A journey begins with the first step...

In thinking about how great my new office is going to be, I think about all the stuff that I'm going to have in it. I plan on building a new computer desk (because the one I have is very crowded and cobbled together from a couple of different desks) and open bookshelves to hold all of my books (I have quite a collection of Hobby Japan magazines and art books). I'll have wall space to put my original comic art on (I've got a few Geoff Darrow pieces and one Mike Mignola pre-Hellboy piece) as well as my video game marques (the top part of an arcade game that has the name). I'll have a place for my drawing table and I also want to build a MAME cabinet (more on that later). But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The first thing I need to do is come up with a plan for this new structure (and not just a scribble some measurements on a cocktail napkin either). I need something that I can take measurements from and build this thing. Something I can show to someone who knows what they are doing as a reality check. Something I can make a list of materials from and have a good idea what this is going to cost me.

Since cost is an important factor with this project, I need all the free help I can get. I began to look around for no cost software to be able to come up with an accurate drawing of the office. The one thing I did find was Google's Sketchup. It's free, seems easy to use and has a large, active community. There are collections of pre-made items that others have done that I can drag and drop into my drawings. Between being free, the online help and community, I think this may be a good place to start.

Google's Sketchup - http://sketchup.google.com/
Info on MAME - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAME
Goeff Darrow - http://www.geofdarrow.net/
Mike Mignola - http://www.hellboy.com/