I started with the two stone columns that stand either side of the gates as a starting point. I gave them some indents and protrusions to make them look more interesting, inspired by the forms that I noticed in the reference images.
Once I was happy with those, I started creating a frame for the gates. As the gates won't be opening at all during the game, it doesn't matter too much if some parts interlock but I think it is important for them to appear as functional. So giving the gates a frame and hinges should help with this. I've used my figure measure to help achieve the sort of proportions I was imagining, I wanted the columns to be especially tall so that they seem more formidable.
After adding some iron bars to the gates, I felt that I really wanted to give them some opulence and I was inspired by some of the imagery of Victorian metal work. I screen captured an image of the side view of my gates and then used this in Photoshop as a background for designing my own pattern of swirls. I then took this back into Maya and used it on an image plane to create polygon quads, extruded to recreate the swirl patterns.
I decided to extrude them rather than have them as planes as I thought the player might look at the gates side-on, and it would ruin the effect to see the pattern disappear at this angle. They are fairly low poly (the one above is 196 tris for example) and once I soften the normals they should start to look a little less angular.
I decided to alter the iron bars I put in last month as they were very flat. I think giving these parts more depth helps to keep the overall level design from getting too flat.
