Retro-futuristic Sci-Fi Castle

I'm learning Rhino 3d and as a warmup I created a futuristic 3d model of a retro-futuristic Castle.

I started with a regular boring square castle with towers...


...but almost immediately got bored with that, so, using basic shapes, flat colours for textures, I created a vision of a futuristic mega-scale castle, trying to mirror the vibe of early 90's computer graphics and animation. 


I created a ring on its side then cut it up, added a ground plane and a backing, then added details - support struts, different planes for abstract towers cities to rest on, domes that a retro-futuristic castle might use for any reason,
 with spires and rings because they look cool.

And then mirrored everything across a floating orb in the middle because future stuff - and it looks cool.

Successes: restarting this after getting bored with my initial castle was the best I idea, that first one was so boring but when I stopped trying to think in squares and cubes it really opened up. Tried to make it look like a 90's era retro-futuristic image of almost but not quite abstract architecture. I love how non-square this looks, I struggled to escape symmetry and I think I succeeded.

Challenges: I really struggled with textures beyond simple flat colours, and couldn't figure out how to make more interesting terrain, or rocks that weren't just cube. I'd love to learn how to make actual textures, or more organic shapes like rock or trees, or even a human figure for scale.

...and it also looks cool all turned on its side.



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