Hello all!
I can't promise that I'll be able to keep this up and regularly post, but over the last few weeks I've had deep frustrations with current events in my hometown of Boise, Idaho, which has ultimately inspired me to work on Pierpont again, developing what I would consider to be my own perfect vision of what my hometown should be like.
I'm taking a TOTALLY different approach, inspired heavily by Pingyao's monumentally wonderful approach to Sta Fee. I've realized that by modeling every detail, no matter how much effort I put into it, renderings still seem to have that computer-generated feel when I really want it to look like a photograph. Also, by modeling with so much detail, I couldn't get very far before ultimately giving up due to frustration and lack of inspiration.
Instead of going with a detail heavy approach, I'm going light on the details for each individual building, and working more toward photo-realism. Also, by saving on the detail, I can model a HUGE portion of the city in much, much less time.
Another thing different that I am doing... rather than modeling the roads and cars and everything... I've stitched together ultra-high-res satellite photos of Boise, Idaho, and HEAVILY modified them with Photoshop to turn it into a very different looking city than Boise.
I'm also working on a much better and more realistic backstory for Pierpont.