Tireless Traveller

I think I would like the life of a travelling salesperson. Wandering up and down the land, getting to meet new people and ripping them off trading my wares with them. Plus, if Jossieboy’s build is anything to go by, you get a very stylish backpack and animals might join up with you on the road. What more could you want? Animals to leave you alone? Jeez, you’re no fun.

Jossieboy, or Jos as we overly familiar Minecraft.net writers call him, began creating this superb salesman by making the basic shape using Voxelsniper. “Voxelsniper is basically a sculpting tool, and allows you to add a lot of material quickly, which you can then smooth out,” he explains. Handy! Find out more about Voxelsnpier and other terrific building programs here.

Jos has been building for a long time, so he already has some things up his sleeve to add to new builds. In fact, we’ve spoken to him before about his undead cowboy, and how he makes his builds seem so alive (or, er, undead anyway). For the cowboy, he had his gunslinger leaning backwards as if unbalanced to get the feeling of movement into his still statue.

You can see a similar thing here, as this determined traveller hunches forward to plod step after step on the path. Hmmm. Maybe Jos should build him a chiropractor?  

“My favourite detail,” Jos tells me “is either the fish hanging from the fishing rod or his hat being a bird’s nest with eggs in it.” It seems that if you wander around the wilds long enough, they become a part of you!

He also tells me about a secret that he thinks most people have missed: “I had a bet with a friend, and we hid a duck on the merchant's backpack, it's very small and well-hidden between the banjo and the backpack. Their name is Moby Duck.” Cute! Also: why hasn’t anyone made a version of Moby Dick but with a crazed sailor exploring the ocean, obsessed with hunting down a rubber duck he dropped in it? Hollywood, contact me ASAP!

Each render artist Jos used has made it a different time of day when creating their wonderful images of the build. Sometimes, our intrepid explorer might be walking under the hot heat of the midday sun, but other times it’s dark and misty. They just don’t stop moving, day or night! Whereas I don’t even have the energy to go back to the previous paragraph and think of a better Moby Duck joke.

“I put a lantern on his back so that if a render artist wanted to make a night-time render, they would have a light source on the merchant to play with,” Jos explains, and many of the render artists did just that!  

He tells me that he has learned a lot since his gunslinger-building days. “The most important is how to build more efficiently,” he says, “and I think my sculptures have gotten more complex in build and detail. I feel as if the stuff I make now has more motion and life to it.” But it was a gradual change. “It’s hard to pinpoint a build where it really clicked, where I was like 'That's how to do it!'”

However, he’s also gained a lot of patience in taking more time over his sculpting. “Nowadays I'll often spend longer on a build, adding extra details by hand. I used to rush these projects because I was excited to show people what I had made, but now I take my time more, making sure it's as close to perfect as I can get.”

Same here! Which is why I handed in this article three weeks late. I’m a perfectionist.

Renders by Joebricksy, QuinzMC, Eonli, Nygma, Karrasko, Rowlinq