fill them with color later on.

Trace the contour of the mouth, teeth, eyebrows, glasses, etc. For the nose, the creases in the cheeks, and on top of the lips adjust some basic lines to mark them.

For the eyes, trace their contour, add lines on top of the eyelid and on the small crease under them. Outline the iris, fill the pupil with black and add some nice eyelashes.

Add the wrinkles to the clothing and other details.

Once you are happy with the results, you can merge the outline layers (pinch their thumbnails).

Step 5: Add the hair base color

Create a new layer under the contour one.

With your finger, press on top of the eyebrow to pick a medium to dark color, and then use the same brush you used for inking to fill inside the eyebrows.

You can go back to the contour layer and add some detail to the eyebrows.

For the hair, create a separate layer (if you want) and return the opacity of the reference layer to 100%.

Sample a medium shade of the hair color. Click on the contour layer thumbnail and select reference.

Then, remember to select back the hair color layer and drag the color to the portions of the hair you want to fill. If you closed the shapes the color should be applied just to the desired sections.

For the darker portions of the hair, sample again and fill them with that shade.

Remember to remove the reference from the contour layer and use black again to add some detail to the hair.

Now, select the hair color layer again and use a medium shade from the hair to create some wavy lines and add more detail to the hair.

Select a darker color and keep adding more detail.

Then, repeat with a lighter shade.

Step 6: Add highlights

Create a new layer on top of everything, name it highlights, and use white to add highlights to the hair.

Then, add some lines as highlights to the face like, on top of the eyebrows, the bridge of the nose, the chin, a couple of dots inside the pupils, etc.

Step 7: Color the clothes

To change the color of the clothes, in a new layer repeat the process used in step 5 and use the contour layer as reference and use a nice bright color to fill the clothing.

Click on the small N on the layer thumbnail to open the layer blend modes and change it to color burn (you may need to use a different blending mode depending on the original color of the clothing and the one you chose.

Step 8: Add the background

For the background, use a complementary color that will create a nice contrast with the clothing or hair. We used the harmony setting in the color panel to pick one.

Create a new layer under the contour and color ones and use a soft airbrush to apply a soft contour around the character.

Then, go to the adjustment panel (magic wand icon on the top left corner) and choose Gaussian blur.

Move the slider to about 25%.

Add another layer under the blurred one and fill it with a lighter shade of the color used before.

Step 9: Add the skin

We explored a couple of versions of rendering the skin, one with a gaussian blur and a layer mask and the second one with some flat color and a blending mode. You can also leave the skin as it is.

First method: using blending mode and a layer mask

Duplicate the reference layer and erase everything but the skin of the subject.

Apply a Gaussian blur of 5% to that layer.

Click on its thumbnail and select mask.

Then, select the mask thumbnail and fill it with black (you won’t see color but the blur will disappear).

Use a soft airbrush with white to bring back out the blurred skin and soften the face.

Here’s how your artwork should look similar like.

Second method: using blending a flat color layer and blending modes

Create a new layer on top of the reference layer, sample a medium shade of the subject’s skin, and fill the same portions of the image used in the skin layer. Make sure that you are not covering the eyes, mouth, and any other area that needs to be left out.

Click on the small N on the layer thumbnail to open the layer blend modes and change it to overlay.

Step 10: Final details

Look at your character and see if you need to polish the design a bit. In our case, we decided to add some white to the teeth to make them pop a bit.

Here’s our design.

If you liked this tutorial, make sure to check out our other Procreate tutorials like how to use Procreate stamps, and how to duplicate in Procreate.