It's rare that I see someone hand-render wood so accurately that I could tell which way to handplane it, if it were a real board. Here industrial designer Eric Strebel does just that, using basic observation and the drawing skills that come with practice.

"Many times as a designers we have to render materials that are foreign to us, even though we use and see them every day," Strebel writes. "Wood is a great example of that. There are so many species with varied textures, grains and finishes available to designers these days. My suggestion is to work form a real life sample of the material that you are rendering."

"In this week's video I demo a simple rendering, using a 2"x4" pine sample. I talk a little bit about the grain structure that runs through the wood, and also touch on the importance of the 1-2-3 read, as well as basic shadow layout for reading an object in 3D. The sample technique should be applicable to industrial designers, interior designers, and architects."