He has tried to base his run-up on the menacing lope of Brett Lee, and to build his action by taking the best from the smooth, efficient examples set by Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock.
Dale Steyn has patently succeeded in crafting himself into a deadly fast bowling weapon in the South African cricketing arsenal, prompting one of the country's best batsmen, Daryll Cullinan, to suggest he is far better than icon Donald at the same stage of his career.
Steyn, who turned 25 last week, is second in the Test rankings for bowlers, behind Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, and seems set to continue his stunning form of the past year (78 wickets in 12 Tests) when the Proteas resume Test combat against England at Lord's next week.
Diamond Eagles batsman Jacques Rudolph, plying his trade with Yorkshire, has more reason than most to remember Steyn. In the 2007/08 domestic season, Steyn could fit in only one first-class game for his franchise, the Titans. This match, against eventual champions the Eagles, came after he had taken 20 wickets in two Tests against New Zealand.
Steyn scythed through the Eagles, collecting 14 wickets in a rout, and breaking Rudolph's finger in the process, after having dismissed him in the first innings.
"Darren Gough, now at Yorkshire, played with Dale at Essex three years ago. Darren said he bowled rapidly, but too short," said Rudolph.
Steyn's return in that stint in the county game? Fourteen wickets at 59. With Gough as a sounding-board, though, the Proteas paceman quickly learnt from his mistakes.
Two years on, Steyn turned out for Warwickshire, collecting 23 wickets at 25. A wiser head on his shoulders, by then he had been given a second bite at Test cricket.
By his own admission, in his early days, like Lee, Steyn wanted to bowl faster than anyone else, and for a time he was happy if batsmen would have cause to gasp: "He's quick!"
The Phalaborwa-born bowler, as one of three Proteas Test bowlers currently operating at around 140km/h, has been more than just a speed merchant in the past year, and as the 12th South African to hit three figures in terms of Test wickets, is expected to be a key player in the series in England.
He knows how easy it is for a technical flaw to affect performance, though. Shortly before the home Tests against New Zealand last year, SA bowling coach Vincent Barnes got him to change his angle of approach and run in straighter in the nets. He went from bowling way off the mark, into the side netting, to nearly killing team-mate Mark Boucher, who was batting at the time. It was the start of ominous things to come for opposition batsmen.
Steyn's maturity in the game is coming along apace, but sometimes he slips up when off the field - he recently termed the Indian Premier League, where he played for the Bangalore Royal Challengers, as being "like a paid holiday".
"It was only four overs a game... you only had to work if you felt like it, which is probably why we finished second last," he explained.
His Indian employers were not too pleased, and Steyn had to apologise hastily for his naive sense of humour.
Like many observers, Rudolph believes Steyn's pace and late swing could prove devastating in English conditions. Likewise Makhaya Ntini's back-of-a-length steadiness and the bounce of Morne Morkel.
"Morne played just one match with us at Yorkshire this season before getting injured, but even though he won't necessarily nick off as many batsmen here as on the bouncy tracks at home, he showed enough to suggest he will be a handful," said Rudolph.
As far as spin is concerned, Rudolph said slow bowlers Paul Harris of South Africa and England's Monty Panesar would have more of a role in the Tests at Lord's from July 10, and at The Oval from August 7. (The other two Tests are at Headingley in Leeds and Edgbaston in Birmingham.)
"At the two grounds (in London) the pitches are a little more dry. Playing at the Oval recently, the track got a little powdery later in the game, giving the spinners more leverage.
"It will be interesting to see how the England batsmen play Paul, who has picked up a lot more experience since leaving Warwickshire two years ago. You can expect Kevin Pietersen to target him, though."
England's premier batsman Pietersen does shape as a key performer in the series, and South Africa will hope their plans to nullify him work out.
Thousands of column inches will be written about SA cricketer of the year Steyn in the coming series, though.
That is a far cry from four years ago, when, as he told the Independent on Sunday, he could barely afford a pair of cricket shoes. He was the kid from nowhere who had been picked for South Africa's Test team and he was ill-equipped in almost every sense.
"I had one pair and I had to buy them myself when I first started playing internationals," he said. "I just didn't have the money for more. I begged Shaun Pollock for a pair of shoes."
The one area in which Steyn was abundantly equipped was that of raw talent. He now has 30 pairs of cricket shoes "all stacked up and ready to go" in a room specially dedicated to cricket in a new house in Cape Town.
He has the breathtaking ability to come up with deliveries which would take any wicket on the planet. This has usually involved swing or sharp seam, all at something well above 140km/h, with the ball clattering into off stump.
In his first Test, against England in Port Elizabeth in December 2004, he did for England's captain Michael Vaughan in such a fashion.
He has done it again since, and the fear for England this summer and for Australia later in the year is that he will keep doing it.