I don't really have any tips for you, especially considering that I have never undertaken such a project myself. I want to congratulate you for doing this, and I want to encourage you to keep on doing this. However, as a fan of Pixlriffs and his Minecraft Survival Guide series as well, I believe his point in the series is to help the average Minecraft player take inspiration from what he does, and do it themselves with their own little twist to it.
Again, I fully support your idea of recreating the Minecraft survival guide world, but I think that you should try to make a normal world, but put a Survival Guide spin on it. You don't need to recreate everything Pixlriffs does; if anything, try improving it in your own world. Whatever you decide to do though, all the power to you, and I'm sure that it will go well with you if you stick to your project wholeheartedly.
I'm sorry that I don't have much advice for you, but I hope you found this useful. Thanks!
