I love gazing at the magnificent houses and opulent mansions that players build in Minecraft, but sometimes an offbeat build comes along that blows your socks off, and this week for me it's a giant flying turtle. YouTuber and Minecraft builder SmallishBeans (opens in new tab) is the creator of this majestic beast and to top everything off they also decided to build a castle on top, because a giant flying turtle wasn't enough.
The base is, to put it simply, beautiful. It has an overgrown, otherworldly vibe that I totally dig. The centrepiece reminds me of the giant flying turtle from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. SmallishBeans say in the video that this is one of their biggest projects to date, and they've built plenty of other structures, which you can check out on their channel.
SmallishBeans begins with the body of the turtle, making sure to get the flippers the perfect shape, then goes on to terraform the top. There are so many great design details like greenery hanging off the side of the shell and the forests of bamboo that conceal the castle. Speaking of, the castle is just as regal as the turtle and SmallishBeans has even built a giant crystal tucked away, explaining that its power is the source of the turtle's flying power.
If you're interested in the building process, you can watch SmallishBeans' timelapse over on their channel, linked above. If you wanted to hop into the build yourself, they've also left a download link on the video's description—how kind!
If you're up for more blocky epicness, I recently visited Minecraft Middle-earth, a server that took ten years and over 300 people to build.
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