New Minecraft video explains what goes behind adding paintings to the game

Minecraft 1.21, also known as the Tricky Trials update, added 20 new paintings to Mojang's beloved sandbox game. As players have gotten to work using them to decorate their builds, Mojang decided to provide a little behind-the-scenes viewing of how its artists utilize real-world paintings and convert them into a pixellated asset for players to use as they see fit.

In a roughly five-and-a-half-minute video posted to the game's YouTube channel, Mojang's Sarah Boeving, Jasper Boerstra, and artist Kristoffer Zetterstrand went into detail about how iconic real-world paintings were recreated to give a Minecraft feel to them before they were compressed into a digital asset that could be used in-game.

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Mojang explains the creative process behind Minecraft 1.21's 20 new paintings

Kristoffer Zetterstrand, the artist behind many of Minecraft's paintings both new and old (Image via Mojang)

In the video, Mojang's art director Jasper Boerstra made it clear that the developer wanted to introduce new paintings for Minecraft's 15th anniversary, and Zetterstrand was contacted once more. The Swedish artist shares info about his background with Mojang and his creation of the original paintings as well as being responsible for 15 of the 20 new paintings in Tricky Trials.

Zetterstrand states that work begins with a 3D motif of a painting constructed virtually, allowing lighting, colors, and textures to be altered. Once the motif is ready, the image is projected onto a canvas which can then be painted in oil appropriately by following the motif's example. After a fair bit of improvising, Zetterstrand uploads a photo of the painting onto a computer. From there, he compresses the image into different pixellated dimensions and ensures that each pixel is as faithful to the original painting as possible.

Meanwhile, Mojang's Sarah Boeving shared the process of creating pixel art for the remaining five paintings for version 1.21, remarking that inspiration centered on creating pixellated parodies of existing works of art in our world.

Sarah Boeving works on the "Unpacked" painting of the 1.21 update (Image via Mojang)

Boeving further stated that while parodying existing paintings was a good start, it was also important to inject some of the personality of Minecraft into them, such as adding a cake instead of an apple to the "Baroque" painting introduced in 1.21.

She also shared the process of the "Unpacked" painting which depicts the landmass of the original icon for worlds in the world select menu. After taking the original image and compressing it to in-game painting size, Boeving reworked the colors and pixel definition to make the icon more legible as a painting while also upscaling the pig mob in the original icon to make it a more noticeable part of the scene.

Boerstra went on to laud both Zetterstrand and Boeving for their magnificent work and different stylistic approaches, encouraging players to combine some wool and sticks and craft the new Minecraft 1.21 paintings that both artists worked painstakingly on. Whether players do so is up to them, but these new paintings should be able to well complement both new and existing builds.