Fit for a King

One of the things I like most about Minecraft is it lets me live anywhere I want, so long as I can build it. House made entirely of gold? Sure! Tower of emeralds with a garden on the roof? Go for it! A big hole full of Creepers and wheat? Well, er, if that's really where you wanna live, knock yourself out!

Actually, we don't want to move into any of those (particularly that last one). Not now we've seen the orient-inspired Kyoto Palace from South African builder, Eco Friendly. Just look at the size of it! You could likely live in there for twenty years without ever successfully finding the bathroom. Cool!

Have a click through the gallery below for some more detailed shots. Then you can start planning how you're going to build your own extravagant palace! (Hope you've got three months free).

That's right, three months of work went into the Kyoto Palace. The result of Eco Friendly choosing to build this by himself. "Every builders mind works differently," he explains to us, when we ask why he prefers working alone. "It's hard, for me at least, to be creative when you've got to account for other's thoughts, opinions, etc. However I totally understand people who prefer working with others."

Besides, Eco Friendly may prefer building alone, but he still works on the Athion sever. "It's really cool being able to build on servers like Athion, being surrounded by a good community of other builders." But if he knew the time commitments involved with working alone, then why build something on such a massive scale?

"Massive structures have always intrigued me the most," he explains. "The sense of scale you get when you stand up close to a massive castle or palace is really cool to me."

So how do you get started on a project of this scale? "At the start I try to think of a cool pallete and just begin with a shape. From there, it's mostly just imagining what you want to add on next as you build. I never really have a full thought of what I want it to look like. Things just come to me. 'What would it look like if I added this?'"

(Side note: Why can't all your Minecraft usernames also be good advice, like 'Eco friendly'? We want to see great builds from 'K33pRecyclingM8' and 'DontSpitOnBabies96'.)

"I try to spend time with other good builders to pick up tips here and there, but I'm mostly inspired by people like alecdent. As for existing architecture, I like the crazy strange modern stuff that people do in real life. Like the Guggenheim museum in Spain. Even though I don't build like that it's really cool to see and take inspiration from that and use it for the fantasy stuff I create."

You can follow Eco Friendly on Twitter here and visit the Athion server here. Now if you'll excuse us, we're off to admire some more Minecraft palaces! Before heading back to the hole full of Creepers and wheat we call home. Sigh...

Image renders by Dordsor21