- Hey designers,
in today's video,
I wanna talk to you about
how I use the app Procreate
on my iPad Pro
with Apple pencil to design
thumbnails for my YouTube videos.
You've probably heard of Procreate before,
because it is the most popular
drawing app on the iPad.
And you can do many different things in it.
I like to use it just for drawing,
just for doing some Hand lettering,
having some fun
making things,
but the main way that it comes in
as part of my design process and workflow
is for designing my YouTube thumbnails.
So I'm gonna show you that today
I'm gonna show you my process
and maybe you'll pick up some tips and tricks
for your own Procreate work.
(upbeat music)
So here we are in Procreate.
And as you can see,
there's lots of files here of previous thumbnails,
but I'm gonna walk you through my process.
As I create a thumbnail for a new video,
that's coming out,
actually it will be old
by the time this video goes up,
but whatever.
I keep all of my YouTube files in Dropbox.
I have an editor who helps me with videos
whenever I'm filming,
I'll like pose for a still.
So she'll export that as a frame
for me to choose from.
So I come into my folder for that video
and here are my thumbnail options for it.
And I think I'm gonna go with this one here.
So I just download that
and it opens up as a file.
And because the,
this has been exported as a frame from a video,
it's already at the right size
of 1920 by 1080 for a thumbnail.
So here I am,
shrugging in the classic YouTube thumbnail pose.
You might've noticed that all of my YouTube thumbnails
have a border around them.
Now I made those borders originally in Procreate,
but I don't draw them out new every time,
but I'll just show you
some of my favorite brushes
that I use to create those borders.
I have a set of important brushes here
from a friend,
Ian Barnard.
He has an online store
where he sells Procreate brushes
and other things that you can use
with Procreate as well.
Some really cool fonts too.
So I'll leave a link in the description
if you want to check that out.
All of these important brushes here are from him,
and they've all got a really nice
sort of like slightly grungy feel to them.
And I just think they're really cool.
And I tend to gravitate towards these
whenever I'm doing things in Procreate
where I want like a brushy feel to it.
So I made all of the boarders
for my YouTube videos using that,
but I exported them as PNG's
so that then
whenever I wanna add it into a new thumbnail,
I'm not drawing the border each time.
What I actually do is go Add,
I go Insert File.
And then I come out into my YouTube folder
into my channel branding thumbnail frames.
So you have my three colors
that I use for thumbnails here.
I have them in Dropbox rather than in like,
just on my iPad,
because I found that for some reason,
adding a PNG from my photos
on my iPad would fill in.
The background is black.
And it wouldn't be transparent,
which is really frustrating.
So yeah,
Dropbox, it is.
So I just add that frame
and it fits perfectly in the space.
Then something I like to do is
sort of have myself interact
with the frame a little.
So I go into my eraser tool
and I just sort of like,
draw around my head.
It's like a really rough masking.
I could do this much neater
in Photoshop for sure.
But you know,
this is a YouTube video thumbnail
and we don't need to take
that much time with it.
So yeah,
I just kind of like how that looks.
I feel like it's more interactive
and there's more dimension
to the thumbnail when I do that.
Next,
let's add some text.
So as you can see in here in my layers panel,
I have two layers so far.
One is, well, three,
cause there's a background,
but you know what I mean?
One is the photo,
one is the thumbnail frame,
so then I'm gonna add a new layer here
to start putting my text on.
Now,
the brush that I like to
use to write with
is in the inking section.
And it's the studio pen.
I think I might have changed some settings
from how it comes.
I don't know.
So we'll just have this on screen here.
You can take a screenshot
or whatever
and copy it.
Then I'm gonna come in here
and pick a color
and usually I will write
my text in white
and then have a colored background behind it.
So just pick a white.
As you can see here, though,
I've got lots of different color palettes.
I've got my Charli Marie brand colors.
I have some of the Convert Kit colors in here,
for whenever I do something for work.
So that's really handy
that you can save different color palettes
for different,
different reasons.
And then now I think about
what I'm going to title this video.
(clock ticking)
I'm gonna call this video
something like
how to make a product animation
when you're not a Motion Designer.
Something like that.
Anyway, it's a thumbnail.
So I'm just gonna set about writing it now.
Let's test how thick that is.
That feels too thin to me.
So I'm just gonna use this slider here
to move it up.
Too think.
Let's go somewhere in the middle?
(upbeat music)
Okay,
so I put the making and
on a separate layer,
cause I'm trying to keep it separate
in case I want to move it around a little.
I can come up here
to this little arrow icon
and just sort of like
shift it however I want.
So it's just handy
if it's on a separate layer.
Now I'm going to make a layer behind
each of these layers
to put my colored background behind.
So I'm gonna go in
and pick a green for behind the animation.
Just make this a bit thicker.
Actually, lets change brushes as well.
It's good for something a bit grungier.
Can use Berry?
Get all Berry?
Then I'm gonna come in here.
See I'm on this layer,
that's sitting behind animation
and I'm just gonna...
Oops.
That's all way too thick.
By the way,
you can double tap
on the screen to undo,
which I think is incredibly helpful.
SO I'm gonna come in here
and draw behind this.
I'm being really rough with this
because it's kind of like,
it's the aesthetic that I'm going for.
The brush itself is rough,
so the drawing and like everything
doesn't have to be perfectly even either.
Which is nice.
Okay.
So see how I came to the
edge of the purple here.
I'm feeling that
it's a little bit close to the edge.
So what I'm gonna do is
group these together by sliding along on that
and click in group.
So now this animation text is in one group,
for me to move together,
click on this arrow
and just move it along ever so slightly.
Do I wanna have it lower maybe,
maybe,
actually,
I'm kind of liking it there
underneath my hands.
I don't know.
Let's let's keep it here for now.
That's the beauty of it.
Is that you can move around the pieces
And then for behind the Making An,
I'm actually going to use pink for this.
I like to use different colors.
(upbeat music)
Do the same thing here,
where we group them.
And sort of move it down slightly.
Then sometimes I like to write
like an aside,
you know,
in parentheses underneath.
So I'm going to click on this a dark color
and come back to my pen,
like a little bit thinner
and I'm gonna put,
oops,
I forgot to make a layer.
So it's good that it'll want you
make a layer for this part.
Oops,
way too thick.
(upbeat music)
I just feel like this dark text
sort of catches your eye a bit
makes you look twice.
Something I like to do as well though
is make my white tech stand
apart from the background.
And I'm actually feeling like
I want my background to be thicker.
So I'm just gonna go in
and add a bit more in here.
(upbeat music)
Put them in block instead.
Alarming green too.
Okay, What I was saying,
I like to make the white text
set apart from the background.
If I was in Photoshop,
I would just add a drop shadow,
but there's a little hack
for how I do it in Procreate.
So first of all,
I'm gonna duplicate this layer,
duplicate this layer.
Then I'm gonna take the layer of the one behind.
I am going to lower the brightness
all the way down,
which sort of makes it if I move it,
makes it dark.
You see?
And then I'm gonna get my blur tool
and I'm just going to slide it along.
So you just drag your pencil along the screen
and it starts blurring out.
So when I get to about herish,
that's when it's looking drop shadowy,
it's a little bit dark though.
So we'll just come in here
and lower the opacity some more.
And there,
can you see the difference between
the Making An and the Animation,
how this one,
like,
feels more active
and has more depth to it.
So let's do the same thing for the animation.
I definitely feel like
if you don't lower the opacity,
it looks really cheesy.
It's like way too dark.
So I do think this is
an important step to this one.
Then I feel like I want this just to sit.
I don't know,
more involved somehow.
I think I want to change up
the layer order here.
So to change that you just sort of click on one
and drag and move it.
Now, animation isn't front.
There we go.
I feel like that works.
Sometimes I'll also like wanna add
some little doodles elsewhere in the piece.
So maybe I'll take green,
take my ink brush
and do something like
a dude, dude, dude,
dude, dude, dude,
and I just think it looks cute.
(laughs)
So this thumbnail who's last touch I'm gonna add
is the after effects logo in the corner
so that people know
what software I'm using in the video.
(upbeat music)
One thing that I learned the hard way
when you're resizing something,
I wanna click uniform to keep it equal.
And so I don't accidentally stretch this logo out
and make it look shit.
(laughs)
There we go.
I think that works as my thumbnail.
The next thing I just do
is go share JPEG
and I'm going to save it into Dropbox
into my animation folder.
There you go,
Now I can access it on my computer
and edit two major video.
I think Procreate is a great app.
It's really fun to play around
with all different brushes
and make things,
you know,
but it's also for me,
a really quick way for me to make
a thumbnail for my YouTube video.
I find it very easy to just
whip one up
and I can work much faster than
if I was perhaps laying it out in Photoshop.
And there's just something about
being able to draw on it.
If you have a mass quickly
just by drawing around my head,
you know,
it all works out really well for me.
So there we go.
That's how I make a thumbnail
for my YouTube videos.
This is the process I've been using
for several years now.
And honestly,
I just find it really quick
to get the work done.
If you've got any questions
about the process,
please feel free to leave them
down below in the comments.
And if you're not subscribed
to my channel already,
I would love it
if you click that red button,
turn it into a gray button.
I think that's what happens
because I make new videos
about design every single week.
And I would love to have you
back here for the next one.
Thanks for joining everyone.
And I'll see you
in the next video.
(upbeat music)