Thanks jpalm, I wish I had more time to keep making models like this.
It wasn't very large at all, most of the file size came from the texture. It was very fluid and easy to navigate.
I forgot to mention I used sketchup's native "from contours" tool (sandbox) to link up the tops and bottoms of the "columns"...this was then subdivided a few times.
The morning Thea render had no direct light; only physical sky was used to give a general glow. I love Thea's physical sky. For the afternoon shots I used direct sunlight and physical sky combined. For the misty afternoon shot I added the volumetric fog in photoshop, bit of a cheat really but I never got my head round volumetric materials especially as my dual core computer was rendering them soooooo slooooooow! π
41MB in total
477,526 edges
314,374 faces
If anyone wants me to upload this model for playing/rendering let me know and I'll make a download link. π