The Breakroom

Zip Into Shape With Linea

December 3, 2018

By Webmaster

Linea Hero Illustration - Colorful woman

Today’s update for Linea on both iPad and iPhone brings an array of features that make sketching out ideas easier than ever. We’ve extended the amazing capabilities of ZipLine to draw perfect geometric shapes, added two brand new tools, included iCloud-based version histories for your documents, and a host of other refinements. This is an amazing release: you’ll wonder how you lived without it!

Get Your Fill

With just a tap, Linea’s new paint roller tool lets you quickly flood areas of a sketch with color. The tool takes all the currently visible layers, including templates and grids, and uses them as the fill boundary. You can also draw shapes by hand to quickly color a free-form area.

We’ve had a blast using it with Linea’s vast collection of guides to create some familiar and cool retro art – your creativity knows no bounds!

Blend In

Linea’s other new tool lets you soften or smudge areas of your sketch. In the first mode, you can smooth hard edges to create gradients. The other mode lets you push color around to make fluid shapes. Combined with pressure from the Apple Pencil and varying brush sizes, this tool can be used for a huge variety of effects.

One thing we love to do is change the finger action in Settings from erase to smudge. When combined with the pencil tool, it feels a lot like working with oil pastels!

ZipShapes Rule

ZipLine was a revelation: a simple and effective way to draw straight lines. We loved it so much, we extended it to any shape you can imagine!

Simply draw a rough circle, square, rectangle, oval, or polygon and hold at the end. After a configurable delay, ZipShape will activate and transform your rough version into a clean, precise shape. It works with all of Linea’s drawing tools – including the new fill tool.

You don’t have to be perfect – after the shape is generated, there are transform handles you can use to tweak its final position and appearance. No rulers or stencils required!

But That’s Not All

Today’s update includes other great features that will help unleash your creativity while working faster and smarter:

  • Want to go back in time and fix a mistake or take a different creative direction? Tap Select in the Project view, choose a sketch, then tap Versions in the Actions (⋯) menu. Linea presents you with a list of edits and allows you to revert or create a copy.
  • Double-tap on the new Apple Pencil can be configured to switch tools, change interface state, enter selection mode, or modify tool sizes.
  • There are new settings for what your finger does while an Apple Pencil is in use: erase, blend, draw, move the canvas, or ignore.
  • We added a fun new mid-tone paper background called Mulberry.
  • New template for full-screen tablet with a minimal bezel which matches the 11″ iPad Pro aspect ratio.

Don’t forget to check out our Tips & Tricks page for some great ways to improve your workflow as well as Sketch’s and Go’s version history pages for the complete list of what’s new.

If you aren’t using Linea yet, today’s major update is a great reason to try it out! Head on over to the App Store to download Linea Sketch for iPad or Linea Go for iPhone and you’ll be creating in no time!