Sculpture, landscaping, and working around pre-existing content in Elkins Beach

Work in Elkins Beach continues with a lot of landscaping and detailing.  I left this project unfinished years ago, and that was very visible before I started again a few weeks ago.  For example, ground panels were incomplete and floating in the air at various points, there were empty fields alongside busy 4-lane highways, and artificial canals butted up against thin air.

I've spent much of this week 'capping off' the landcover by connecting varying planes, by filling in fields that I didn't intend to build on with trees and rocks, and by placing geometries for buildings that I do intend to complete.

There was one build that I did manage to at least complete initially: a sculpture that I've named "Monolith Rise".  It consists of a grouping of glossy monoliths that increase in height and alternate in texture. The base of the sculpture is lit with a flickering gold light to better distinguish the sculpture from the ambient lighting of the surrounding world. The entire sculpture is surrounded by sheared sidewalk in a park scene:

Note that Monolith Rise is immediately next to the sheared truss bridge that was featured in my last blog about Elkins Beach.  You can find it in-world at "aw" 2680.24S 4071.27E 0.22a 314.

The sculpture sits on a lot that formerly held plans for a cathedral.  I felt that this lot was too narrow so I've scrapped that idea.  Behind the lot was also originally a curved extension of a river that cuts out to the sea.  I've expanded this into a small harbor and removed the curved concrete panels to increase the surface area of the water:

The rest of the work I did was primarily detailing.  A lot of geometries for planned building and some landscaping.  You can see that below:

There was one final area of interest -- I did some detailing around an older build (circa 2005) that was in the area before I was -- a military base built by Jaguar Hahn.  Fun trivia fact: Jaguar Hahn was building a city with me in AWTeen around this time called New Arklay City, but I don't recall him ever sharing many builds in Alphaworld.  Not this one, at least.

I've tried to help integrate into this cityscape that was built up around it by making sure it kept good road access and by trying to respect the airspace near a very short airstrip on the property.  There's an unfortunate concrete fence that may be doing more harm than I am, though. 

 

Some points about detailing around pre-existing builds:

• Respect how this build fit into the existing area.  For example, this base connected to an existing road in the area.  When I took the road over, I made sure the base still connected to it well and made sense in the overall scene.

• Contextual additions make it feel like it fits in better.  One helpful addition I made was to add metal towers with reflectors leading into the airstrip. There are also no trees leading up to the airstrip.  I think this complements the build by demonstrating that it has effects on the surrounding content.

• Don't be afraid to hide parts of a build when necessary.  The backside of the base is closed off by a fence, so I can't add a road to it or really complement it in any way.  I think the best thing to do here was to add some flora and rocks to obstruct its view from a nearby road that doesn't access it.

I'll probably post another update about Elkins Beach again next week.