How to Mirror on Procreate: Symmetry Tools Explained

Procreate’s mirror tool lets you create symmetrical designs by reflecting your brush strokes across one or more axes. The setup lives inside Canvas > Drawing Guide > Symmetry.

#How Do You Turn on Mirroring in Procreate?

The mirror tool lives inside the Drawing Guide settings. It’s not obvious at first because you need to go through two menus before you see the symmetry options.

Open the Actions menu (wrench icon, top-left corner), tap Canvas, and toggle Drawing Guide on. Then tap Edit Drawing Guide below the toggle and select Symmetry from the bottom row. A vertical guide line appears on your canvas. Tap Done to start drawing.

Your strokes will mirror across the center line on whichever layer has Assisted Drawing enabled.

If you’re working with other image editing tools like Photoshop, the concept is the same but Procreate keeps it simpler with a single toggle.

#The Four Symmetry Modes

Procreate gives you four distinct ways to mirror your work. Each one splits the canvas differently.

Vertical reflects strokes left-to-right across a vertical center line. This is the default mode, and it’s what most artists use for faces, logos, and mandalas.

Horizontal reflects top-to-bottom. Good for landscapes with water reflections.

Quadrant splits the canvas into four equal sections. Whatever you draw in one quarter appears in all four simultaneously, making it ideal for tile patterns, wallpaper designs, and repeating motifs that need four-way consistency.

Radial divides the canvas into eight segments radiating from the center. According to Procreate’s current Symmetry guide, Radial mode is designed for mandala-style artwork where one brush stroke becomes eight simultaneous strokes.

To switch between modes, go back into Edit Drawing Guide > Symmetry and tap the one you want.

#How to Customize the Mirror Axis

You don’t have to stick with the default center-line position. The symmetry guide has two colored nodes that let you reposition and rotate the axis freely on your canvas before or during a project.

Drag the blue node to move the entire guide line to a new position on the canvas. Drag the green node to rotate the guide at any angle. This is useful when you want diagonal symmetry or need the mirror axis off-center for asymmetric compositions.

Repositioning the guide only affects new strokes. If you need to add a watermark or overlay later, do that on a separate layer.

#What Does Rotational Symmetry Do?

Rotational Symmetry is a toggle inside the Symmetry options that changes how strokes get mirrored. It flips and rotates your strokes around the axis point instead of creating a straight reflection.

Here’s the difference. With standard symmetry, drawing a curve on the left produces an identical curve on the right. Turn Rotational Symmetry on, and the mirrored stroke gets rotated 180 degrees, creating pinwheel-like patterns rather than mirror-image ones. The effect is especially noticeable in Radial mode where eight rotated copies radiate outward from the center point.

Based on Savage Interactive’s current Symmetry documentation, this combination works well for kaleidoscope effects.

#Working with Layers and Assisted Drawing

Mirroring is layer-specific. Each layer can have its own Assisted Drawing toggle.

According to Procreate’s current Drawing Assist guide, setting up Symmetry switches Drawing Assist on for the current primary layer. New layers remain normal unless you enable the feature on them: tap a layer thumbnail and select Drawing Assist. The layer name shows an “Assisted” tag when active, so you can tell which layers will mirror new brush strokes.

This layer-specific control is powerful. You can draw mirrored linework on one layer, then add freehand shading on a layer above with Assisted Drawing turned off. Your shading won’t mirror, but your lines stay symmetrical.

If you use an Apple Pencil, check Apple’s current compatibility list before choosing one for your iPad; each Pencil generation works only with specific iPad models and, in some cases, minimum iPadOS versions. Features on third-party styluses vary by manufacturer, so don’t assume identical behavior.

#How to Turn Off Mirroring

Drawing Assist controls whether a layer’s new strokes follow the saved symmetry settings. The Drawing Guide toggle controls whether the guide line is visible.

First, open the Layers panel, tap each layer marked “Assisted,” and turn off Drawing Assist. Then go to Actions > Canvas and toggle Drawing Guide off.

The guide line disappears.

Procreate’s Drawing Assist guide says enabling Drawing Assist from Layer Options reuses the last guide and its settings. Hiding the guide line is therefore not a reliable way to stop mirroring; turn off Drawing Assist on the layer and check that its “Assisted” tag disappears.

#Tips for Better Symmetry Results

Use a stabilized brush. Increase StreamLine or stabilization gradually in the brush properties until the stroke feels steady without becoming sluggish. This can reduce visible wobble in Radial mode, where each brush stroke is repeated across eight segments.

Plan your axis position early. Moving the guide mid-project creates misalignment.

Combine symmetry with clipping masks. Create your mirrored design on one layer, add a new layer above it, tap the upper layer, and select Clipping Mask. Now you can paint details that stay within the bounds of your symmetrical shapes without affecting the base layer.

Set the canvas for its destination. According to Procreate’s current layer-limit guide, 300 DPI is a common value for printed images, while screen artwork is best sized in pixels. It also explains that the maximum layer count depends on the iPad’s RAM and the canvas’s pixel dimensions, so check the available-layer readout before committing to a large canvas. Artists looking for precise Photoshop compositing techniques can export from Procreate as a PSD file to preserve layers.

#Advanced: QuickMenu for Faster Mirroring Access

The QuickMenu has six customizable action slots for quick access during your workflow. Adding symmetry-related actions here saves time if you toggle mirroring frequently.

Go to Actions > Prefs > Gesture Controls > QuickMenu and choose the gesture you want to use. Open QuickMenu, press and hold a slot, then assign an action such as Flip Horizontally, Flip Vertically, or Drawing Assist. Procreate’s current QuickMenu guide lists all three actions; the trigger depends on the gesture you configured.

This shortcut is especially useful for artists who experience iPad lag during complex projects with many layers.

#Bottom Line

Start with Vertical symmetry mode for your first project. It’s an intuitive fit for faces, logos, and decorative patterns. If you need more complexity, try Quadrant or Radial mode. You can reposition the guide or switch modes without losing your existing work.

#Frequently Asked Questions