I love Minecraft, but not really building. I more like killing monsters, exploring, mining, etc. So most of the houses and shit I have on Green's server don't really look great. Any tips you have for building prettier stuff?

Make the walls outta TNT

lol that would take hours of killing Creepers

I need all the TNT I can get for my cannon anyway

Do you have enough dedidated WAM?

Chop down the same type of tree, make the walls in the shape of a rectangle or square, add a door and a roof. The fancy stuff is for later when you already can live off of your food sources and shelter.

Make castle walls of Glass, Lava, Diamond and Obsidian

Make the walls outta TNT

This. And use redstone torches to light up your house, they're much better than regular ones.

Psy pretty much got it but I might as well give my two cents.

Probably two of the most important details in creating good looking builds is block variety and depth. A big wall of the same block looks incredibly boring, so try breaking up any large surfaces with different blocks and patterns. As for large walls you'll want to include depth by either having several layers and carving into them, or by using stair blocks and slabs to make indentations. It's a lot like sculpting. You sometimes gotta dig in to figure it out. 


Like in this example above, being the palace I'm building on Green's server the front (while needing some finishing touches) aesthetically is pretty much complete paired with block patters, varieties, and some chiseled depth.


Above is a long distant side view of the palace, looking at the walls and the cylinder that makes up one of my onion domes you can see it's a very flat surface, while with some block variety is kinda dull.

With future improvements I plan to cut in and add more to the sides to flesh them out a bit. I'm thinking to open up the upper half  of the long wall to be (on both sides) sort of sun rooms with plenty of seating and a good view of the sky accompanied by archways and hanging gardens. the cylinder I will add more along the sides for more details such as fences, additional sandstone and grey brick supports. This should bring out the cylinder more with the additional edges.


I also use some mods that tend to cover up minor imperfections so if you'd like the texture pack I'm using and the shaders mod I'll go ahead and link them here.

Sonic Ethers Unbelievable Shaders. Just follow the guidelines in the thread (I recommend turning it off when mining, or else you can't see shit.)
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-mods/1280299-sonic-ethers-unbelievable-shaders-v10-1

HerrSommer Medieval Texture Pack.
http://www.planetminecraft.com/texture_pack/herrsommer-medieval-14/
or
http://resourcepack.net/herrsommer-medieval-resource-pack/


Sorry if I'm not as in depth as you'd like, I'm pretty poor at walking people through things.

Spoiler

Quote from: Saleem on May 16, 2015, 08:49:12 PM

Psy pretty much got it but I might as well give my two cents.

Probably two of the most important details in creating good looking builds is block variety and depth. A big wall of the same block looks incredibly boring, so try breaking up any large surfaces with different blocks and patterns. As for large walls you'll want to include depth by either having several layers and carving into them, or by using stair blocks and slabs to make indentations. It's a lot like sculpting. You sometimes gotta dig in to figure it out. 


Like in this example above, being the palace I'm building on Green's server the front (while needing some finishing touches) aesthetically is pretty much complete paired with block patters, varieties, and some chiseled depth.


Above is a long distant side view of the palace, looking at the walls and the cylinder that makes up one of my onion domes you can see it's a very flat surface, while with some block variety is kinda dull.

With future improvements I plan to cut in and add more to the sides to flesh them out a bit. I'm thinking to open up the upper half  of the long wall to be (on both sides) sort of sun rooms with plenty of seating and a good view of the sky accompanied by archways and hanging gardens. the cylinder I will add more along the sides for more details such as fences, additional sandstone and grey brick supports. This should bring out the cylinder more with the additional edges.

Spoiler

The dirt wall will be covered up by massive sandstone walls, as I plan to make this into an acropolis.

I also use some mods that tend to cover up minor imperfections so if you'd like the texture pack I'm using and the shaders mod I'll go ahead and link them here.

Sonic Ethers Unbelievable Shaders. Just follow the guidelines in the thread (I recommend turning it off when mining, or else you can't see shit.)
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-mods/1280299-sonic-ethers-unbelievable-shaders-v10-1

HerrSommer Medieval Texture Pack.
http://www.planetminecraft.com/texture_pack/herrsommer-medieval-14/
or
http://resourcepack.net/herrsommer-medieval-resource-pack/


Sorry if I'm not as in depth as you'd like, I'm pretty poor at walking people through things.

Bloody hell those textures/shaders .-.
10/10

Once you go shaders you don't go back.