This Old 9x9 (challange and share)

[Saice]

So I often see people comment that they wish they could build as good as others. Which I understand not everyone is good at style type choices. But I always suggest people to try out stuff in creative as it is a way to learn styles you like. Even if you pick up only one good style doing so at least your not just covering everything in one block and calling it a day anymore.

So that is this thread about? Well I wanted to help people with their minecraft styles. So I have a few basics here in the first few posts (due to image limits per post). I am going to cover just vanilla blocks in this to keep it simple. First I will show you the basic blocks and how they look with each other. There will also be a simple color scheme thing in spoilers if your interested in some really basic color theory. And last I will show you some things to turn a crappy 9x9 into something a bit nicer. After all that is in place I really encourage others to go into creative and make there own 9x9 and post it here. Share your styles and hopefully others can take something away from this thread for there own builds.

EDIT : OK I have to point this out since there seems to be a little confusion here. This is not about just making something you can build day one. Yes I know it would take some time to smelt stone. Just like to would take time to mine all that quartz for the last 9x9. I started simple because I wanted to show you can do something with simple materials. Just like I stayed with vanilla because everyone no mater the mod pack has access to vanilla blocks. Please use anything to make your 9x9. I don't care if it is made from iridium and dragon eggs. Just share your style with others so that we can hopefully help others find there muse to build more creatively.

Ok the vanilla basics.

Wood yeah we all know this one and they all go well with each other.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Stones

Cobble is about the only ugly one here and even still I can never find a good use for it.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Sand Stone

Goes well with all the woods


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Quartz

Works well with stone and stand stone if you have the quartz to spare.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

The odd balls

Nether brick actually can work well in places as can red brick. Obsidian at least vanilla default does not have a lot of uses sadly.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Spoiler: Optional stuff on color theory with wool

So colors combine in different ways to give you different effects. This color theory is something you will find in just about every art class. Now minecraft has the issue of not having a lot of color options.

Just look at wool there is only 16 colors. Now modded MC gives you more ways to get color into things but for this MC color theory we are just going to stick to wool and just the basics. Also I'm sure real art people are going to get mad with how I explain this but I never took art so...

WOOL!


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Your Primary colors, black, white.

You will rarely go wrong sticking to this but you will also have vary little depth in color options.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Same with monochrome


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

First is Complementary colors these are two colors (top and bottom) that complement each other and are on opposite sides of the color wheel. Minecraft having a limit pallet there are a few close matches so I group them up.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Next is something called Triad colors they are one color and then two others that are across form it on the color wheel making a Y on the wheel. They have a sort of range of hue that blends well.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Last is what is called analogous colors they form a group of three colors all close to each other on the color wheel.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

There are actually a few other types of color schemes but sadly there is only so much you can do with 16 colors of wool. If you want to learn more on this I suggest goggling up Color Theory or Color Scheme or even just Color Wheel.

Some handy links on the subject of building.http://voxelwiki.com/minecraft/Elites_of_Minecraft:_The_Architect
Elites of Minecraft: The Architect
The Gigantic Guide for Building

 

[Saice]

Ok on to the 9x9s themselves.

I'm sure many of you have started you world with one of these.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Sure it is simple and effective but yeah not what I would call a home or base.

So lets start really simple everyone can collect wood it is renewable and can get chests of it with just a little work and wood tools.

So you might have something like this..


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

So just using wood and only wood how can we make this better?

Stairs and Slabs can give you a much needed sort of texture to things. Also lets push that roof up so its less box like.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

floor with a pattern of any sort adds much needed variation on the inside.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

The raised roof lets us put some lights out of the way


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

But it does not get all the light we need so some trapdoors work to make the house safe.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

But lets say you want something a little more blast proof? You might end up with this.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Yeah that hurt me just to make it. So what can we do with stone to make it look better?

Smooth stone and brick always works.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

But lets do a little more here.

Stairs and slabs can really give stone a nice look to it.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Just remember to carry your style throughout your build


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Some furnaces and you got a nice looking stone floor.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Ok so you want something the looks nicer and uses mixed materials.

Sand stone and wood (jungle in this case) can really work well and both are easy to collect (more so in modded MC).

Again stairs are used to make the build look less flat. The base is upside down stairs.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

But there are no visible lights


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Trap door lights and some crafting tables round this build out.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Ok ok one last one. You are a pimp you been to the Nether and back and want to show off a nice Base because of it.

Nether brick and quartz make a high contrast build. the top and bottom edge are slabs.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Quartz sitars and nether brick slabs give the roof a little height.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

Fancy quartz and some redstone lamps make the whole place look nicer.


This Old 9x9 by Saice, on Flickr

So there you go some basics.

Now go and make some of your own to share.

Some basic rules.

1) Must be 9x9 but you have some room to go higher and you can go one 1 or 2 blocks for your door area.

2) Use any blocks you want from any mod. But please list what they are and what mod they came form.

 

[Chocorate]

But i just want to make a house out of MFR poo blocks if they're ever added. And poo-stained windows. Hopefully that's good enough for your standards.

 

[natnif36]

I know you are sticking to vanilla here, but I have some modded blocks that look quite nice.
1. Great wood logs - sidewards, and all laid in one direction these give a nice, but bland floor, striping the centre with a line of differently orientated logs changes the look completely.
2.Scaffolds are an ok looking block, but if you "reinforce" them with a stick, they get a very nice texture for use in support struts or the like.
3. Chiseled Stone, can be patterned, can lead to some very interesting designs - also works well with sandstone, as above. (I say modded due to it being difficult to obtain without RP2 or EE)
4. (A tip) don't even think of using quartz for building unless you have a good fortune pick and some form of flight to quickly navigate the nether.

And wow saice - that's a pretty cool guide, especially the whole wool thing.
The main problem with smooth stone, and stone bricks, is the amount of smelting it takes - at the start of the game, where coal for torches is semi valuable (one can always use sticky resin but never mind) smelting up several stacks of stone simply to make your hose look a tad better isnt really an option.
Same with glass.

Btw Trit/Freakscar - if you see this thread, the next spawner should look exactly like that nether brick quartz thing. And move the wither Skelton thing - high energy pellets mean they don't drop heads. Put the spider there instead.

 

[Saice]

I know you are sticking to vanilla here, but I have some modded blocks that look quite nice.

I should be more clear. I was sticking to vanilla to make the opening posts simple. Please feel free to use any and all blocks you got. Build and 9x9 and post it.

And wow saice - that's a pretty cool guide, especially the whole wool thing.

Thanks

The main problem with smooth stone, and stone bricks, is the amount of smelting it takes - at the start of the game, where coal for torches is semi valuable (one can always use sticky resin but never mind) smelting up several stacks of stone simply to make your hose look a tad better isnt really an option.
Same with glass

You can smelt wood into charcoal and then use that to make all the stone you want.

but that is why the first one is all wood and the rest are more advanced stuff you would do once you were setup.[DOUBLEPOST=1372632405][/DOUBLEPOST]

But i just want to make a house out of MFR poo blocks if they're ever added. And poo-stained windows. Hopefully that's good enough for your standards.

I'm not trying to show off here Chocorate there is no 'standards' you need to keep up with. I am trying to help others to make nicer looking builds. And I hope others will also share. Think of this as sort of a creative dumping ground for ideas. the whole 9x9 theme is because it is a simple build anyone could do in just a little time.

 

[Chocorate]

I'm not trying to show off here Chocorate there is no 'standards' you need to keep up with. I am trying to help others to make nicer looking builds. And I hope others will also share. Think of this as sort of a creative dumping ground for ideas. the whole 9x9 theme is because it is a simple build anyone could do in just a little time.

Would you ever make a warframe corpus-esque design?

 

[whizzball1]

That's pretty nice!

 

[natnif36]

I think you should just spam pics of your shoop ship here, TBH.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Mmmkay, here's the thing about cobble vs smoothstone and stone brick. To make smoothstone from cobblestone, you'll need a furnace and coal or charcoal. This is MUCH more work-intensive and takes much longer just to make the materials, much less put them together. A cobblestone structure, however, is fairly easy to... well... cobble together. Granted, it's an enormous eyesore, but it is at least something you can drop down on your first day. That much smoothstone and stone brick? Will take you over a day just to smelt.

The wooden house you presented is, indeed, a vast improvement and easily doable.

I have a question for you... what about a cave dwelling? How would you decorate a natural cave into something a bit more... homey?

 

[natnif36]

Put in a greatwood log floor and make sure to use soft colours, as well as lighting, would be my advice.

 

[RedBoss]

I have a question for you... what about a cave dwelling? How would you decorate a natural cave into something a bit more... homey?

I personally like to replace the walls completely. No stone exposed, and definitely no dirt or gravel. I do a pseudo chair rail design with stone bricks 2 blocks high from the floor and wood planks to the ceiling. I then either use stone slabs for a tile floor look or some other material that doesn't blend in with the stone brick chair rail. The ceiling I either use leaf blocks or leave it stone and use logs as ceiling supports.

But that's just me

 

[natnif36]

Oh yes that's probably the most important thing - leave the smooth stone, but get rid of ALL the dirt and Gravel that's exposed.
Using some reinforced scaffolds as "supports" tends to have a nice look to it, especially on the sides of stairs.

 

[VikeStep]

OK so I have made my 9x9, in the end the house had a Greek Style, I also discovered the potential of Marker Blocks as Decorative Blocks. I was too lazy to scale these images down so I put it in a spoiler

Spoiler

From the Front:

The Floor:

The Roof:

What it looks like when you walk in:

Roof from the Outside:

 

[natnif36]

That's one funkay looking floor.

1 someone door a floor of those hidden silent presure plates from obsidian plates, and then place glowstone illuminates of many different colours under them.
Whenever someone's asks around they leave a rainbow trail

And remember, quartz is surprisingly difficult to aquifer in the kind of quantities one needs for building, at one per ore without fortune, and 4 per block.

Is that super flat world made of iron blocks 0.0?

The bookcases are nice touch in 99% of builds. Also a PITA to aquire a lot of, 100% of that difficulty coming from the copious amounts of leather needed. However in this quartz building the bookcases just look... Wrong.

 

[VikeStep]

Is that super flat world made of iron blocks 0.0?

yes it is, you need to go make your own superflat preset, its quite easy if you google how

 

[Saice]

Mmmkay, here's the thing about cobble vs smoothstone and stone brick. To make smoothstone from cobblestone, you'll need a furnace and coal or charcoal. This is MUCH more work-intensive and takes much longer just to make the materials, much less put them together. A cobblestone structure, however, is fairly easy to... well... cobble together. Granted, it's an enormous eyesore, but it is at least something you can drop down on your first day. That much smoothstone and stone brick? Will take you over a day just to smelt.

The wooden house you presented is, indeed, a vast improvement and easily doable.

I have a question for you... what about a cave dwelling? How would you decorate a natural cave into something a bit more... homey?

The thing here is not just what is easy to build. Nether stuff is not easy and its in there. And you could totally build a dirt house with a dozen furnaces and smelt your whole build over one MC night if you collected all the cobble and wood or coal your frist day. I have done it multiple times. This is not better dirt homes here. This is stuff I hope people will take away and use all the way until end game when they are building towers out of highly advance machine cases.

The idea is to help people build better with what ever they have not just stuff they can do on day one.

The cave thing would really depend on the cave in question.

 

[fergcraft]

Soon I will be joining this building challenge you have been warned

 

[Saice]

OK I have to point this out since there seems to be a little confusion here. This is not about just making something you can build day one. Yes I know it would take some time to smelt stone. Just like to would take time to mine all that quartz for the last 9x9. I started simple because I wanted to show you can do something with simple materials. Just like I stayed with vanilla because everyone no mater the mod pack has access to vanilla blocks. Please use anything to make your 9x9. I don't care if it is made from iridium and dragon eggs. Just share your style with others so that we can hopefully help others find there muse to build more creatively.

 

[fergcraft]

and save many servers from spawn trailer parks

 

[BlackFire]

Not sure if I am worthy, but here's one. Quartz, emerald, obsidian, stone bricks, glass

ignore the monitors behind the curtian