Final Model Progress 1

This is how far I have proceeded with my final model. I tweaked a few elements between the final iteration and this model, such as thinning out the pillars a little, as well as adding an adornment to the top of the dome and insetting the windows and doors. I felt this made it look a lot more compact and elegant, whilst still maintaining structural stability.

This is how I have constructed my model, each piece being a separate model. My plan is to wrap these individually and then use duplicate special to instance these across my model, saving a lot of time when it comes to unwrapping as I will not have to texture multiple pillars and walls. One issue I will have to keep in mind is the possibility of seams showing up, so I will have to do a lot of checking back and forth when it comes to the texturing process.

The wireframe demonstrates how I cleaned up the model to try and minimise the amount of polygons in my model. Even so, the polycount ends up at around 10 thousand tris. There could be ways I could simplify the model such as taking out the geometry of the balustrade and instead using a texture, but this will mean the balustrade will look a whole lot more flat which isn't necessarily a good thing. But, overall, I think I did a good job in keeping the topology efficient.