Portfolio render realistic neon scifi city outpost

27/10/2025MMDL

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER (Oct 27): Minecraft Art & Blender rendering

“Yes, the fireflies! Just nice and cosy at night” – Mojang employee (This will become relevant)

LEARNING TO HARNESS BLENDER RENDERING

I’ve been taking steps to up improve my rendering, and I’m happy to say that things are working out! I still get tripped up by lighting and atmosphere, but much less. The biggest things that helped me were: (See a beautiful, colorful new grid of all my renders here: https://premiumminecraft.com/portfolio)

Watching many YouTube tutorials, most unrelated to Minecraft, around topics like lighting, nodes and compositing, Eventually, the important stuff that recurred in my renders stuck in my head.
Making a proper Blender template file. I’m at a point where if I wanted to, I could drag and drop a build into Blender and get a semi-professional result. My template has compositing nodes, object assets, my go-to plugins like MCPrep, etc, at the ready. To make a template, open Blender, do what you desire, then go to File > Defaults > Save startup file. You can then find and backup this file.
The Lord.Blend Discord community (google to find it). This is a server with over a thousand Minecraft Blender enthusiasts, including a few active experts who graciously send their feedback and help. I was made aware of that place thanks to the fantastic PLASTIC FANTASTIC:

RENDERS AS AN ARTFORM (PlasticFantastic)

PlasticFantastic (@plstcfntstc) is a terrain maker and render artist known for a uniquely vibrant style, combining blocks in unusual ways before rendering the landscape to create stylized eye-candy. They’re active around communities like Builders Refuge, and have PRINTED their work at huge scale to hang up:

Yea, printed a 1×2 meter paper poster a few years ago, and didn't like how difficult it was to hang up on the wall. So i figured I'd try a more permanent material this time. I think next time i might have to go with paper again, but order a frame too. It's a bit more vibrant. pic.twitter.com/40q1n4m4nK
— PlasticFantastic (@plstcfntstc) December 5, 2024

THE AGE OF COPPER AND UPDATE DROPS

On another note, back to updates, quick overview:

1.21.9:

Minecraft Updates AKA Drops continue with the 2025 Fall Drop! Released September 30th, the Age Of Copper (1.21.9) introduces copper armor & tools, the famous mob vote loser Copper Golem (& their statue), copper bars, copper chains, copper chests, lightning rod weathering, and thin bookshelves…

For a full breakdown of features, refer to the Minecraft Wiki or Minecraft.Net.

1.21.10:

The upcoming Winter Drop will be named “Mounts of Mayhem”. It was introduced at the recent Minecraft Live and will focus on underwater exploration and the drowned. Coming this Christmas as 1.21.10?!

BUILD HIGHLIGHT: “WORLD OF WORLDS”

This massive world by Zeemo is almost 12 years in the making, composed of landmarks and sites from 100+ cities around the world. A running update log and video log can be found on the projects page: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/world-of-worlds-3137794

BRINGING FIREFLIES INTO THE LIMELIGHT

The famed firefly is a scrapped mob showcased in Minecraft Live 2021. It’s removal faced community backlash, although the firefly was TECHNICALLY added back as a particle effect to the 1.21.5 firefly bush.

I decided to sketch the FIREFLY for Inktober 2025 (Day 23), whose theme is… You guessed it, FIREFLY.

OLD BUT GOLD: 2017 ART TIME CAPSULE

Not my proudest work: See the difference in these hand-drawn simple fan-arts! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Minecraft art – an artists impression of Minecraft!