Craftsmanship in Wood

Recently, i have been courting two would be clients who both are contemplating small structures for themselves. Over the years small structures of cabin and shop variety have kept me afloat and here i go again, however something is missing this time. In the past i have used designers to flesh out the nitty gritty for me but the process was always a bit cumbersome/awkward. Whenever it comes to communication life typically gets a little rougher, especially when dealing with three parties, me, the client and the designer.
So now here i am faced with a bit of a dilemma. The design people do not really gel at this point and the perspective clients are looking to me to crunch out the design process. Sooooo, my partner has downloaded sketch up on her computer, version 8 i believe/2013 and i'm going to give it a whirl. Of course the only reason that i'm attempting this leap from the dark ages is due to instructor Halls uncanny ability to whip up a sketch-up for what ever graphic requirement rears it's ugly head; as evidenced by his router table set-up graphic in the joint model thread. So i'm like, okay, this is pretty damn cool not to mention unbelievably powerful in terms of coveying a message to people in the most succinct manner imaginable it would seem.
So, sketch up tutorials? Find a class and join it? Hire a tutor? I'm wondering as to the best approach to climbing up on this curve? All suggestions welcome. Thanks.

G'Day John,
I started with the tutorials on the Google website (is it owned by someone else now?). But the tutorials on this site were extremely useful:

http://www.srww.com/blog/?p=1335

Regards

Derek

John,

Sketchup, like any drawing software, has a learning curve. The good news is:

-it is quite intuitive and not too hard to learn
-there are heaps of online instructional videos - just head on over to Youtube and pull up a chair for a while
-you don't need to learn every single function to make good use of it
-your client can download Sketchup viewer, also free, so you could share the drawings with them directly

There's also a book out there called Sketchup for Dummies - and several more of a similar ilk by now. SU for Dummies also has a full Youtube complement of videos by the author, starting with this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwj8Bd4 ... 3ADAEFE725

There is an online support forum for SU users as well.

If you set aside a day and devoted it to studying online videos or working through the chapters in that book, you will be well on your way to getting up to speed. After a week, you'll be doing fine I'm sure. There will be some frustrations along the way, but whenever you get stuck trying to do something, just type into Google, "How do you _______in Sketchup?" and you'll find all the help you need.

Sketchup was a Google product but it has since been sold to Trimble.

Thanks muchly for the info Chris appreciate it. John

Nice Derek, will take the advice. Appreciate the tip. John

All the best with your project!

Thanks so much Chris. Quick question, does a mouse with a ball control make sketch up more user friendly as they say?

I just use an inexpensive (<$20.00) Logitech mouse. Reliable, and seems to work fine for all SketchUp tools. It is good to have scroll wheel on a mouse so you can zoom in and out of a drawing quickly.