Tutorial: Create a Seamless Repeat for Spoonflower using Procreate

If you’re looking to take your surface patterns to the next level with seamlessly repeating designs, you’ll be happy to learn it’s easier than ever thanks to Procreate, the go-to design program for many artists! In this advanced Procreate tutorial, Spoonflower artist Jennifer Nichols shares how to create a seamless repeat using Procreate using design elements you’ve already created. As such, this is a great resource for artists who already have experience working in Procreate or other design programs. If you’re new to Procreate, we suggest starting with either Jennifer’s Guide to Procreate class on Skillshare or Rhianna Wurman's A Beginner's Guide to Procreate. If you work with Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, check out this tutorial as well. This article was originally published on the Spoonflower Blog in 2021. 

Before and After: Pastel Coffee Lover Teal by jennifernichols

Jennifer: The Procreate 5X update has a new Snapping feature that makes repeat patterns in Procreate incredibly easy to do without any outside help from other design programs. I love repeat patterns and Procreate and I’m super excited to show you my technique! Before you jump into the step-by-step instructions, be sure to watch my video instructions below.
 

Create Your Procreate Canvas

I start my repeats with a canvas size of 3000px by 3000px at 300dpi and sRGB color profile. Sometimes I go up to 3600px by 3600px but this results in fewer layers. After illustrating each design element you would like to use in your pattern, duplicate the entire canvas so you can leave the original intact and then edit the duplicate. Once you are in the duplicated canvas, flatten each design element into a single layer for each item. This will free up many layers for you to work with while making your repeat pattern. Turn on the 2D drawing guide with the size set to Max so you can see the center lines of the canvas.
 

Place Your Design Elements

Begin placing most of your design elements, making sure you do not let anything touch the edges of the canvas AND be sure to place things so the center lines are being overlapped. This is important in this first step of the layout because these lines are essentially turning into the edges of the final design and you won’t be able to place things along those lines in the next step. This is something that takes some practice as you don’t want to leave big gaps along the lines but you also don’t want your design elements to be placed in a way that ends up looking very linear in your final pattern design (or maybe you DO want things to be linear)! You can also turn your grid lines off at this point, we don’t need those any more. During this stage, leaving open spaces in the four corners is ideal. Those corners will merge into one big space in the center and will provide more flexibility when placing your final design elements later.
 

Add Corner Marks to Your Canvas

Now it’s time for the “corner trick”. You will need to add a solid color to opposing corners of your canvas so you have color touching all four sides of the canvas. This is how we trick Procreate into capturing the entire canvas size once we turn the background layer off and copy the canvas. This is a very important step. The corner marks will be removed later so make sure they are not touching any other design elements.
 

Copy Your Design Elements

Now you need to turn off your background layer so you can create a design that is independent of the background which will offer you the ability to change the background color later! With the background layer off, three-finger-swipe down on the canvas to reveal the copy/paste menu and select Copy All. This will capture everything that is visible on the canvas, not including grid lines. I also like to keep things tidy by grouping all of the layers that are currently visible.
 

Create a New Design Layer

At this point, you can turn the background layer on. Create a new layer above all others and three-finger-swipe down again but this time you will select Paste. Now you have everything on one layer. You will need four identical layers. You can continue to Paste each one or you can duplicate the first layer you pasted.
 

Snap Your Design Elements into Place

Here is where the new Snapping tool comes into play (I know, I am way too excited about this feature, it’s a game changer)! Turn all of your layers off except one of the newly pasted layers and Select it with the arrow icon. You need to be careful not to tap anywhere on the screen while something is selected because it will get Nudged in that direction by one pixel which will make your design have gaps along the seams. While you have the layer Selected, go to the bottom left and turn on Snapping. I keep my Distance maxed and my Velocity at 5. Snapping will now stay on until you manually turn it off.
 

Slide the full-sized image to a corner until it snaps perfectly into place with the outer edge now directly in the center. You will see golden lines to indicate the center (sometimes the golden line that overlaps the dotted border of the selection can be blue but you will still see the golden lines extending past that). Be sure not to change the size of your layer, so don’t grab anywhere near the blue dots.
 

Now repeat this process for the other identical layers, moving each full-sized image into four corners. Be sure you are seeing the golden lines.
 

Merge Your Layers

Once you have all four layers placed into the corners, you can merge those layers by pinching them together (a fun Procreate shortcut!)
 

Remove the Original Corner Marks

Erase or freehand-select the center marks that once were your “corner trick” marks and remove them entirely. I turn Snapping off at this point, otherwise, it will interfere with placement of the remaining design elements.

Complete Your Pattern Design

Add the remaining design elements and fillers (polka dots, in this instance). This is your complete pattern block!
 

Create a Larger Repeat

You have a couple more things to check so now it’s time to repeat your design so you can check for seams (gaps and/or offsets down the horizontal and vertical centers) and decide if you like the layout. Go ahead and group all of the visible layers and turn the background off. Three-finger-swipe down, Copy All, and Paste to a new layer.