About

Minecraft Pixel Art is artwork created using multi-colored blocks in the indie sandbox game Minecraft. Effigies of video game, cartoon and Internet meme characters are commonly found on Minecraft pixel art servers.

Origin

Minecraft is a sandbox-building game written in the Java programming language by Markus "Notch" Persson. Part of the game's mechanics allows players to build massive 3D objects using a variety of blocks. It was first made public with the release of Minecraft alpha on May 17th, 2009. The following month on June 16th, Minecraft Forum^[1] member Miclee posted screenshots of Super Mario pixel art in a thread titled "Share your creation!", calling for other members to post art they had created in the game.

Spread

On August 8th, 2009, YouTuber minecrafter uploaded a video showcasing pixel art found on a multiplayer Minecraft server. The video showed many effigies of Nintendo game characters from the Pokemon and Super Mario series.

On January 27th, 2011, the image manipulation website Worth 1000^[6] posted a contest for pixel art characters created in Minecraft. On February 11th, Se7ensSins^[7] gaming forums member King David posted several Minecraft pixel art templates featuring various Super Mario characters. On April 13th, the Spritecraft^[5] java tool was released, which allowed users to convert images directly into Minecraft blocks.

The /r/minecraftpixelart^[2] subreddit was created on September 24th. As of April 6th, 2012, Planet Minecraft^[9] has received over 4,396 pixel art projects and a Facebook page for "Minecraft Pixel Art News"^[8] has received 218 likes.

Notable Examples

Images

Several pages worth of Minecraft pixel art creations can be found under the tag "minecraft pixel art" on the art sharing website deviantArt.^[3]

Original Pokemon Characters

On September 22nd, 2014, Redditor QueenMercury added a post to the /r/Minecraft^[9] thread titled "I made all the original 151 Pokémon in Minecraft." which includes an imgur link to all 151 Pokemon. Within 48 hours the post gained over 1,000 points.

Videos

Search Interest

External References