For me, this build was about testing my ability to build on a small scale, very small at that, as well as testing my use of space. I saw a lot of very tall thin builds and wanted to try something new and not so, well that shape. I choose a pretty heavily organic build as I felt this would be quite interesting to do, however I still had to add some structural components to fit theme. In this build I understand that perhaps the concept may not be considered that original, but I here I have created my own style, using the idea of an alternate world of magic and fairy tales, rather than something we already know. My build therefore is a quaint cottage in a old and dead tree whose limbs have long since been cut or broken. I used small organics and lanterns to add detail, such as the lots of small organics and bugs, such as the butterfly, bee, snail, duck, red bird and her eggs, glowing bugs and dragonfly amongst the grass and flowers.

Tips for building in small areas

I thought I would give you guys a few small tips about how I built in this small amount of space. This isn't necessarily a must do thing or something that's even definitely true or should be listened to. Lots of these I will use my own build as an example to make things clearer for you guys.

1. Avoid fully filling up the space with a large rectangular building, especially if it stays rectangular all the way up. This is shapeless and kinda boring to look at, it looks bare when you have no space or anything around it.

2. Having a thick base all the way to the edges so that you have a thick squared base means that as you look up the build you really notice how everything fits into that rectangle and makes the whole thing look angular. This is something important to remember, you don't want your build to look too blocky, especially when focusing on such a small area which can be easy to do.

3. Having a small landscape around where everything is cut off by the edges doesn't look great either, it can make the build look unfinished and cut off. It too contributes to a blocky look. That being said, if you have planned a build with terrain well being able to see into caves and such can actually be very effective and atmospheric, it's just something to think about and to be aware of .

4. Not having a flipped or rotated build can also contribute a lot to the success of a build. In such small spaces it can be easy to make too angular builds like I've mentioned before. Adding different levels on the build is bound to make the build more interesting and attractive. Not having symmetrical builds adds a nice variant in the build and I'd highly suggest avoiding this in your builds.

5. In an area of this size large organics can be very difficult to do successfully, especially large trees which aren't very straight and have large leaves such as oak trees, in comparison Spruce trees are long and fairly straight so could work well in this situation. In this situation I did go for an oak tree but used the fact I don't have much space to my advantage by cutting the tree branches short and saying that they have been broken off or snapped, and instead of having straight cut offs on the edges of the chunk I added texture to the ends making it look like it had been snapped. The shape of the tree having it curve round slightly made the tree look thicker than it is, whilst still having a thin trunk that ensures enough space around the trunk to build in and add detailing like organics and lanterns and such. So this gives the impression of a larger and thicker tree without needed to take up a lot of space.

6. It can be easy in a small area like this to overcrowd and make the area too busy. This can be really easy to do and sometimes I feel like I may have overcrowded this a bit, but there is a fine line between detailing and over detailing. There is no point filling in every block for the sake of it, make sure you keep an eye on the amount of detail you put it, remember not everything needs detail.




I'll say it again, this is only advice and not rules, if you have a build that works even without these rules in place then go for it.

Renders: Myself, Kyriin and Voxagon

Cinematic: HunterV12

Pixel art/graphics: Myself

Additional: Thank you to Rhonos build team for their support and an excellent build server to build on