lol yeah, 3d is so time consuming, I've been working on the same project for 2months now, and probably won't be done for another 2 months and it's just a simple street
anyways, just some advice... either work on the 3-point lighting, or change the color of your shader...the black on the shaker is kinda hard to see but the rest is all a very good start
all my stuff started off as simple cubes...then i go back and slowly add more and more details with every pass that i do on it... so no worries about the "simple stuff" it's always good to start simple.