Minecraft: Drawing a Glowing Diamond Ore

Oct 10, 2022

With its intriguing explorations, bold adventures, and constant battles to survive, Minecraft is one of my favorite games. I almost always play it with my friends, because I think it is more fun that way. It is an unusual game in the sense that everything in the game is made out of cubes with a very limited number of pixels.

There are four primary forms that any form we see can fit into, these are the cube, the cylinder, the cone, and the sphere. Humans have been using them in mathematics and other fields such as architecture for a long time. When looking at nature, the human eye cannot see the primary forms themselves, but we can approximate nature’s forms with them. For example, an apple might be approximated with a sphere, because it is round and well-proportioned to fit in a sphere. It is possible to render everything out using the primary forms. Think about it this way: When you look at a picture of an object on your computer, what you see is actually a lot of pixels (very small illuminated squares) that light up in different colors, but because there are so many (millions) pixels, you can see a high-resolution image on the screen. In Minecraft, you will not be getting a high-resolution image, because almost all materials are rendered with low-resolution cubes that only have 64 pixels on one surface.

I think the idea of creating a world merely out of cubes is fascinating. I like cubes. They evoke a sense of order and beauty in me. Also, even though nature did not exactly offer us the cube, the fact that we discovered it and use it in non-physical realms such as mathematics is fascinating.

The combination of 64 squares on the surface of a Minecraft cube gives it the ability to generate many different surfaces with the same cube. The only difference between one type of block and the other is the surface type. One of the blocks that I like is the diamond ore1. It is one of the most precious ores to make materials with, and because it is really rare, it gets me excited when I find one in a dark mine:

When playing, I imagined how beautiful it would be if the diamond ore glowed. When searching online about this, I saw glowing ores that were rendered by other people on the computer but I have never seen one made with pencil drawing, and I had the idea of practicing the glow effect as well, so I got to work with the diamond ore:

Before I began, I had to work out which perspective to use for the cube. I chose this one because I believe it emphasizes the views of the sides well as it presents it almost directly, while also adding depth with the upper surface really narrowing to the back. To emphasize depth, even more, one must render the 3 sides of the cube with 3 different tones.

To emphasize the glow, one must create really well gradients. These gradients should go lighter towards the part that glows, and darker as it gets farther away from it. The turquoise part of the ore is where the diamonds are, so to make it glowy, I shaded the squares that surrounded the diamond by creating gradients. As the gradient has more contrast, the glow will look stronger. I tried to emphasize that on the right side of the cube, where the stone part is the darkest. I could have done the shading on lighter sides better, but I found this render sufficient enough as well.

Even though a cube has a simple form, it is really important for anyone to practice cubes in perspective, as it will help you with your basics. It is really important to master the basics of drawing, as the knowledge, later on, will be built upon the fundamentals that you have.

Bahadir Soy

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