Sketchup Lawmaster

I've known about Google sketchup for a while and I've done nothing about learning how to use it, despite having heard pretty good things... that changed last week when I saw an amazing job that Richard Smith did using it to model a spaceship called the Terrapin (see Richard's website for more of his illustration work). The Terrapin is for a strip he is working on for a forthcoming issue of FutureQuake and looks awesome and I was inspired to learn more!


After asking Richard whether he thought it was worth learning how to use Sketchup, (a resounding yes), I decided I would spend a bit of time trying to get to grips with it. There are some limitations but I managed to build Judge Dredd's Lawmaster (his bike) and I'm not unhappy with the results... I will build a few other things and hopefully it will help greatly with that Dredd strip I'm doing for Zarjaz with Lee Robson.


I have to say, I'm thoroughly impressed with sketchup and for a FREE and EASY 3D package I can see no downside, especially when you can export animations that you can use to show others around the models you have built. So, can I recommend it? On Monday I had no idea how to create things in 3D that I could then use to plan scenes and things... and now I have a new and powerful tool in my skill set! So, I can strongly recommend it, well worth the time spent I think!