This guide will teach you how to make models and images for your pages when making fanon mobs, items, blocks, armor, etc. This is the second in a series of guides written by Maj 
, the first is Guide: Search Engine Optimization.
The tools you will need are:
- Mineimator, or another animation software.
- Any image editor (I'm using Photoshop 7.0. but you can use Paint or some other free program)
- Optional:
- Minecraft
- 3D modeling software that can export .json files (I'm using BlockBench)
- Any program capable of opening .zip files (I'm using 7-Zip)
Getting the Default Minecraft textures[]
This is a very helpful step before you start creating, get Minecraft's default textures so you can reference and edit them as you please. This is what you needed 7-Zip for. Go to your Minecraft folder, if you don't know where this is, hit the windows key and type %appdata%.minecraft or open Minecraft, go to Resource Packs, and click "Open resource pack folder" then go to its parent folder.
Once you're in the folder called .minecraft, go to the folder called "Versions." Go to whichever version you'd like to get the textures from (you will only see versions you've installed through the Minecraft launcher), and open its folder. You will now see a .jar file and .json file, you'll want to right click the .jar file, and use 7-Zip or your Zip editor of choice to open the .jar (with 7-Zip, this is done by hitting "Open Archive"). In the window that will open, navigate to [version].Jar/assets/Minecraft and select the folder called "Textures" then right click and hit "Copy To". You'll be able to select whichever folder on your computer you'd like to copy the textures to.
It may take a few moments for the images to be copied over, but soon enough you'll have a new folder called "textures" in your folder of choice. I'd recommend renaming it to the version name you used so it's easier to keep track of if you want to use older or newer textures in the future.
You now have access to every single texture in the game.
Pixel Art[]
This is just creating images via placing pixels. You don't need any extra software for this, just an image editor. It's mostly used for making item textures, as these are not 3D in-game. Note that the size of all item textures in Minecraft is 16x16 pixels.
Examples:
16x16 art won't show up very well if posted online, so you'll want to upscale the image first. I usually just set it to 160x160 pixels. You'll need to resize it using the "nearest neighbor" option, otherwise it will lose pixelation and look extremely blurry and smudged. If your image editor doesn't support nearest neighbor resizing, you can alternatively color the background with a contrasting color, then screenshot your picture, open the screenshot, and delete the background color.
Mine-imator[]
Retexturing[]
This is the simplest method for creating images. For this, you will not need any 3D modeling software.
Retexturing is using default Minecraft models and changing their textures, as well as optionally rearranging them, in order to create something new. Here are some examples of things created with this method:
Once you've figured out what sort of mob you want to create, go into Mine-imator, click the crafting table, and then the humanoid icon that says "Create a player or mob," and then you'll be able to browse through all the mobs in the game and figure out which parts you want from each.
If you want to create a simple humanoid, just click "human." You will see there is an option for "Skin" which allows you to set whichever texture you want. You can go to your Minecraft texture folder, go to the "entities" folder, and then copy steve.png, paste the file wherever you'd like (I highly recommend having a separate folder to hold all of your creation images), and then edit the copied file you've just made with your image editor.
Once you've made whatever image you'd like, you can save it, then load the new image as a skin in mine-imator. You can do this for any mob, just make sure that whatever mob you're using, you use the corresponding image, otherwise you will end up with broken textures. IE: You can't apply a zombie skin texture to an Elder Guardian.
If you want parts from multiple mobs, create the texture(s) as usual, but click the arm icon in Mine-imator instead of the humanoid, it will say "Create a single part from a mob or special block", and allows you to select an individual component of a mob's model. This will allow you to insert as many parts as you like from various mobs.
Consult the "Posing things in Mine-imator" section for details on how to construct the parts into a coherent mob or entity that can be posed
New 3D models (3D editor) (Recommended)[]
If you want to create completely new models, you can do so easily with BlockBench. Note that each arm, leg, torso, head, etc. that you make has to be saved as a separate file.
Create the model(s) you want in BlockBench. This is not too complex of a process, but if you have any trouble with it there are plenty of tutorials available online.
Your model needs to be exported as a .json filetype. Then go into Mine-imator, click the crafting table, and click the very last icon in the list, which will say "Create a model from an external file" select your model, and the texture.
Sometimes, mine-imator will not display the texture properly, and show the model as invisible or pure white. If this happens, assure that the correct texture is selected for the part, and then save the project, close Mine-imator, then re-open the program and project.
Examples:
Fit the parts together as outlined in the "Posing things in Mine-imator" section.
New 3D models (Minecraft)[]
If you want to create new models not available in Minecraft, but can't, or don't want to, use BlockBench, you can just use Minecraft and an image editing software.
Examples:
First, go into Minecraft and create a Creative Superflat world of the Void or Bottomless Pit type. You'll have to model the mob's torso, arms, legs, head, etc. by using commands and placing blocks by hand. Because the blocks have textures, you'll have to manually re-color them later, to make them appear as pixels, so instead of picking blocks that are similar to the color you'll ultimately want, use different colors of concrete block.
Once you've made a part you want to import, go into mine-imator, click on the workbench, then on the terrain icon, which says "create a piece of Minecraft terrain from a world." The intended use of this feature is to create terrain, but you can use it to create body parts instead.
Click "scenery," then "import from world," which will open a new menu where you can select a world to import terrain from, then select a box where you want to import the terrain from.
Next, pose the parts as you like. Consult the "Posing things in mine-imator" section.
Manual Voxels[]
An inefficient and obscure method, this is done by going into mine-imator, creating cubes, changing the cubes' mix color in the color tab of the properties section, and then manually arranging the cubes into whatever pattern you want. This is only useful for small mobs, and even then is not useful in comparison to simply creating a 3D model.
Example:
Posing things in Mine-imator[]
To make the parts fit together so that they can be posed, Mine-imator has you use the child-parent system, where a "child" part can be moved and rotated independently, but if the "parent" part is moved or rotated, the child is moved along with it as though it were affixed.
So for a humanoid, this would mean you would want to set the arms, legs, and head to all have the torso as a parent. If you had, for instance, the Ender Dragon, which has a long neck made of several segments, the first segment (the one closest to the body) would have the body as its parent, but the second segment would have the first segment as its parent, and so on.
To set a part's parent, just double left click the part to open the properties menu for that part. In the properties menu, you can click the drop-down list for "hierarchy" and set the parent. Set all the parts' parents and you'll be able to pose your mob however you like.
Finishing touches[]
Once you've finished your model, you'll want to make it into a .png image with a transparent background.
To do this, first go to the project properties tab of Mine-imator and change the sky to a color that contrasts with the color of the model, so that is can be turned transparent later. Disable clouds, fog, and the ground, also in the mine-imator project properties tab. Now take a screenshot of the model, or use the snipping tool. Open the screenshot in your image editor of choice.
Make sure anti-aliasing is off for any tool you use. Then delete the background to make it transparent, and crop the image if needed.
If you created your models with BlockBench, or manually placed voxels with Mine-imator itself, you should now have a finished product.
If you created your models with Minecraft, you'll need to re-color the blocks so that they appear as a solid color. Using a color selection tool (the magic wand in photoshop), turn off the "contiguous" setting (which makes it so that it only selects areas that are touching) and select a color of block. Fill it with one uniform color, and repeat the process. Note that the sides, front, top, and bottom of a block are all different colors due to lighting, so you'll need to do this several times for each block you used.
Blocks[]
To make a custom block, just make a resource pack and replace whatever block you'd like from the normal game. Then, go into Minecraft, place the block down, and make a solid color background out of concrete (make sure the color of concrete is not too similar to the block's color). Take a screenshot of the block, open the screenshot in your image editor of choice, and then select the concrete and delete it.
Examples:
Structures and Biomes[]
Just create the structure/biome in Minecraft, and then screenshot it and upload it. Couldn't get much easier.
If you're having trouble with the first step, you can use WorldEdit and WorldPainter to make things easier. You can also use Resource Packs to change the colors of blocks; Note that the images in the "colormap" folder of your Minecraft Textures is used to determine the color of grass, leaves, and other foliage, so you can use this to make unique colorations for grassy biomes.
Examples:
