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Hi
This is my build for the Behind the Picket Fence contest (Obviously)... Well, uh, I guess here is some FAQ and my building experience... Enjoy
Is this a modern Build?
Yes
Is this your first attempt at Modern building?
Yes... Kinda. First time putting effort into a modern home.
Is this home for sale?
Well... uh... no. Sorry.
Are you willing to talk about your build experience in hope to impress the judges with your very unique and never before seen building techniques?
Since you asked.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The Exterior!
The Terrain-
My ideal location for this house would to be nestled inside a forest (Like Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water). To capture that, I chose more of a natural, overgrown terrain, since, again, it's a forest. I chose your a bunch of brown blocks and then varied them all over, trying to get as much texture as possible. Texture is key here. Podzol is a good base block to use, along with course dirt, path blocks, tilled dirt blocks, and a pinch of regular grass blocks. I even Through in some of the new brown concrete powder to add just a little but more texture. For plants I chose grasses and ferns for the majority. I planted some wheat in the tilled sections to add in some nice coloring. I then strung some leaf blocks all around for bushes. I didn't bother with flowers as I wanted to primarily stick with green and browns. Another good detail that you could add are stone buttons. They look just like little rocks! Detail is key here. for the roads, I grabbed just about all of the types of stones and just varied them all around. Texture is, once again, key here. I didn't want the path to look brand new are well maintained, so it's a good idea to weather some. Adding the mossy variants of blocks is a good call.
The House-
The house is, well, a modern house. Step one with building modern homes is choose your base color. Many modern homes have very smooth plain walls all around.Yet they would look very bland if there is only one color coming through. Step two is choosing the big features to decorate the outside of the house with. The Biggest attraction to my build are the massive windows and wooden beams jutting out in the front. The front is the most important part to look at, so it has to look good. One of my favorite building techniques with wood is to do a color gradient with them. Going from birch to oak to spruce, and then to dark oak adds in a lot of color without getting to crazy. They make for a great feature, especially if your background doesn't get in the way much. Between the 4 wooden beams are 3 large windows. They extend 2 stories, so it might be a good idea to give them some loving as well. Thin lines in Minecraft can be challenging, but not impossible. I grabbed some iron trapdoors to divide up the windows some. the problem with iron trapdoors are that they require a redstone source to open and close, so you might want to use World Edit/MCEdit to place "opened" iron trapdoors. You can use the /setblock command though. Once you finish your main feature of the house, you should move onto other features. You can never use too many plant's when building. Diversity is key here. Add plants hanging off the sides of walls, on roofs, wherever. Add in a secondary wall feature. I didn't want to stick with just white walls, so I added in a large textures stone wall to one of the sides. It helps break up the pattern and adds just a little bit more to look at. Texture is key here. The biggest things to remember are to have a base layer, a secondary layer, a large, main feature, and keep things for the most part uniform. Not everything needs to be different, but not everything needs to be the same. Find a style and expand upon it.
The Interior!
The Artwork-
People that own modern homes tend to like artwork. Art is key here. I of course used Minecraft's paintings everywhere, as they add good color into the place. Besides paintings, I also build up some pieces of art with blocks. Slabs and stairs can are useful for shaping. Probably my most impressive piece of custom art in my house is the 13 x 4 banner artwork. It's really quite simple to make. I would start with a sketch (In MS Paint or something similar) And then match it up as best as you can with banners. They can be a little tricky to work around, but thankfully modern artwork is really simple. I Chose a base color of white, applied my color wherever it's needed, removed the excess color off the banner, then framed it with the black lines. You might need to re-arrange this order on some, but that's primary it. It'll make more sense if you ever try it out.
The Lighting-
You have to get creative with lighting in modern builds. Explore new ideas, use different sources of light. End rods look really great (besides the pink base). I found that shulker boxes make for a good light cover decor. You should often frame your lighting somehow. Don't just leave a block of glowstone just hanging. Decorate it. If you have a carpet/rug in a room, shove some glowstone under that. It's the best place to put hidden lighting. In general, you can never hide away too much hidden light sources, especially if you are dealing with massive rooms.
The Rooms-
Rooms are important to have in homes. You can sleep in them, eat in them, read books in them. What I'm saying is add rooms, but be smart about it. I could have squeezed in another bedroom, another bathroom, but it would have gotten super tight. In the house, there are 2 bedrooms (I know, only 2), 1 bathroom (I couldn't find a place to add another bathroom...), 1 kitchen, 1 dining room, 1 office, a couple lounge areas, 2 living rooms (The main one, and then a bonus room) and a sauna. I wanted a very open feel in the house, that's why I have so many lounges and living rooms. I could have used that space for better, but oh well. The whole house is primarily built around the main living room, if you haven't notice. Layout is key here. The main living room is a good "central hub" for the house. The kitchen is right next to it, it houses the stairs to the next level. Behind the main living room is the dining room. When I said earlier that you need to get creative with lighting, this would be a prime example. The dining room has poor spots to put lighting, mainly because I put in a very interesting ceiling.The dining room has immediate access to the backyard porch. Other than that, the dining room is pretty standard. Probably the interesting rooms in the house would be the sauna. It was a really simple build. Place some benches in the back and add a furnace. (Bonus points to any Finns reading this!)
Reference Material-
Since this challenge is focused around originality, I made sure to get my inspiration from Non-Minecraft structures. Many of reference photos were of actual houses in the actual world (crazy right!) This is a great building tip in general as you can get a idea of what you want to build, but then you can expand upon it and make it your own interpretation. You can look at Minecraft builds as a source of ideas, but it can become easy to basically construct their builds even if it was done unintentionally. Nevertheless go onto Google images (or your preferred source of photos) and just browse. I do this all the time with city building. I'll type in something like New York streets and then apply what I like.
Everything Else That I Missed-
Another feature of my house that I think is pretty neat is the staircase. Instead of using just stair blocks as, well, stairs, I went the extra step and made custom stairs. Using Iron trapdoors as each step, I can get that thin line that juts out. It's not as practical as regular stairs, but they work and look great. Another thing that's not practical are my doors. The front door is made out of dark oak blocks and stairs. In other words, it doesn't work. I did this however because I wanted a big door, and the default doors are just way too small. Inside the house, many of the doors are made out of doors, but the still don't function quite like doors. I'd rather take looks over functionality. Many doors, like the back door or the bathroom door I like to imagine are sliding doors. Some other doors though act just like regular doors do. Basically most of my doors are real fake doors!
Some other details to add are player heads. They add such a great level of detail and are extremely versatile. I use them for food and lampshades. Normally I would have added way more, but I didn't want to rely on them too much. But knock yourself out with them.
The Conclusion-
I pushed myself to make this build as unique as possible. I experimented with all sorts of blocks, seeing what I could use them as besides their purpose. The biggest thing with building, is never build with certain blocks just because their in-game purpose is meant for a singular function. I wanted this build to look good, and if that meant using concrete powder as carpet (It does look like carpet), then I'm going to use it. I hope my build is a good representation of what is possible to do in game and I hope others will take inspiration and expand upon it in the future.
Thanks
This is my build for the Behind the Picket Fence contest (Obviously)... Well, uh, I guess here is some FAQ and my building experience... Enjoy
Is this a modern Build?
Yes
Is this your first attempt at Modern building?
Yes... Kinda. First time putting effort into a modern home.
Is this home for sale?
Well... uh... no. Sorry.
Are you willing to talk about your build experience in hope to impress the judges with your very unique and never before seen building techniques?
Since you asked.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The Exterior!
The Terrain-
My ideal location for this house would to be nestled inside a forest (Like Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water). To capture that, I chose more of a natural, overgrown terrain, since, again, it's a forest. I chose your a bunch of brown blocks and then varied them all over, trying to get as much texture as possible. Texture is key here. Podzol is a good base block to use, along with course dirt, path blocks, tilled dirt blocks, and a pinch of regular grass blocks. I even Through in some of the new brown concrete powder to add just a little but more texture. For plants I chose grasses and ferns for the majority. I planted some wheat in the tilled sections to add in some nice coloring. I then strung some leaf blocks all around for bushes. I didn't bother with flowers as I wanted to primarily stick with green and browns. Another good detail that you could add are stone buttons. They look just like little rocks! Detail is key here. for the roads, I grabbed just about all of the types of stones and just varied them all around. Texture is, once again, key here. I didn't want the path to look brand new are well maintained, so it's a good idea to weather some. Adding the mossy variants of blocks is a good call.
The House-
The house is, well, a modern house. Step one with building modern homes is choose your base color. Many modern homes have very smooth plain walls all around.Yet they would look very bland if there is only one color coming through. Step two is choosing the big features to decorate the outside of the house with. The Biggest attraction to my build are the massive windows and wooden beams jutting out in the front. The front is the most important part to look at, so it has to look good. One of my favorite building techniques with wood is to do a color gradient with them. Going from birch to oak to spruce, and then to dark oak adds in a lot of color without getting to crazy. They make for a great feature, especially if your background doesn't get in the way much. Between the 4 wooden beams are 3 large windows. They extend 2 stories, so it might be a good idea to give them some loving as well. Thin lines in Minecraft can be challenging, but not impossible. I grabbed some iron trapdoors to divide up the windows some. the problem with iron trapdoors are that they require a redstone source to open and close, so you might want to use World Edit/MCEdit to place "opened" iron trapdoors. You can use the /setblock command though. Once you finish your main feature of the house, you should move onto other features. You can never use too many plant's when building. Diversity is key here. Add plants hanging off the sides of walls, on roofs, wherever. Add in a secondary wall feature. I didn't want to stick with just white walls, so I added in a large textures stone wall to one of the sides. It helps break up the pattern and adds just a little bit more to look at. Texture is key here. The biggest things to remember are to have a base layer, a secondary layer, a large, main feature, and keep things for the most part uniform. Not everything needs to be different, but not everything needs to be the same. Find a style and expand upon it.
The Interior!
The Artwork-
People that own modern homes tend to like artwork. Art is key here. I of course used Minecraft's paintings everywhere, as they add good color into the place. Besides paintings, I also build up some pieces of art with blocks. Slabs and stairs can are useful for shaping. Probably my most impressive piece of custom art in my house is the 13 x 4 banner artwork. It's really quite simple to make. I would start with a sketch (In MS Paint or something similar) And then match it up as best as you can with banners. They can be a little tricky to work around, but thankfully modern artwork is really simple. I Chose a base color of white, applied my color wherever it's needed, removed the excess color off the banner, then framed it with the black lines. You might need to re-arrange this order on some, but that's primary it. It'll make more sense if you ever try it out.
The Lighting-
You have to get creative with lighting in modern builds. Explore new ideas, use different sources of light. End rods look really great (besides the pink base). I found that shulker boxes make for a good light cover decor. You should often frame your lighting somehow. Don't just leave a block of glowstone just hanging. Decorate it. If you have a carpet/rug in a room, shove some glowstone under that. It's the best place to put hidden lighting. In general, you can never hide away too much hidden light sources, especially if you are dealing with massive rooms.
The Rooms-
Rooms are important to have in homes. You can sleep in them, eat in them, read books in them. What I'm saying is add rooms, but be smart about it. I could have squeezed in another bedroom, another bathroom, but it would have gotten super tight. In the house, there are 2 bedrooms (I know, only 2), 1 bathroom (I couldn't find a place to add another bathroom...), 1 kitchen, 1 dining room, 1 office, a couple lounge areas, 2 living rooms (The main one, and then a bonus room) and a sauna. I wanted a very open feel in the house, that's why I have so many lounges and living rooms. I could have used that space for better, but oh well. The whole house is primarily built around the main living room, if you haven't notice. Layout is key here. The main living room is a good "central hub" for the house. The kitchen is right next to it, it houses the stairs to the next level. Behind the main living room is the dining room. When I said earlier that you need to get creative with lighting, this would be a prime example. The dining room has poor spots to put lighting, mainly because I put in a very interesting ceiling.The dining room has immediate access to the backyard porch. Other than that, the dining room is pretty standard. Probably the interesting rooms in the house would be the sauna. It was a really simple build. Place some benches in the back and add a furnace. (Bonus points to any Finns reading this!)
Reference Material-
Since this challenge is focused around originality, I made sure to get my inspiration from Non-Minecraft structures. Many of reference photos were of actual houses in the actual world (crazy right!) This is a great building tip in general as you can get a idea of what you want to build, but then you can expand upon it and make it your own interpretation. You can look at Minecraft builds as a source of ideas, but it can become easy to basically construct their builds even if it was done unintentionally. Nevertheless go onto Google images (or your preferred source of photos) and just browse. I do this all the time with city building. I'll type in something like New York streets and then apply what I like.
Everything Else That I Missed-
Another feature of my house that I think is pretty neat is the staircase. Instead of using just stair blocks as, well, stairs, I went the extra step and made custom stairs. Using Iron trapdoors as each step, I can get that thin line that juts out. It's not as practical as regular stairs, but they work and look great. Another thing that's not practical are my doors. The front door is made out of dark oak blocks and stairs. In other words, it doesn't work. I did this however because I wanted a big door, and the default doors are just way too small. Inside the house, many of the doors are made out of doors, but the still don't function quite like doors. I'd rather take looks over functionality. Many doors, like the back door or the bathroom door I like to imagine are sliding doors. Some other doors though act just like regular doors do. Basically most of my doors are real fake doors!
Some other details to add are player heads. They add such a great level of detail and are extremely versatile. I use them for food and lampshades. Normally I would have added way more, but I didn't want to rely on them too much. But knock yourself out with them.
The Conclusion-
I pushed myself to make this build as unique as possible. I experimented with all sorts of blocks, seeing what I could use them as besides their purpose. The biggest thing with building, is never build with certain blocks just because their in-game purpose is meant for a singular function. I wanted this build to look good, and if that meant using concrete powder as carpet (It does look like carpet), then I'm going to use it. I hope my build is a good representation of what is possible to do in game and I hope others will take inspiration and expand upon it in the future.
Thanks
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Update #2 : by Mediocrity At Best 08/18/2017 2:58:43 pmAug 18th, 2017
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I believe Frank L'W would have enjoyed your creation. And were he around now; understood your cultural journey from Falling Waters.