In 2015 Scott, owner and director of WithPencils decided to dispose of his pub group and, alongside his wife Ruby (who had been designing for hospitality as a sole trader and agency side), to create WithPencils. Primarily focusing on marketing a design for the hospitality industry they design logos, POS and signage for pubs and restaurants, eventually leading to requests to visualise building signing and redevelopment interiors.
Scott has agreed to come along and speak to us today about his workflows and projects over the last 12 months and share his requirements used to create one of his latest completions, Nest, Bishopsgate.
“With V-Ray renders, I add lighting and upgrade textures before rendering within SketchUp, using V-Ray swarm rendering (does calculations on other computers to speed up the process). To utilize other iMacs we have.”
Scott began working on SketchUp when it was a Google product (Hands up if you remember that!) and has since been experimenting with sign visuals, press releases and working with some of the most exclusive and quirky bars, pubs and clubs in London. He decided to begin with SketchUp due to its ease in 3D modelling, clear visualisation and simple plugin options that help speed up workflow and reduce file sizes, alongside this the support technically and online from a large community of other SketchUp users has been instrumental to his SketchUp growth.
He also started with SketchUp after convincing his business partner (and wife) to purchase SketchUp on the promise that he would draw out their loft conversion, thankfully he held his promise in lockdown and they very quickly begin to design larger exterior and interior projects for new developments, which alongside pubs and bars signage visuals now make up around 90% of their business, doubling turnover compared to pre-lockdown.
We’re grateful to see business owners striving post lockdown and are extremely happy to see SketchUp and it’s features playing a part in this!
The main challenges with this project was to show the “nest” structure, which could only be achieved by viewing the interior for the exterior and just suggesting the windows.
Scott also opened up a little about his own requirements and his own personal workflow to get the most out of the SketchUp software. You can check out our page here to give you the minimum requirements to use SketchUp on your workstation.
(Please note, Scott’s experience is only giving his personal requirements for his projects/workflow and may not reflect the same for all SketchUp users)
So Scott, take it away!
I work on iMac 27” 3.6GHz 10-Core Intel CorI9 128GBram AMD Radeon Pro 570 XT 16GB.
- 3d Connexion space mouse is the most useful I can’t imagine working without it.
- V-ray – swarm rendering over 5 iMacs
- S4u export scenes
- Path copy – and repeated component
- Fredo round corners – great for soft furnishings
- Sandbox tools – for landscape and organic items
- Solar north to play with the sun location for visuals
For sketch images :
- I build models from Photos, DWG. or PDF (or a combination of them all)
- I populate models from the 3d Warehouse and build custom items as needed.
- I make 3 scenes for each viewpoint
- A customer line style
- Just shadow
- Colour layer
- Then I export all layers using S4u export scenes
- In photoshop I add so hand effects, hand colour with custom brushes and lighting effects
With V-ray renders, I add lighting and upgrade textures before rendering within SketchUp Pro, using V-Ray swarm rendering (does calculations on other computers to speed up the process). To utilize the other iMac we have.
With a degree in Fine Art in the early 90’s Scott had a job in a bar and ending up hospitality industry operating Bars Club and restaurant groups.
