TIEBIAOJI SketchUp Tutorials

The Dennis technique

The Dennis technique is the quickest and most fun of all NPR techniques yet developed for SketchUp. The skills you'll learn here will allow you to experiment and develop your own particular preferred style or technique.

The method gained a huge following after an architect calling himself Dennis on the SketchUp Pro forums posted the following image "up for review" in the gallery section of the forum. He agreed to provide us with a run through of his method, and having done this he proceeded to mentor and encourage those of us who were trying to copy it. The Dennis technique was born in a 400+ post thread!

It turns out that the big trick, or secret if you like, behind the Dennis technique is speed. You need to be quick in everything you do. Quick, rough mouse movements. Quick decisions on whether you like what you see, or to erase it. The whole process should take no more than half an hour once you're used to it, and that lack of time investment will make you willing to be bold and use flourishes you wouldn't usually. "Getting it right" is not the idea here. In fact, it spoils it. You can see why by looking at this close-up of Dennis' original.

This close-up shows the roughness which actually provides the desirability of the image. It's as if watercolor has been applied to a hand drawn pen and ink drawing. Follow the steps here exactly so that you gain an idea of why each step is required. Once you've done it like this once, you can add your own embellishments.

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