McMeddon! McMeddon has been a member of Planet Minecraft since 2014 and has recently become more active on the site, submitting some amazing terrain submissions, pixel art, and showcase videos! We've personally socialized with them on the Planet Minecraft Server, where he spends a lot of his time. After getting to know them a bit more, we found that he's very kind and generous, as well as organized, productive and goes above and beyond with everything he does (case in point: He made pixel art for this interview)! We thought everyone would enjoy getting to know McMeddon, so we decided to interview him! Without further ado.... meet, McMeddon!




How did your Minecraft experience begin?

Beta 1.5 and a creative world, where I went right ahead and build a city of skyscrapers. joined little build groups soon after, created my first YouTube videos and continued for years on that.


We know you still play Minecraft and are very active on the PMC Server, you seem to never sleep! Prior to being on the PMC Server, were you active on any server or playing Minecraft by yourself?

Only creative community’s that died sooner or later. But already before PMC-10Year-Server launched, I was searching for weeks for a good survival server. And finally found it


You organized the first Enderdragon PMC Survival Community Event! When can we expect another?

I would hope, we could organize events like this once a month.

On my side I planned a few scavenger hunts, riddle's and mini boss fights for newcomers, settled in people and the community to gain some nice rewards.


The Enderdragon Survival Event Soldiers

What’s your most favorite accomplishment on the PMC Server so far?

General: Seeing how people come back to the spawn area. Building, living and making the area greater than I could have imagined. ( Backstory: On Day 1-3, everyone spread out, spawn was so empty and you never saw anybody. I decided to make spawn more beautiful for 2 Reasons: For new people to see, this can be an awesome place to play, and for staying people a place to: gather, visit, see, transact and trade with each other.)

Personal:

The moment I saw, how PMC (IG: MrsPMC) and Cyprezz traveled all the way to spawn with their gifted Horses, I delivered previously, realizing, people are using the paths i made, using the tools I gave, to come back together.


Can you share or give us a hint as to what you’re working on/building?

I work currently on 2 things. The Town hall on the PMC Server and a “Map Calendar” which is basically every day in December a new custom survival map for you to play and enjoy :)


You have some amazing terrain submissions on PMC. Your first one was 6 years ago! Where did you learn how to create such gorgeous terrain? What tools do you use and how long does it take to create a map?

Thank you! It Its so rewarding and uplifting to see people enjoy these crafts I make, puts really a big smile on my face.

Where: Partially some tutorials, partially docs on the internet and mostly - trial and error.

Tools: WorldMachine or (currently) Gaea to produce the height maps; photoshop (to edit some black and white maps); WorldPainter to produce and export it Minecraft; WorldEdit to correct something by hand that would be to complex to resolve in Gaea or WP.

Time: It can take between 5h up to multiple days to finish maps. A huge chunk goes into development of the heightmaps, a good time for texturing in WP and half of the time for rendering the images.


terr

We also see that you’ve started to include some pixel art in your submissions. Where did you learn pixel art?

I am using photoshop for 6 Years + now, and its something for sure you come across when using it and especially when in contact with Minecraft.

Pro-Tipp: you don't need photoshop, any pixel manipulation tool works, you can use photopea.com as photoshop replacement in the webbrowser.


You’re really creative and artistic in the digital world! Do you happen to have any artistic hobbies outside of the computer, such as painting?

I liked drawing Architectural stuff a lot, drawing cars as early as 4th grade, but i work mostly digitally. Otherwise, I like to scribble down a lot of my ideas


You seem so busy between being on the server, creating terrain maps, as well as various other things like videos, and managing your Twitter and Instagram. How do you manage your time?

Its actually a rapid workflow (building on each experience project by project) and with the most “minimal-time” effort as possible, to give me room to “breath”, redo stuff, and gain more energy for new projects. And using the Pareto(20/80 Rule) principal as guidance. (Trying) Getting in 20% of my time, 80% of the work done. The Goal is to not overwork myself in any way and have a lot of free time. Since burnout occurred to me 2 times.. as early as 2012/13 when working on weekly build projects that got bigger and bigger and finally were too much. Or in the office when working 8..9..10...15 hours, 5..6..7 Days a week to accomplish goals.

Youtube:

20/80 rule here again. My Videos are currently are based of my Maps. I split every Idea into a separate video and work from there. And with every new Map, I have minimum 3 Videos (Creation, Map Showcase, builds) to produce and can even work on up to 5-6+ Video (Breakdown, collaborations, tutorials and soon PMC Survival Series´s) Ideas per week in the future. And since content, mass and regularity is a king strategy on YouTube. I'm following that philosophy quite hard. And people are enjoying it totally so far. So this is pretty rewarding to see working out.

Social Media: I schedule a lot ahead of content across my channels, so there goes a full day for rendering and timing the posts, so that I have more free time.



We see there’s about a 5-year gap between submissions. What inspired you to come back to PMC?

The Gap: I think 2 years were actually due a personal though time, were Depression hit quite hard and 3 years of working overtime as hell and the Game CounterStrike Gobal Offensive replaced the rest of the free time actually.

The Comeback: I think I came back with the last hypewave after 1.14, becoming really active again and seeing what I've missed. And a few Videos that inspired me to do Videos again, and the personal interest to make my own way in life, to do what I love the most. Videos, Minecraft and creating stuff.


How did you choose your PMC Username?

McMeddon or Meddon are my Minecraft account Names. Where McMeddon is a try to be as consistent as possible across all Channels.

The Origins: The Name Meddon originated somewhere in 2015 and before, when I entered a lovely gaming community. “Meddon” has its routes in an earlier name I had, “Megaracer” which originated from the #1 Enemy (Razor) from NeedforSpeed MostWanted (the original, the good one tho).


Did you design your own Minecraft Skin? Is it inspired by anything?

I created it by myself.

Its evolving overtime but the “McMeddon” Skin evolved lately from 3 sources.
- “Meddon” - An Adventurer Skin I created a few years ago
- “The Wandering Trader” - yup that in game mob with the llamas you come across
- and bits of “RealGoran” - A german creator that heavily influenced me in my early days and one of the coolest skins I know of.


the evolution of McMeddon's skin

What PMC submission are you most proud of? Why?

hmmm. All maps have a special thing to it that elevated my skills in some sort. But currently no favorites.

- Archipelagoes taught me the scaling aspect
- Stratyrosion taught me a complex style to warp terrain around objects(like sand around a stone)
- Skanfjord taught me the technique of cluttered forests instead of “forest noise”
- Marland taught me to make wonderful cliffs and coastlines
- Kenmaya taught me: custom blocks and the map conversion to Bedrock
- Clifftorm taught me how to implement a procedural river system for all upcoming maps
- Westburg setted a huge stone for a procedural building style, #build, copy, modify

But if you wish a final answer, I guess, my favorite map will be the map, where it's indistinguishable (on the features side) from a normal Minecraft map. The map you can place into a Minecraft world .. and it would just fit in. As if it would be the new Biome itself.

And that's where I will place the Westburg City on. And that will be my favorite map.


terrain submissions mentioned above

What do you enjoy most about Planet Minecraft?

Seeing how much people are interested in these Maps. I've never expected to grow in this pace or to be this “big”, I thought, “yea… soo maybe a 100+ people might see that stuff” and that's ok. But there are thousands of people on each submission, hundreds of downloads of each map. This is just breathtaking and it fills my heart with joy to see people enjoying these so much. And i hope to see, how people are elevating those and create on these maps one day.


Do you have any goals on the site (subscriber goal, perhaps win a contest, host another contest etc)?

My Personal Goal on PMC: Is to entertain people, to give them a huge Art board to play with and see what they will do with it, how they elevate it, making it better, more interesting.

Map Goal: To create a Map where it's indistinguishable (on the features side) from a normal Minecraft map. That you want to play in Survival. The map you can place into a Minecraft world .. and it would just fit in. As if it would be the new Biome itself.

Subscriber: nope, no goals, just enjoying the “present” and the journey itself

Participating in Contest: I'm 50/50 on it currently, I'm a creative competitive person. I want to win, and i would give it all what it would take. Which would mean, I will gladly sit a whole week down to make stuff happen. And I feel already the struggle not to participate in every single contest. But I think it's in my own interests long term, to not participate in most contests, not to break my 20/80 rule, despite the contest badges are looking sooooo heckin awesome(!!!).

Hosting Contests: no plans currently


Is there a specific member that inspires you or you look up to? Who/Why?

There are dozens of awesome Terraformer and World Engineers to name that release astonishing work over and over again: Barbarian Ivain Consue DeltaResearch HebaraMC e.g.

Despite their breathtaking work, I try not to be as much inspired by the terraformer people. The thought behind it is, to have multiple resources of ideas and inputs from outside and avoid common stuffs you would see from there. For example my Twitter account .. is subscribed to mostly Digital People that work in different fields and inspire and bring me to new ideas for future maps.


If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Either the Chinese nature parks with their awesome landscapes or the Philippines to their archipelagos in those crystal blue lagoons.


What is your favorite food?

I make my own pizzas from ground up, i feel the edges with cheese and pack them with a good deal of various stuff, like sausages, ham or vegetables and ofc, the thickest layer of cheese you could imagine.,


Do you have any pets? (perhaps include a picture?!)

Sadly no, but i have a huge heart for cats and fluffy dogs


Describe yourself in 3 words!

Empathic, impulsive and curios


Are there any hobbies outside of Minecraft that you have?

I love cycling, Mountain & Street biking. I had a car crash once where i was hit from the side on a cross-section that yeeted me out of my socks and I didn't start again in time after that accident, so I got a bit left behind and discontinued the racing but cycle on good occasions a lot. Otherwise, I love baking like bread and pizza. For sure 3D Stuff and Programming/scripting Websites got a lot of my attention also.


a few of McMeddon's hobbies

Is there any new skill that you’ve been wanting to try, but haven’t had the chance to yet?

I would like to learn guitar, I've tried it, but my hands are so soft that I easily get wounds from the strings and pretty much painful for me sadly. Otherwise, I would like to know how to use the CAD programs for Metalwork and 3D printing, I love making my own stuff, did my own furniture and stuff like that.


Favorite quote or words of wisdom for the community? OR Do you have any advice for new members of PMC?

As a creative person who struggled a lot through time, my words of wisdom would be.

Don't compare yourself to others, compare to your younger self, and see how far you've evolved. The world is sometimes a bit cruel, but you can make someone's day brighter, by being nice and sharing or helping out.

“Comparison is the death of Joy”,

so if you are a creative mind, don't compare, use the occasions and get inspired by them, steal from 100 places, COMBINE them and make it your own and do it!


Anything you'd like to add?

Nothing much more than a heart full of thanks.

- Thanks to PMC for providing such a great site for so long and also the new PMC-Server #MayItLiveLong
- Thanks to the people that support me already directly, i mean holy moly o.o so much thanks, since you make new stuff possible
- And a handful of thanks to the wholesome community, you make someone's day daily brighter