Minecraft House Project

imgur link of the process step by step

This project showcases one of the major builds I have done in Minecraft. My vision was to create a cottage-like house with some modern elements to it. Usually when I build things, I just like to go with the flow of things, and my gut usually tells me if certain things go well / do not go well with the overall aesthetic. Something that I recently learned about myself with this project is that planning ahead is really important, though in a game like minecraft the mistakes are not as punishing as you can easily delete blocks and restart. In this particular version of Minecraft, it included mods that were not included in vanilla, this had more creative mods that had more crops, aesthetic blocks, items, etc., that enhances the players creativity however they use it. I was especially fond of this as what I felt was lacking was more blocks that could be used to build, and furniture especially as we had to makeshift things like tables, couches, or benches with existing materials in vanilla that made no sense if you combined it (for example: a chair could be made by placing down a stair block and signs on both sides to simulate armrests). Mods made it so that chairs looked like actual chairs, and many more.

Going into this, I knew it would take a very long time, especially as a one person project. In total I would say it took about two weeks (about 2-4 hours a session), although the images only show part of the house (the server is currently down so I have no access to it at the moment), there were many things that I added that I wish could showcase as well. Working independently was something that I loved as well cause personally no one could see the vision I was portraying so there was not much stress in sharing that information because I could not explain it myself, I normally just build without thinking. The hardest part about this was roofing as it has always been my weakness when designing houses. For me it’s difficult to create roofing that fits with the house that are well balanced in terms of dimension and the type of roofing. The other part was making the house seem “sensible” in the best way that I can. What I mean by this is if it was created in the real world, would it stand? So I started incorporating a balanced structure by placing fences for example that acted like foundations on parts where I felt the house felt a bit heavy to maintain balance and stability.

Overall from this experience I learned to let my creative mind be free. Minecraft is one of many applications that I could use my artistic background on and from this project, I felt that it became very apparent. The shaders (a mod enhancing the dynamic lighting in the game) was very useful in creating nice images to screenshot what I built and also helped me create nice lighting around the house. The only thing that I wish I did more was take more screenshots of around the house when I could, and of course the other projects that I’ve worked on when playing with my friends on other servers.