Making SketchUp Drawings Look Less Like SketchUp Drawings

Thanks, Dave!!

Would it work to scan a “crumpled” sheet on a scanner and save it as a jpeg file?

Nice. I have tried similar ‘hand drawn’ looks for some models I was sharing with friends.

The reaction was “I thought you said you modeled this in CAD” hee hee.

-- Learning my way to more tools.

Cool. I really need to spend time with SU. But…............

-- ~ Inspiring those who inspire me ~

That is sweet. Dave, you are THE man when it comes to Sketchup.

Thanks for the technique.

-- -- Rob Hix, King George, VA

Thanks guys.

Lew, yes, you could scan a piece of crumpled or other paper. You could also use photographs as I did in the following examples. I made a part of the image transparent and used that image as the overlay.

I did this one very quickly. The overlay needs a little more time in the image editor.

Some of these aren’t terribly useful and the sketchy look can be easily overdone. On the other hand, if you want to communicate an idea to someone but you don’t want them to think it’s a “carved in stone” sort of thing, a sketchy style might be a good thing to use.

Here’s an example of a drawing I sent to a client. It was one of three concepts for a built in cabinet we’re working on. As the design comes together, I’ll tighten up the drawing style. I didn’t use a watermark for this; only the sketchy line style and some limited colors.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

YES! This is AWESOME! I must learn this. NOW!

-- Wipe the blood stains from your blade before coming in.

Thanks Dave!

-- Wipe the blood stains from your blade before coming in.

Good work and you’re welcome.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

I forgot to ask, which line style did you choose?

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Ummm… I think thats scribble heavy but I don’t know for sure and I can’t look and see because I have changed it about 15 times since I posted this. Sorry. Now I’m on a hunt for interesting backgrounds. Its cool that we can present our designs in the more realistic fashion. Now our drawings can actually show the cocktail napkin that there were originally designed on.

-- Wipe the blood stains from your blade before coming in.

I’ll suggest that you make a note of the line style name in the larger box under the style name and click on Make New Style so you can save the variations you make. then you can switch between them and save only the ones you like.

Keep in mind that you can overdo it easily and if you use the same style frequently, they won’t look so unique any more.

There are other ways to use the watermark styles, too.

Some styles will likely be bombs though.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

ok I can’t get them as realistic as yours yet. :)

Wait a sec… aren’t we supposed to be woodworkers? Seems like we’ve gotten sidetracked.

-- Wipe the blood stains from your blade before coming in.

LOL!

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.