What Procreate Pens Or Pencils To Use Procreate's Clipping Mask Function?

Procreate Made Easy

We used Procreate for our designing home decor and home furniture products. We also use the Procreate clipping mask function a lot in these designs.

The clipping mask is a function in Procreate. You can place a design or pattern onto another shape, and it will clip into the boundaries and lines of that shape. But for the function to work properly, you must be able first to fill in the shape you want to clip mask with a color.

Not all Procreate pens or pencils will allow you to do this. This is why we have tested all the sketch and inking pens to find out which one works best for this function.

What is Clipping Mask?

The clipping mask is a function in Procreate similar to the clipping mask function in Photoshop and other programs. The top image is clipped into the exact shape of the bottom layer. This function is handy when doing home decor and home furniture design.

There are many ways you can use the clipping mask function. But if you want to fill in a solid shape like a circle or square, you must first be sure all lines are connected and that you can fill the area with a color. If you do not do this, then the clipping mask function will not work properly.

If you are interested in learning more about using the clipping mask function in Procreate, you can read our blog on 4 Easy Steps to Using the Clipping Mask Function in Procreate by clicking here. We also have several videos that show you how the clipping mask function works.

What Are the Procreate Pens, Pencils and Brushes?

One of the great things about Procreate is that you can turn your Apple pencil into various pens, pencils, and brushes with an endless amount of colors. This is a really great function when you are using it to sketch or paint on a digital canvas.

But can also get tricky to know exactly what brush, pen, or pencil to use when you are using the clipping mask function.

Here are the reasons why what pen, pencil or brush you choose for clipping mask does matter:

Not all pens, pencils, or brushes give you a solid line.
In the clipping mask function, you need to have a solid line to fill the area you want to do clipping masks—this an essential, especially when you want to fill in a circle or another shape.
Many Procreate pencils, and pens do not give you a solid line, so the clipping mask will not work. When doing this kind of technique where you will fill in an area or shape with color before you do the clipping mask, you need to choose a pen, pencil, or brush to give you a few good solid lines.

Another tip is to sketch the lines on the top or tip of the pencil if you want an immaculate line. This helps you to get a clean and even line.
You can also try to adjust the brush size and opacity to get a clean line.

In our tests, we tested the sketching pencils and the inking pencils for the Procreate clipping mask. We did not test other brushes because you normally want to have a spotless line with the clipping mask function.

When doing a clipping mak where you place a pattern on top of another shape, you want to use a pen or pencil that will give a clean line and be filled in first with a color. Many other Procreate brushes do not give a clean line as some of the sketch pencils and inking pens.

Our Top Choices for Procreate Sketch Pencils or Pastels.

We spent some time testing which sketch pencils work the best for the clipping mask. As we use the clipping mask function a lot in our designs, we have found that some pencils work better than others.

Here is our top choice of Procreate sketching pencils to use for clipping mask function when you use it to fill in with a color. All of these we are testing are under the sketching tool.

Peppermint Pencil – the clipping mask does work. But in other tests, it did not. It really depends on the tip size and opacity.
Darwent Pencil – In our test, it worked one time, and in the other test, it did not work. So this sketching pen is 50/50.
Procreate pencil, Technical pencil, HB pencil, soft pastel, oil pastel, and artistic crayon all failed to fill a shape for clipping mask.

6 B Pencil and Narinder Pencil both passed both times.

Our recommended sketching pencil for the sketching pencils to use for filling in color in shape for the clipping mask is Narinder. We found this pencil to be the most consistent of all sketching pencils in all tests we conducted.

Our Top Choices for Procreate Inking Pens.

We generally found that many of the inking pens had better results for doing the clipping mask to fill in an object or space with color. Some of them worked better than others, but we had more of the inking pens pass than fail.

Here are the tests for the Inking Pens:

Mercury, Tinderbox, Syrup, Thylacine, Fine Tip, Gel Pen, Ink Bleed, Dry Ink, Marker, and Gesinski all passed for the clipping mask put a color to the shape.
Inka, Pandani, Technical Pen all failed.

Studio Pen failed twice, but when we changed opacity, it finally worked.

My top pick for the clipping mask for the inking pens is the fine tip pen. The reason is that it gives an immaculate and fine line while at the same time, there are no breaks or spaces so that you can fill in the color to the clipping mask. My second pick would be the Mercury Pen.

The other pens failed when trying to fill in the color in Procreate; to fill in the color, you need to have a solid line. Many of the other pens do not give you a perfect solid line.

The clipping mask function for Procreate is a wonderful function for home decor and home furniture designing. But if you do not use the correct Procerate pen or pencil, then the clipping mask function will not work, which can become extremely frustrating.

How Do You Make a Repeat Pattern in Procreate?

Procreate is an amazing tool to use for the design of home decor and home furnishing products. To use the program, you must have an Apple Ipad. There are several steps you must take to make a repeat pattern on Procreate. One of the steps is to import your pattern to your photos on your Apple devices. Once you have done that, you are ready to adjust the pattern size, duplicate the layers, and then move the layer around on your canvas in the Procreate app.

If you want to learn more about how to do a pattern repeat in Procreate, you can read our blog 6 Easy Steps to Use Procreate to Make A Pattern Repeat by clicking here. We also have a video that shows how to do a pattern repeat on Procreate.

How to Set Up A Color Palette in Procreate?

The Procreate App for Apple IPad has a palette feature that easily sets up color palettes. This is a great tool that helps you organize the colors, including any trend colors you need when designing products, by using the Procreate app.

The palette tool will organize the palettes and show you the RGB, HSB, and Hexadecimal Value of your color, along with the exact position of the color on the color wheel. There are several methods you can use to find your palette colors, but one of the easier ones is to photograph the color and import the photo into Procreate

You can find out more about setting up a color palette in Procreate; you can read the blog Setting Up Your Color Palettes in Procreate, What You Need to Know by clicking here.