Growing up

People use Minecraft in all kinds of different ways - they play it, they teach with it, they use it as a WYSIWYG architectural design tool... But how many use it as a means of psychological introspection? Skilled builder Gabriel Gould has dug into his past to come up with this beautiful sculpture, evoking different aspects of childhood memory.

“I wanted to make sure that every part of the project had a meaning behind it,” says Gabriel. “I had more ideas than I had room, so I had to think of four main components that I wanted to keep in the cloud, the things that affected me the most.”

“The cello represents my love for music and art,” he explains. “I used to play the cello when I was ten. Playing the cello is one of the most vivid memories that I had when I was younger. The boat represents the relationship that my father and I have. We made a model boat together for a school project seven years ago. The bicycle was one of the first ideas that I wanted to add to the project. The bicycle represents spending time with family and friends. The fishing pole represents my grandfather. My grandfather loved fishing at my cabin and I would always look up to him as a kid. The whole project was an experience when constructing it. It really made me look back on my childhood and reflect on who I am today.”

It proved quite a challenge to put all these intricate features together in a way which was readable.

“If I had made the project with a more ‘busy’ style, it would have looked too messy and blurred the meaning in the build,” says Gabriel. “I also wanted to try new things that I’d never tried before. I wanted to use glass to give the water a unique and realistic look. Another challenge I had was making the cloud. I had an idea to add shading with glass under the cloud to make it look like it had a shadow.”

Gabriel hand-built a fair amount of the project, but had assistance from tools like Voxel Sniper and World Edit. The flashy render you see above was provided by Splekh, who used Cinema4D to give it lustrous looks.

The project’s not over yet, though! “I’m planning on adding a lot of new parts,” says Gabriel. “I’m thinking of adding a version of the project where there is a virus attacking the hand.”

The longer the project draws on, the harder it'll be to know when to stop! Definitely a build to keep an eye on.