Street Corner USA

The idea for this came to me last night in a dream. I found myself on a street corner in an old-time city like New York. It was then that I saw the basic idea for this picture. I didn't actually start assembling the 3D model until a little while after the fact, after which most of the original details had been forgotten. But I added new ones and I'm really pleased with the way this turned out.

The original foundation was a 100x100 foot square that I trimmed down in the back. Refer to the standard Google SketchUp model on the corner for a size comparison. Though this is taken from a wide angle some distance away, I paid close attention to detail. I'd definitely include closeups of the building entrances with their awnings and the carefully constructed handrails if I could have.

It took me about six hours to render this from the ground up in Google SketchUp 6. I figured out how to export huge graphics from SketchUp, larger than my screen would allow. The large size yet again allows me to offer this image as a print should anyone be interested.

EDIT 11/09/2009: In randomly clicking the links I gave for my closeup images, I realize the links, while still valid, have since been replaced by other images. Apparently that image hosting website removes images that aren't accessed in a while.