Hello once again, it’s been a while! Nothing crazy for this first post in a long time, I’ll just be covering some aspects of pixel art in Minecraft and a few programs that make building said pixel art easier. Along with most of my posts on here, this isn’t likely to be full of hidden trade secrets only available RIGHT HERE, but there’s probably at least a few things to learn from skimming the article!
If you’re looking for a way to make art without filling up your residence in one build, check out ItsMeMatheus’ map art blog post here for another interesting method of Minecraft art!
Just a quick note however, while I’m sure most people are quite aware of what pixel art is, there’s still probably a few different types that might be confusing (fancy 3D stuff as an example.) For the purposes of this article, I’ll be talking about straight up 2D 1 block=1 pixel type art!
An example of my own is seen above, this and a lot more pixel art is viewable in person on Empire Minecraft at res #4160, smp2.
Constructing pixel art
With the right methods pixel art can be extremely simple to make, the only constraints being materials and time! The mod “Schematica” is perfect for the building part of the job, as you can first build in single-player creative mode then use Schematica’s tools to easily replicate the build anywhere else. A link to this mod can be found here… make sure you trust the download…! While Schematica is compatible with EMC, the printing (auto build) function is disabled. Sorry!
If you’re able to get Schematica up and running, once you’ve saved a schematic of your pixel art it will look something like this. All that’s left is filling it in!
Schematica will even tell you the exact amount of blocks you’d need to complete the art, so if you’re able to get it running pixel art is incredibly easy to plan out beforehand. If you’re unable to use this program for whatever reason, small scale pixel art is very easy to build just by looking. Once you’ve practiced up on small builds, size of the pixel art shouldn’t make it any more difficult to right click!
Knowing what to build
There’s a few methods you can try to find exactly what pixel arts to use. If you know the character already has a 2D pixel representation (Mario) a quick internet search will usually net you the sprite of the character. After that it’s as simple as converting each pixel to one block in Minecraft.
If you trust 3rd party programs, there are several out there that can convert an image to pixel art. A great program for this type of image conversion is Spritecraft (ignore donation section, program is free!) Make sure you trust it before downloading of course, though I’ve personally experienced no issues. Just upload your image, set the height/width constraints and that’s it! Copy on over to a creative world then make a schematic, or take the build straight to where you planned on making it! An example of this program in use can be found below.
If the project would be too large to build, you can decrease the maximum width to make a smaller possible sprite at the expense of a bit of detail. Sometimes the program can create an odd mix by switching between similar colors randomly like sandstone and birch planks. To fix this you can change the suggested blocks in the options menu to get rid of weird block types like chiseled sandstone or pumpkins. On the final note of weird blocks…
Some blocks to try out
As the conclusion of that last paragraph suggested, I’ll be going into one last quick thing.. knowing what to build with! While I probably won’t need to suggest colored wool or glass, here’s a nice final image of a few blocks just to show the variety you can truly use when creating pixel art!
Of course a few of those can’t be built with in survival, but I hope that shows that there’s more ways to make nice builds than with wool off of a sheep. Thanks for reading, I hope you guys were able to learn at least a few ways to make pixel art from this!
awesome!