The Spawn Chunks 245: The Artist’s Eye

May 15, 2023 | podcast

Jonny, and Joel cover the bug fixes, and changes in the new pre-release for Minecraft Trails & Tales, discuss a listener’s idea of armor trim mini buffs, then Joel breaks down the artistic tools he brings to Minecraft, and how he applies them to his builds in game.

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Joel

  • The Citadel – Westhill
    • The changes to the Westhill keep continue, with some changes integrating better than others.

Jonny

  • Empires, Season 2
    • Castle Greyscale is finished to a satisfying point, considering the end of Empires Season 2 is nearly upon us.
      • The latest additions to the castle have been the throne room with adjoining sanctum, a great hall, and kitchen, and several other towers, and walls.
      • There is a mix of relief in leaving the project behind, a little disappointment there wasn’t more time to spend on it, but with the huge scale of the build without a deadline the project could have gone on forever. 

Minecraft News

Chunk Mail

FROM: Sun D. (Steve)
SUBJECT: Armor Trim Having Gameplay Features

Hi Jonny, and Joel,

I’ve been catching up on the latest episodes and wanted to talk about adding features to armor trims just a bit more.

I want to suggest a solution to the two problems you raised, giving armor trim powerful features might negate important gameplay challenges like piglin aggro, and there might be a “meta” after a while, thus defeating the purpose of self-expression.

Instead of removing challenges, what if armor trim provided buffs like faster mining of certain resources, higher jumping (maybe 1.5 blocks?), or increased speed while swimming or running? These buffs would need to not break the game or render existing gameplay obsolete, but would just slightly reduce the time spent on grinding, and exploring. I think the community would appreciate that change.

It would be great if these buffs required a full set of the same armor trim material, to prevent a dominant strategy from emerging. Plus, having different armor sets for different situations (A mining set, an exploring set, a base maintenance set, etc.) would be thematic and might encourage players to use the armor they collect in different ways.

Steve’s colleagues were terrified as he walked in with his netherite suit, and tie on a Monday morning.

FROM: 12HourHalfDay
DISCORD MEMBER: Landscape Artist
SUBJECT: Using Artistic Tools In Minecraft

Hi Joel and Pix,

Thank you for producing such great content. I’ve been listening for a few months, and finally thought of a question I want to ask.

My question is for Joel. You often speak about how your decisions in Minecraft are influenced by your profession as an artist. You mention things like color theory, and composition, but don’t often explain them. Can you go deeper into this and explain how color theory, composition, and other art principals affect your decisions in Minecraft? 

I know this will require some explanation of art theory but as someone who is interested in making artistic builds, I would very much appreciate it.

12hourhalfday was blown up by a creeper while contemplating the color juxtaposition of a kelp block adjacent to red terracotta.

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Applying The Tools Visual Artists Use In Minecraft

Joel comes to Minecraft with a background as a professional artist, and often talks about various fundamentals of visual art when describing his builds, and the decisions he makes while building in Minecraft. Joel leads a discussion breaking down what he means when he talks about framing and composition, the path of the eye, color theory, or the dreaded tangent, and how those principals can be applied in Minecraft.

Examples of some of the visual art fundamentals discussed: