How to Make a 3D Lettering Brush in Procreate

Creating a 3D brush in Procreate is one of the best ways to add instant depth and a tactile, realistic feel to your digital lettering. Whilst it looks complex, the secret lies entirely within the brush settings. By utilising Procreate’s powerful dual-brush feature, you can combine a flat shape with a contrasting shadow element to create a seamless 3D effect that follows your stylus perfectly.

This step-by-step guide will walk you through the exact settings needed to build your own 3D lettering brush from scratch. This is similar to the Slipstream 3D brush found in my Freestyler brush set.

Step 1: Prepare Your Brush Shape

Before diving into the Brush Studio, you need to create the shape that will form the 3D shadow of your brush.

1. Open a new Square Canvas (e.g. 2048 x 2048 pixels) in Procreate.

2. In pure black, draw a Perfect Solid Circle and align it to the centre of the canvas.

3. Duplicate this layer twice and move one of the circles down the page.

4. Draw a square and place it between the 2 circles to create a pill shape.

5. Rotate the shape and align it to the spare circle, so it is pointing to the right hand corner.

6. Go to the Actions menu and select Copy Canvas.

Step 2: Setting up the Brushes

To make a 3D brush work, we need a standard round brush for the top layer and a custom shape for the underlying shadow. Instead of building these completely from scratch, we can save time by modifying a default Procreate favourite.

1. Open the Brush Library and navigate to the Calligraphy set of brushes.

2. Duplicate the Monoline brush twice by swiping to the left on it.

3. Tap on the top duplicate and head into the Shape menu. Under Shape Source, tap Edit > Import > Paste and insert your custom pill shape. Tap the screen with two fingers to invert the image if the background is white; the shape itself needs to be white on a black background.

4. Go to Properties and increase the minimum and maximum size sliders to give yourself a broader range of thickness.

Step 3: Combine Two Brushes (The Dual-Brush Secret)

Now that both individual elements are ready, we need to merge them so they behave as a single, cohesive tool. This is where the magic of Procreate’s dual-brush architecture comes into play.

1. Swipe right on both of your modified Monoline brushes to select them simultaneously, then tap Combine in the top right corner.

2. Tap on this new dual brush to open the Brush Studio, select the second brush thumbnail at the top left, and change its Combine Mode to Subtract. This tells Procreate to knock out the shape of the top brush from the shadow underneath.

3. Finally, under the Properties settings for each brush, tweak the minimum and maximum sliders to fine-tune how the shadow scales against your main stroke until you get the perfect 3D depth effect.

Streamline Your Workflow

Building custom dual-brushes takes a bit of trial and error to get the spacing and tracking completely dialled in. If you want to skip the technical setup and get straight to creating, you can find completely optimised, production-ready 3D brushes inside the Freestyler Brush Pack on my shop. It features a variety of 3D, outline, and marker styles built specifically to give your digital lettering a bold, analogue look instantly.