so recently bdubs from hermitcraft dropped this video, where he drew a beautiful picture of a forest landscape, and then replicated it in minecraft. and man is he talented: talented in the way that you earn over a lifetime of work. the guy is an art teacher in disguise as a youtuber.

throughout the video you’ll see him paying careful attention to contrast, and lighting, and shape and composition. he uses this crazy fuckin mod that gives you block gradients between two colours and, moves stuff around, and all this stuff.. and he’s walking through the process of building like he’s painting the ceiling of the sistine chapel.

but there’s a paradigm at play here. when it comes to the building side of minecraft youtube the standards have always been pretty insane. i mean when nvidia started promoting raytracing, there was this cyberpunk build, and then there’s stuff like this mediterranean city from 9 years ago, and this steampunk build from all the way back in 2012. these are the builds that get popular, and these are the builds that we most often see.

so what happens when we aren’t able to replicate the skill level on display? maybe this is an experience some of you share.. SO often i watch one of the folks from hermitcraft build something, and then the next time i build something in my world my standards have jumped up by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude.

like ill start looking at windows and being like “hmm.. it’s okay, but the juxtaposition of elements here doesn’t put forward the storytelling i had in mind..” and it TOTALLY RUINS MY FLOW. its like i didn’t care a week ago, but now i do. what happened??

well, it’s a case of monkey see monkey do. when someone makes building look easy, we feel as though it should be easy for us as well. we criticize ourselves the same way they would criticize themself. we pay attention to the same things, like block palettes, gradients, detail, storytelling, the 70/30 rule… and if we’re not careful, we get tied down by our own standards.

i am always seeing myself and other people struggle with creativity, and with building in minecraft, because their work isn’t perfect. no matter what they try they can’t get it just right, and can’t be satisfied, sometimes to the point of distress!!

and the secret, fucked up thing is, we’ll never be satisfied because our standards are impossible. we only have so many hours in the day to spend building, and in acclimatizing to the absurd skill level of the hermits we now see the average build, the build we make on the daily, as sub-standard.

the truth is that it’s all made up. we are all involuntary subscribers to the idea that skill determines how Good art is. that the amount of blood, sweat, and tears poured into any given creation is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how much value it has. we believe that for some reason, a child’s crayon drawing is inherently worthless compared to the mona lisa, and it’s fucking stupid.

i, for one, would be sadder to see the crayon drawing go. i mean think about the kid’s parents. and im not just talking in a like “im 13 and this is deep” way. what im trying to hint at is that there’s emotional weight in the way we look at different artpieces, and if we’re going to ascribe arbitrary worth to art (which we are, because we all like some art more than other art), it may as well be according to a metric we care about. not just “skill”.

to keep it grounded, i’ll put it like this: why are you judging yourself, and your creation? would you be happier if you weren’t judging yourself? and finally, what would it take for you to stop judging yourself?

well, for me it’s an ongoing effort. and one of my favourite ways to further this effort is to Draw Badly On Purpose. here’s how to enjoy it.

now the general idea is to make something altogether terrible by your standards. just some real dogshit. for example, the humble dirt house: where we all started. pay attention to what you’re thinking. are you thinking about the composition? the colour theory? the design? if so, it may not feel like it, but you are criticizing your work.

you’re applying a standard to yourself, you’re deciding your build doesn’t meet that standard. what i want you to do is make it worse. whoops, i made my roof off-center? keep it. oh shit, i placed a block wrong? keep it. do you feel a discomfort in your chest? an urge to improve your work? good: that means you’re pushing up against your standards. keep pushing.

why should i have to push? well, when you destroy your standards, and reject the traditional values of art (like skill, patience, and effort) in favour of your OWN values (like emotional connections, history, or self-reflection) you learn to appreciate everything you make. you appreciate what your friends make, too.

think on that: if a dear friend of yours makes something that doesn’t meet your standards, how does it make you feel? do they need to ‘improve’, or do you need to reframe your whole shit?

this is why old builds make us so nostalgic. it’s not just the history we have with them, as wonderful as that is, but it also reminds us of a time where perhaps we built without so much caution, without holding ourselves to a specific set of rules, before we ‘got better at it’. im talking about my personal experience here, but i know from experience that this isnt unique to me.

things can be that way again though! they can be carefree, and fun, and expressive, and just as important to us as the time we made a giant bird statue or whatever. and once we’ve done the work to reframe our standards, to recognise what we REALLY care about, we can start to add a bit more to our builds. just a bit more detail, or trying something new with trapdoors…

and bit by bit, we expand the kind of things we’re building, but still maintain the same careless mindset, relaxing our build muscles, and just making for the sake of making…

..until, one day, if it truly makes us happy, we push ourselves and knock something out of the park.

IF IT MAKES US HAPPY. look, i’ve had people complain to me that they can’t match up to my build skillz. i know it seems hypocritical to say that drawing badly is important, and then draw good. but i ALWAYS maintain the same mindset, that anything i make is wonderful, and worth the time spent. i draw good because im okay with drawing bad, and that allows me to be expressive and carefree in my drawing. capiche?

thank you for reading the whole post!!