Colossal Carving

The City of Gareos is a striking sight – great domed buildings spread out across a whole island – but not as dramatic as the giant white statue keeping an eye on everyone below. If it seems a bit creepy to go about your day with this monolith watching you, don’t worry, that’s intentional according to its builder, Cubic. Because who doesn’t want their build to inspire a little extra shiver down the spine?

Cubic wasn’t sure where to start when he began this project, but he did know that he wanted “something big and colourful.” He definitely succeeded there! From the red and gold towers to the orange flags and bright green bunting, everything is bright and eye-catching.

And even though it’s often overlooked in favour of more rainbow-friendly hues, white is an important contrasting colour! The pale grey rocks are just different enough from the white walls of the huge buildings and the statue to make them stand out, but the build still looks like a coordinated whole.

“You can combine many blocks and colours, and in a large enough scale to make something look really unique,” Cubic explains. He finds it difficult to pick a favourite part, but says he’s very happy with the creepy colossus. “I’ve never done something so complex as a humanoid statue before. It definitely was the most difficult task by far and I am happy with the final result.” Way to pull it off first try!

“Building the statue looked like a puzzle at first,” Cubic says. “It was created using different spheres in WorldEdit. Later, when the sculpture started to look more humanoid, I begun modelling it using a wide range of WorldEdit brushes.”

(Psst! Not familiar with WorldEdit? It's a program that helps players pull off all sorts of advanced building tricks and techniques. Click here to learn more about it!)

I’m impressed by Cubic’s work on this statue, of course, but I like looking at all the other bits, so that I can pretend it’s a totally normal town. When you don’t get distracted by the motionless figure staring down at you, there’s lots of little details to appreciate, like a river that flows underneath an arch cut into the biggest building, or the trees that cling to the rocks at the edge of the island. The vines draped everywhere give the impression that it rains a lot, too, as do the large amount of clouds in the sky in some of the renders. Maybe we can duck under the colossus to avoid getting wet? Er, you go first.

It’s taken Cubic two years of building practice to get this good. “I started building projects in single player for creative servers, but my experience level wasn’t always the greatest. As time went by I progressed and I’m happy to see what I can achieve now.”

And he’s not ready to stop yet! “I want to constantly improve my skills and to be better than my past self whenever I progress. I especially want to be able to release better and better projects in the future!”

I wonder whether they’ll all have giant statues in them like this one? Or maybe it’ll be this same giant statue, who’s somehow alive now, and is going to stalk me through every build I write about from now on. Hahahaha OK I’m just gonna end this article now before I freak myself out. Thanks for reading everyoDID IT JUST MOVE???!!!

Render credit by Blovienn