Organizing Your Layers

One of the major differences between digital painting applications such as Procreate and traditional paper or canvas-based art is the concept of layers. If you are familiar with other software, you already know this. However, for beginners or artists who are transitioning from traditional to digital art, layers can be hard to get used to. So, what are layers?

Unlike traditional art, which usually happens on a single surface, digital art often uses multiple layers stacked on top of each other to create the final image. You can visualize them as layered transparent plastic sheets, where each sheet contains a different part of the artwork, as shown in the following figure:

Figure 7.1: The artwork (left) and the separated layers (right)

Working with multiple layers instead of a single one is advantageous. It allows you to work on different elements without affecting the others. But, there’s much more to layers than just convenience...