Help Center

New here? Tap New Canvas in the Gallery, pick a size, and draw. Paint opens the brush library, the two sliders on the side set size and opacity, and a two-finger tap undoes. Everything else is below, and if something is not, Support has the common questions and a way to reach a person.

The Gallery

The Gallery is where WingArtist opens, with your artworks sorted by most recent.

• Start a drawing. Tap New Canvas and choose Screen Size (2732 × 2048), Square (2048 × 2048), A4 (300 DPI) (2480 × 3508) or HD (1920 × 1080). For any other size, open the canvas and use Actions ▸ Canvas ▸ Crop & Resize, which takes 64 to 8192 pixels a side.
• Open an artwork by tapping it.
• Rename or delete by touching and holding an artwork.
• The gear opens Settings.

The canvas

The top bar

On the left are the things you do to a drawing, on the right the things you draw with. Opening one panel closes the others, and touching the canvas closes whichever is open.

The side dock

From the top: brush size, the color puck, brush opacity, then Undo and Redo. The size slider moves in finer steps at the small end. The dock slides away while a tool with its own bar at the bottom is in use, and Settings can move it to the right edge or hide it.

The brush pill

The pill in the bottom corner shows the brush you are holding, with a preview of its stroke. Tap it to open the brush library.

Gestures and shortcuts

A finger draws just as Apple Pencil does, without pressure. With a Pencil the app reads pressure, tilt, hover and, on Apple Pencil Pro, barrel roll. Pencil double-tap and squeeze are not used yet.

With a keyboard attached: ⌘Z undo, ⇧⌘Z redo, B brush, E eraser, S smudge, [ and ] smaller and larger brush.

Brushes

There are two brush libraries, and the first time you open the brushes you are asked which to start with. Modern has 180 expressive, textured and experimental brushes in 18 categories. Atelier has 72 brushes modeled on real media (graphite, ink, watercolor, oil, chalk, charcoal and pastel) in 9 categories. Switch between them any time from the menu beside the Brushes title. Brushes you make or import appear in both.

• Find a brush. Pick a category on the left, or use Search brushes. Recent keeps your last four and Favorites keeps the ones you star.
• Touch and hold a brush for Edit in Studio…, Favorite, Duplicate and, for your own brushes, Delete.
• The + in the corner makes a New Brush or imports one. Import… reads WingArtist .createbrush files and Procreate .brush and .brushset files. A Procreate brush built on one of Procreate's bundled textures arrives with a stand-in texture, because the original image is not inside the exported file; the app lists what it substituted.

Brush Studio

Edit in Studio… opens the full editor, with a pad on the right where you try the brush with the real engine as you change it. The settings are grouped as Stroke path, Stabilization, Taper, Shape, Grain, Rendering, Wet Mix, Color dynamics, Dynamics, Apple Pencil, Properties, Materials, Preview and About this brush. Done saves, Cancel discards, and Reset puts a built-in brush back to how it shipped, or one of yours back to how it was when you opened the Studio. To experiment without touching the original, Duplicate first: the copy lands in Custom.

Color

The Color panel has four tabs.

• Disc: a hue ring around a saturation and brightness square. The hex chip jumps to Values; touch and hold it to copy the hex code.
• Values: H, S, B and R, G, B sliders, and a hex field.
• Harmony: Complementary, Analogous, Triadic and Split schemes built from the current color.
• Palettes: tap a swatch to use it, + to add the current color, and touch and hold a swatch to remove it. New palette makes an Empty Palette, one From Artwork (the colors of the drawing you are in), or imports a .createpalette, .ase or .aco file.

The ten most recent colors you painted with appear under Recent in every tab. To pick a color from the drawing itself, touch and hold the canvas.

Layers

Tap + to add a layer. The count beside the title shows how many you have used out of how many the canvas allows; the limit depends on the canvas size and your iPad's memory, and is never fewer than 4 or more than 128.

• Select a layer by tapping it. Tap the selected layer again for its menu.
• Reorder by dragging the grip at the left of a row.
• Swipe a row left for Lock, Duplicate and Delete.
• Show or hide with the checkbox on the right.
• Opacity and blend mode. Tap the small blend badge on a row. There are 27 blend modes, from Multiply and Screen to Hue, Color and Luminosity; scroll one into the window to set it.
• Background color is the bottom row: tap the swatch to change it, or untick it for a transparent background.

The layer menu

Selections

Tap Select and choose how: Automatic (tap a region), Freehand (draw round it), Rectangle or Ellipse (drag). While something is selected, painting stays inside it and Transform moves just that part.

A selection stays after you leave the Select tool, with a small Region selected bar to remind you. If your marks seem not to land, that is usually why: tap Deselect.

Transform

Transform works on the selection if there is one, and otherwise on the whole layer. Drag inside the box to move, a corner to scale, the dot on an edge to stretch one way, and the knob on the stem to rotate; two fingers pinch and twist as well.

• Freeform stretches freely, Uniform keeps proportions, Distort moves each corner by itself, and Warp bends the image on a grid.
• Snapping opens two switches: Magnetics holds moves and rotation to 15° steps, and Snapping catches canvas edges and center lines. Distance and Velocity tune how eagerly it grabs.
• Flip Horizontal, Flip Vertical, Rotate 45° and Fit to Canvas do as they say. Bilinear gives smooth scaling; switch to Nearest for pixel art.
• Reset starts over, Cancel leaves the layer untouched, Done applies.

Adjustments

Adjust lists Hue, Saturation, Brightness · Color Balance · Curves · Gradient Map · Gaussian Blur · Motion Blur · Perspective Blur · Noise · Sharpen · Bloom · Glitch · Halftone · Chromatic Aberration · Levels · Liquify · Clone. Choose one and a bar appears at the bottom with its controls; the drawing updates as you move them. Apply keeps the result, Cancel drops it. An adjustment works on the current layer.

• Liquify: choose Push, Twirl, Pinch or Expand, set Size, Pressure and Distortion, and drag on the canvas.
• Clone: drag the ring to the place you want to copy from, then paint somewhere else to clone it there.
• Gradient Map: recolors the layer through one of six gradients: Neon, Mocha, Glacier, Sunset, Noir or Venom.

Guides, symmetry and QuickShape

Drawing guides

In Actions ▸ Canvas, switch on Drawing Guide and open Edit Drawing Guide. Choose a 2D Grid, Isometric or Perspective guide; a perspective guide has two vanishing points you can drag on the canvas. With Assisted Drawing on, your strokes follow the guide's lines.

Symmetry

In the same place, Symmetry mirrors what you draw: Vertical, Horizontal, Quadrant, Radial ×4 or Radial ×8.

QuickShape

Draw a line, arc, circle, ellipse, triangle, rectangle, square or any polygon, and hold still at the end for about half a second. The stroke snaps to the clean shape. Tap the label that appears to edit it: drag the nodes to adjust, or choose another reading of the same stroke, like a rectangle instead of a square or an ellipse instead of a circle. Tap the canvas to finish.

A reference beside you

Actions ▸ Canvas ▸ Reference opens a small floating window showing the whole artwork, which is useful while you are zoomed in. Drag it wherever suits.

Text

Actions ▸ Add ▸ Add text puts a text box on its own layer; start typing to replace the placeholder. Drag the bars at the sides of the box to move it. The bar beside the box sets the font, style, size and alignment, and Edit style opens the full panel: every font on your iPad, plus Kerning, Tracking, Leading, Baseline and Opacity, Underline, Outline and Vertical text. Select some of the text and pick a color to color just those letters.

Text stays editable: tap it on the canvas, or choose Edit Text… from the layer's menu. Painting on, adjusting or transforming a text layer first asks to Rasterize it, which turns it into ordinary pixels. After that it can no longer be edited as text.

Pose models

Pose offers five 3D references: Female and Male mannequins you can pose, and three head studies to turn and light: Block Skull, Simple Skull and the Loomis Head with its construction lines. Tap one and it appears on the canvas.

• Pose. Tap a blue handle to get arrows and rings on it: drag an arrow to move that joint, a ring to rotate it. Hands and feet pull the whole limb with them, and knees bend only the way knees do.
• Move and turn the whole model with the white handle. Pinch to scale.
• Change the view with the gizmo in the top corner, or jump to Front, Back, Left, Right, Top or ¾ from the View menu.
• Light it. Light has two sliders that each go all the way round. Horizontal walks the light round the model: in front, to the side, behind. Vertical carries it over the top: level, overhead, behind, underneath. Reset Light puts it back.
• Reset Rotation, Reset View and Reset Pose undo each of those on its own.
• Done draws the model onto its own layer. Cancel leaves no trace.

The model stays posable. Tap it on the canvas, or choose Edit 3D Model… from the layer's menu, and it reopens with the pose, view and light as you left them. As with text, painting on the layer first asks to rasterize it.

AI Improve

1. Tap Improve and drag a box round the part of the drawing you want worked on. Automatic, Freehand and Ellipse selections work too.
2. Tap Custom Prompt to say what you want. Pick from the suggestions, write your own, or both; Save for later keeps your wording as a suggestion of your own. If you write nothing, the app asks for a polished version of the sketch without added color.
3. Tap Improve. Previews appear on the canvas while it works.

The result arrives on a new layer just above the one you were on, so nothing you drew is painted over and one undo removes it. Your selection is kept, so trying again with different wording is quick.

Only the selected part of the drawing is sent, with your instruction. The rest of the artwork never leaves your iPad; the privacy policy has the detail.

Free generations and WingArtist Pro

You get 10 free generations, and only ones that succeed are counted. WingArtist Pro, monthly or yearly, removes the limit, subject to fair use. Prices are shown in the app in your own currency. To move a subscription to a new iPad, open Settings ▸ WingArtist Pro ▸ Upgrade to WingArtist Pro and tap Restore Purchases at the bottom.

Using your own OpenAI key

Bring Your Own Key comes with Pro, or as a one-time unlock without a subscription. Add the key in Settings ▸ WingArtist Pro, where Test key checks it with OpenAI before you save. The key is kept in your iPad's keychain and sent only to OpenAI, and generations are then billed to your OpenAI account at OpenAI's rates.

Animation

Switch on Actions ▸ Canvas ▸ Animation Assist and a timeline appears along the bottom. Each layer is a frame, and a group of layers is one frame, so a frame can have its own layers. The bottom of the stack plays first.

• + adds a frame; tap a frame to go to it.
• Touch and hold a frame for Duplicate Frame, Move Earlier, Move Later and Delete Frame.
• Play runs the animation. The gear sets the speed, 1 to 60 frames a second, and Onion skin, which shows up to 4 neighboring frames faintly on either side.

Page Assist is the same strip without playback, for storyboards and comic pages.

Time-lapse

WingArtist records a time-lapse of each artwork as you work, unless you switch Time-lapse Recording off in Actions ▸ Video. There you can also watch it with Time-lapse Replay, save it with Export time-lapse video (an MP4), or Clear recording to start it again from now.

Sharing and export

Actions ▸ Share ▸ Share… opens the full sheet with a preview.

Share Layers sends every layer as its own PNG, and Share Layers as PDF makes one page per layer.

To bring a picture in, use Actions ▸ Add: Insert a file, Insert a photo or Take a photo. It lands on its own layer.

Saving, backup and undo

• Saving is automatic: a couple of seconds after each change, when you go back to the Gallery, and whenever you leave the app. There is no save button.
• Undo goes back 250 steps. Two things shorten that: Crop & Resize clears the history, and if the iPad runs very low on memory the app keeps only the most recent steps.
• Your artwork lives only on this iPad. It is not uploaded or synced anywhere, and deleting WingArtist deletes it. Settings ▸ Your artwork ▸ Show in Files opens the folder (On My iPad ▸ WingArtist); copy artworks from there to iCloud Drive or wherever you keep backups. To free up space without losing anything, offload the app in the iPad's Settings ▸ General ▸ iPad Storage, which keeps its files.

Rotating the iPad

When you turn the iPad, the tools turn and the drawing does not. The artwork stays exactly where it was under your hand, like paper taped to the glass, and the bars and panels move round to the new top. So you can turn the iPad to reach an awkward stroke angle, the way you would turn a sheet of paper. To turn the drawing on the screen instead, twist with two fingers.

Settings

Open Settings from the gear in the Gallery, or from Actions ▸ Prefs. They apply to every artwork.

Still stuck?

Support answers the common questions, and hello@paroaria.ai reaches a person. It helps to say which iPad you have and what you were doing at the time.