How to create a dilated image through Minecraft

  You can check out my previous blog post on how I was able to create my grid drawing in Drawcast and the work that my students did through Drawcast as they created their own grid drawings.

 After the students create their drawing, they are to create a background out of Minecraft blocks. They dilate the grid into a 1:4 scale. So the Drawcast grid was 8 x 7 blocks, so the students recreated their wall out of Minecraft blocks to be 16 x 14. 

By initially painting my background with the paint bucket tool, it made this part much easier. One grid square on Drawcast was recreated with four Minecraft blocks. You are also limited in which blocks to use based on color

 In the past, I have done various Grid Drawing Projects with my students. One of things that I encourage with them that if any one block is too difficult to draw, sub divide that into quarters. Again, since each Drawcast square equalled four Minecraft blocks (1:4 scale) I merged all of the Drawcast layers into one, and then started to draw a plus symbol on each Drawcast square to sub divide it.

 I was able to utilize the Multigesture Function of the iPad by swiping inbetween the Drawcast and Minecraft app. By the way, there are two Minecraft Pocket Edition apps. The main difference is that the free edition doesn't allow you to save your work.

 The Multigesture Function was a bit difficult, it turned out best when I had the Minecraft image on my iPhone and built the Minecraft art on my iPad. Overall, I wasn't TOO happy with the final product, but I did finally realize how/why Minecraft was so addicting for my students.

I had to realize that the Minecraft art wouldn't look exactly like the drawing, but more like an interpretation into a new form of art. The challenge was fun to use what color blocks that I was limited by, and by building layers upon layers, I tried to make Captain as 3D as possible.

SO my background was the flag, the base layer. The body of Captain America was the midground and his shield was the foreground. If I were to turn this around at various angles, you can see that I was even trying to get the arm to go out further than the boyd by building up the blocks.

 Finally, I wanted to showcase this step-by-step process to my students. I find the best way to do it is using the free InstaPicFrame app. By using this app, you can put a variety of images together beside each other in a variety of frame templates.

You can see the Student Gallery of InstaPicFrame art where the students compared/contrasted their Minecraft to Drawcast art in another Posterous post

 Finally, this is the original grid template that I made which is basically a 1"x1" grid that I downloaded the PDF from a Math site and converted it into a JPG with GIMP. If I were to do it again, I would download a .5" or even .25" grid, as it seems the more Minecraft blocks you have to create the art, the easier it is to duplicate.