Procreate Drawing Guides: 2D Grid, Isometric, Perspective

Buried two menus deep in Procreate is a set of grids that will draw straight lines, isometric angles and full perspective scenes with you, or for you, depending on one checkbox. Freya covers the Drawing Guide in her Procreate Masterclass and again in her Procreate Pocket course, and between the two lessons there's a complete map of what each guide does and when to reach for it.

Where to Find It

On iPad, go to Actions (the wrench), then Canvas, and switch on Drawing Guide. It sits right next to Animation Assist. Tap Edit Drawing Guide below it and a toolbar opens with the four guide types: 2D Grid, Isometric, Perspective and Symmetry.

On Procreate Pocket the same feature lives under Modify, Actions, Guides. Everything below works the same on the phone, and Freya teaches the Pocket version in its own lesson because the guides are one of the few power features that lose nothing on the small screen.

The Checkbox That Changes Everything: Assisted Drawing

Each guide can work in two modes, and the difference is the Assisted Drawing toggle at the bottom of the edit screen.

Off, the grid is just a visual reference. You draw freehand with lines overlaid on your canvas, the way you'd sketch over graph paper.

On, Procreate locks your strokes to the grid. With a 2D grid active you physically cannot draw a diagonal: every stroke snaps to horizontal or vertical. That's the point, and also the trap. When you're done, you have to turn Assisted Drawing off again, or your next sketch will fight you.

Freya's troubleshooting advice is worth memorizing: if your lines suddenly refuse to go where you want, tap your layer's thumbnail and look for a checkmark next to Drawing Assist. That per-layer setting remembers your last guide, and it stays on until you uncheck it.

The same thumbnail menu is also the fast lane in the other direction. Once you've set a guide up the way you like it, you never have to walk back through Actions and Canvas to reuse it. Tap the layer thumbnail, tap Drawing Assist, and the layer picks up your last guide settings instantly. Freya uses this constantly in her project lessons, switching assist on for one symmetrical element and off again for the freehand work around it.

2D Grid: Straight Lines and Layouts

The simplest guide. A square grid covers the canvas, and in the edit screen you can adjust the Opacity and Thickness of the grid lines plus the Grid Size, which controls how big each block is. On Pocket, Freya also points out you can change the guide's color and set the grid size in centimeters, millimeters or pixels, which matters when you're planning a print layout.

With Assisted Drawing on, this is the guide for anything that needs perfectly straight lines: borders, frames, buildings, pattern blocks. Horizontal and vertical only.

Isometric: The Diagonal Grid

Isometric works exactly like the 2D grid, except the grid is triangular and your locked strokes can now travel diagonally along it. Freya's take is that this one belongs to game designers first: the top-down look of many games is essentially an isometric grid at work. But she's quick to add that illustrators can borrow it any time a scene needs that clean, angled, technical feel.

Perspective: Tap to Place Your Vanishing Point

This is the guide that confuses people, because it starts empty.

"It's a grid that helps you paint in a perspective style. When you open it, don't be surprised if the screen looks empty. We have to set the leading point first."

Freya, in the Masterclass lesson "Edit Drawing Guide for Accurate Grids & Perspective"

Tap anywhere on the canvas with your Apple Pencil and a vanishing point appears, with guide lines radiating from it. You can place the point wherever the composition needs it, and move it later. With Assisted Drawing on, every stroke locks to those converging lines, which is why Freya recommends this one for interiors and architecture. Rooms, streets and furniture practically draw themselves once the point is set.

Symmetry, Briefly

The fourth option, Symmetry, mirrors your strokes across the canvas, and unlike the others it needs Assisted Drawing on at all times to work at all. Switch it off and nothing mirrors; Procreate turns it back on for you, which Freya demonstrates by trying to deselect it just to show it has no effect.

In the Pocket lesson she plays through the variations: vertical, horizontal, 4-sided and 8-sided mirrors, plus Rotational Symmetry, which spins your strokes around the center instead of reflecting them. Draw a few lines and the canvas fills like a kaleidoscope, which is why she calls this the fun one. It deserves its own session, and Freya gives it a dedicated lesson in the Masterclass.

Guide On, Lock Off: Freya's Preferred Middle Ground

One honest note from the Masterclass lesson: locked lines aren't for everyone. Some artists keep the grid visible and draw freehand over it, using the guide for judgment rather than enforcement. Others want every stroke snapped. Freya's verdict is that both ways work, and it's genuinely a matter of taste.

Try this to find yours: set up a 2D grid, draw a simple window with Assisted Drawing on, then turn it off and draw the same window freehand over the grid. You'll know within a minute which camp you're in.

The Drawing Guide lessons are a small slice of Freya's Procreate Masterclass, which walks through every tool in the app on the way to full illustrations. The free lessons from the course are a good way to check whether her teaching style clicks for you before you commit. 🎨