by The Procreate perspective grid lives inside the Drawing Guide, and for many drawings it is all you need. It is not new: the Perspective Guide dates from Procreate 3, and 4.1 in 2018 put it alongside the 2D grid, isometric and symmetry modes in the Drawing Guide screen you see today. Set your expectations at three vanishing points. That is the ceiling, and Procreate has no fisheye or curvilinear mode at all, so anyone who came here hoping to draw a 180-degree interior is going to need an imported grid instead. Within those three points the Drawing Guide is genuinely good. The official reference is the Drawing Guides chapter of the Procreate Handbook; this is the version for people who draw buildings.
Procreate's Perspective Drawing Guide is one of the four guide types (2D grid, isometric, perspective, symmetry). You tap up to three vanishing points onto the canvas; Procreate draws guide lines radiating from each, and with Drawing Assist on, strokes snap to the nearest point's direction. It is fast and it snaps, which is more than Photoshop offers, but the points are wherever you tapped: the guide has no notion of lens, tilt or scale.
Setting up the Procreate perspective grid (Drawing Guide)
Open Actions (the wrench) → Canvas → turn on Drawing Guide, then tap Edit Drawing Guide. Along the bottom choose Perspective. Tap anywhere on the canvas to place a vanishing point; tap again for a second and a third. Drag a point to move it; tap it and choose Delete to remove it. The colour, thickness and opacity sliders control the guide lines. Tap Done.
With one point you have one-point perspective (a room or road seen straight on). Two points on the same level give two-point (a building corner, a box). A third above or below gives three-point (looking up at a tower or down into a street). If you are unsure which a scene needs, the three questions in 1-point vs 2-point vs 3-point settle it.
Putting points off the canvas. For a normal two-point view both points belong outside the picture, roughly a canvas-width out on either side. Pinch to zoom out until grey space shows around the canvas, then drag the points into it. Points left inside the canvas produce the "everything is a fisheye" look that makes beginners' Procreate drawings feel off.
Keeping the horizon level. Both horizontal vanishing points must sit on the same eye-level line. Procreate does not lock them together; zoom in and check they share the same height before you start. A tilted horizon is the most common mistake and the hardest to fix once the drawing is under way.
Assisted Drawing
Turn on Assisted Drawing in the guide screen, and every stroke snaps to whichever vanishing point matches its direction. You can also enable it per layer: tap a layer → Drawing Assist. Snapping is what makes Procreate's guide worth using; it turns freehand strokes into ruled lines and lets you block in a building at sketching speed.
Two habits make it pleasant. Keep the block-in on an assisted layer and the details (curves, figures, lettering) on a layer with Drawing Assist off, so organic strokes are not straightened. And for verticals in a one- or two-point drawing, hold the stroke a moment at the end: Procreate's QuickLine will straighten it to true vertical.
What it cannot do
The Drawing Guide has no idea what lens it represents: the vanishing points are wherever you tap. It cannot rotate a scene, cannot show a frame or letterbox, and only draws straight lines from each point, so there are no equal-spaced ground squares to measure with and no reference cube for sizing figures. There is no curvilinear or fisheye option, and the three-point guide is simply a third point placed by eye rather than a tilt you can set in degrees. For quick sketches that is fine; for matching a photo or a film frame it is guesswork.
Importing a lens-accurate perspective grid into Procreate
Set up the shot on one of the grids here, then bring it into Procreate as a layer. It takes two taps.
- Open the 3-point grid (or the 1-point, 2-point or curvilinear grid) in Safari on the iPad.
- Drag to set the rotation, choose the lens in millimetres, turn on the frame if you want one, and match the aspect ratio to your Procreate canvas.
- Tap Copy to clipboard. (If Safari refuses, tap Download PNG and import from Files with Actions → Add → Insert a file.)
- In Procreate: Actions → Add → Paste. The grid arrives as a transparent layer. Pinch to scale it to the canvas if the sizes differ.
- Set the layer opacity to 30–40% and lock it. Draw on a layer above.
You can still turn on Procreate's own guide and place its vanishing points on top of the imported grid's points, so you get snapping and a correct lens together. Find the points by following the red and green lines to where they converge; zoom out, since for most lenses they sit outside the canvas.
The imported grid also gives you what the guide lacks: metre squares on the ground and a one-metre reference cube, so a figure at 5 m and a figure at 20 m come out the right sizes. The figure height calculator gives the exact number if you want to check.
Matching a photo or a film frame
If the drawing has to sit inside a photographed background, run the photo through the vanishing point finder first. It reads the horizon, the vanishing points, the lens and the tilt, and offers to open the matching grid with those settings. Paste that grid into Procreate over the photo, place the Drawing Guide's points on it, and everything you draw will converge the way the photo does.
If it isn't behaving
My lines snap when I don't want them to. Drawing Assist is on for that layer. Tap the layer → untick Drawing Assist, or draw on a new layer.
The grid vanished. Drawing Guide was switched off in Actions → Canvas, or the guide opacity is at zero. Turn it back on and raise the opacity slider in Edit Drawing Guide.
Two-point drawings look distorted. The vanishing points are inside the canvas. Zoom out and drag them further apart.
The pasted grid is the wrong size. It was copied at a different aspect ratio. Set the frame on the grid tool to match your canvas before copying, or scale the pasted layer with the Transform tool using Uniform mode.
Three-point looks wrong. The third point is off the vertical centre line. It must sit directly above or below the middle of the picture unless you intend a rolled camera.
Read next
Clip Studio's perspective ruler · Photoshop perspective grid · 1-point vs 2-point vs 3-point · how to draw perspective · drawing tablets for perspective work
Questions
How do I turn on the perspective grid in Procreate?
Actions (wrench) → Canvas → Drawing Guide on, then Edit Drawing Guide → Perspective. Tap the canvas to add up to three vanishing points and drag them into place. Tap Done.
How do I make Procreate snap lines to the grid?
Turn on Assisted Drawing in the Drawing Guide screen, or per layer: tap the layer → Drawing Assist. Strokes then snap to the nearest vanishing point. Tap the layer again and untick Drawing Assist to draw freely.
How do I move a vanishing point off the canvas in Procreate?
Pinch to zoom out until there is grey space around the canvas, then drag the point into that space. Procreate keeps points outside the canvas, which is where two-point vanishing points normally belong.
Why does Procreate only let me place three vanishing points?
Because the Drawing Guide models linear perspective, which has at most three: two on the horizon and one above or below for tilted views. For fisheye or 360° drawings, which need five or six, import a curvilinear grid as a layer instead.
Can I paste an image into Procreate as a layer?
Yes. Copy an image on the iPad (from Safari, Files or the Copy to clipboard button on the grids here), then in Procreate: Actions → Add → Paste. It arrives as a new layer you can scale, lower in opacity and lock.
Does the Procreate perspective guide work in Procreate Pocket on iPhone?
Yes. Modify → Canvas → Drawing Guide → Edit Drawing Guide → Perspective, with the same tap-to-place points and the same Drawing Assist per layer.
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