How to Build a Giant Bonsai Tree | Minecraft Tutorial

Hey everyone in today’s video i’m going to show you how to build a bonsai tree if you want to do a normal sized bonsai it’s really simple all you need is a pot and a plant and there’s your bonsai oh wait did you want to build something bigger

Okay fine we can do that too before i get started i want to point out that this is the first time i’m designing one so usually i pre-design a tree so i can kind of get a basic idea of the size for it but this one i’m just

Going to make up for the first time right now so we’re all going to be figuring it out together and hopefully it will turn out okay i’ve got all of these blocks up here laid out already to use i’m still not 100 sure if i’m going

To use all of these but we’re just going to start with these and see how it works out we got some dark oak planks some spruce wood to go with that and some azalea leaves and a moss block so i figured it’d be fun to try to use

Some different leaf blocks in the moss but you know you could use anything i’m going to do my best to talk through my process of how i think about designing any trees and since this is the first time i’m trying to do a bonsai let’s see how it goes i think what i’m

Going to do first is try to figure out a basic path of the main trunk and do you know how bonsais typically bend and twist a lot but they can be any shape that you want so if you figure out a good design that you want your bonsai

To be or if you know specifically what you want yours to look like mine’s looking kind of twisty and i don’t know if i like that if i want to adjust this just a little bit so it’s not as curvy i don’t think it needs to go too much

Higher than that at least for the main trunk this one i think i’m okay with this being one side of the trunk but then the other side i’m going to pull up from over here and maybe double the thickness of this as i go up

When it comes to doing the main trunk i tend to just spam blocks until i get the thickness i want all right so this is what i have so far and i’m going to be jumping around don’t feel like you’re missing out on anything really i’d rather you not copy me

Exactly what i do because that’s the nice thing about trees you can just kind of make it up on your own and it doesn’t necessarily look good or bad because you know what in real life some trees can be super ugly and some trees can be you know really pretty but

I think that’s that’s what makes trees so fun to build is it doesn’t matter if you mess up it’s gonna look like a tree no matter what so just keep doing what you do best and don’t worry about what i’m doing so much okay i’m trying to have some lower

Branches over here it’s not working out completely like i thought and i’m not going to pull out the fences just yet usually i like to use those for smaller branches but i’m just trying to figure out the bigger stuff right now i also need to think about the spread of this

Because you see how right now i have it going in a straight line well i haven’t really added too many branches yet so i need to start thinking about adding branches in different places to add some spread pretty much you’re just adding lots and lots of curving branches

Isn’t that all the bonsai is i know they come in many variety of shapes but that’s how my bonsai is going to be let me fill in this base real quick because i know for sure i i am going to want this base to be a little bit thicker

And probably all filled in you can even add a few temporary roots we cannot clean this up later it really isn’t a big deal all right and let me do this side too because i know i’m going to forget this if i don’t do it now

Something that i need to remember to do at times is sometimes you can have branches let’s say this top branch here actually goes downward and doing downward branches like this is super hard to do in survival it’s very frustrating to have to design trees this way

But i think for a bonsai this would look really much more realistic so i’m going to have this one curving down and then maybe do some other branches off the side here i suppose i could have these ones curving down too but you know this is me experimenting

Remember this is the first time i’m building one too so we’re kind of all in this together okay i kind of like that i’m not so sure obviously we need to keep adding branches until we get something that we’re 100 satisfied with well wait 100 i don’t think i’m ever 100 satisfied

Mostly satisfied with all right i think i need another branch over here to round off this area and i need to remember to put some branches toward the front too because the front is kind of flat too because if i look at this from the top we kind of

Have some round edges happening over there but the front see how it’s just very flat across here i think i’m going to go off of this curve maybe and we’ll just kind of pull a branch around here well we do have to be careful though too because i guess bonsais are technically

More sculpted trees so the branches really could go in any direction you want if you wanted it to be prettier so i might not do that i think what i’ll do instead if i were making a bonsai would i need any more branches going off of here maybe not it might be fine

But i think what i am ready to do is try adding some of the smaller branches so i’m going to take my fence and just start going off of these i think i want to try to keep the tops relatively flat but if we want to have some fences going

Upward just a little bit up here i’m probably going to have several twigs coming out just going straight up like that because i don’t like my trees to be super flat on top so i do need to be mindful of that that i’m giving it at least some height

And i’m just going to keep doing this you can keep doing it to your heart’s content remember you can go downward too and that might look a little bit better so let’s try this i’m frequently coming to the front to evaluate it from this direction because

I think this is the ideal direction to view it kind of thing so i’m noticing that there’s some twigs missing over here i’m also trying to keep in mind to space out the branches so i have more room for the leaves so that’s just something else to keep in

Mind i wouldn’t overload this sort of tree with branches i mean it already does kind of look overloaded doesn’t it but you get what i mean just don’t fill up every single block space with a branch okay so this was the spot i tried to add something earlier i think i’m going to

Add a little branch here instead and have it go in this direction oh yeah i like that and i think this can even go a little bit longer it’s okay to have some longer skinny branches and some shorter ones i’m just experimenting here too so let’s pull that up that way let’s also

Pull um let’s pull this one here dip over and across okay you know what i wonder how this is looking from other angles because i feel like other angles it wouldn’t look as good i might actually shrink this branch right here it might be sticking out a

Little too far at least the giant blocks are i think from this point we can just start with the skinny branches playing out all the branches is the most important step i think because it just helps you kind of visualize how the tree is going to look before adding

The tons of leaves onto it and since the leaves take the longest to do it is nice to have a good solid plane in place before you get into that step all right do i have this looking good i think i need more height on this

Branch so i’m going to put an extra branch going straight up here i wonder if i do when i have several vertical branches i think that might look nice if i had some extra branches sticking out the top up here i might do that all right my tree is coming together i

Did notice a huge mistake though that i really want to fix i have this nice curve going on over here but right here i feel like this curve is getting lost i think it’s because of this block yep it’s already 100 times better and let me see is there anything else i

Need to do with this i should probably keep adding some branches over here it is a good idea anytime you do have an end like this to at least end it off with some small branches i like to taper off to a smaller size i mean i guess you don’t

Have to but it’s just my preference all right so here’s how it’s looking from the top that’s actually not too bad it looks like it’s pretty full i think i want to put a little branch over here too maybe have one that goes down a little more another evaluation

I think i need more branches going uh over here so i think i’m gonna add you know what i might do if i have enough space i might add another thick branch over here but i might change my mind in a second and remove it so let me just see how that looks

Um i think it needs to twist more so i’m going to twist it up this way and we got to be careful these blocks that connect on the corners i usually don’t like those try again all right i’m evaluating my bonsai again and i think it needs another curve or

Another big branch that goes off the top i don’t know if that’s going to look okay but let’s just try it i just feel like it’s too small or it needs something else so i’m going to try adding another big curvy branch but this time i’m going to make it go downward a

Little bit so see i could be working on this for several hours just to perfect it but i am trying to go quickly for the sake of this video oh i do like that that’s kind of pretty so we’ll keep this weird curving branch here and let’s go ahead

And finish it off with some smaller branches on the end oh and i should probably branch off of this big thing too and remember to go downward often again if you’re doing this in survival it would be a huge pain to do this kind of tree but you could always build it in

Creative and then use something like lightmatica to paste a schematic in survival and build it that way that’s always an option it would be much easier i think and let’s see we can do another branch over here all right i think that looks good i just want to make sure that this branch

Or this part of the trunk is thick enough because now i have put more weight on it i want to make sure it can support all of that so i’m going to put some extra blocks there and i might have to thicken up the whole thing actually

Just because i made it a little bit taller and i want the base to look like it can support all of that all right in one more branch section i see you need to add at the very top just so it isn’t super flat right here i think i need to add

Some branches there and again i’m just visualizing where i’m going to be placing the leaves and that’s where i’m putting the branches so i’m kind of imagining oh i need some leaves up here to fill in that space all right so here is my bonsai so far i

Think i do need some work done to the roots so let me look at that real quick i haven’t been using the stairs or slabs yet it really is up to you if you use these sometimes i do use them on branches depending on the size of the

Tree and sometimes i’ll use them on the roots to help me smooth it off but you really don’t have to it really just depends on what you want your tree to look like but i’m going to have some slabs down here for some better routes you can even smooth off the

The base like this more i’m not really sure what i’m going for with this but let’s do something like that and don’t forget to do it on the other side too because this side this side is kind of a mess isn’t it let’s go ahead and

Try to come up with something a little bit better this is how my bonsai’s looking now i think i’m ready to start adding some leaves so i have some azalea and moss blocks i’ve never actually used most blocks for trees before but this is what i’m thinking about trying if i put the

Azaleas on the top parts of the branches they have a little bit of transparency but the moss block i can put on the bottom parts and it’ll just look like a shadowy area of the leaf kind of thing so i’m just going to mix those together and kind of continue this pattern of

Doing the moss on the bottom and the azalea on the top and this is the part that can take a long time so i’m not going to show me doing it all of it but i am just following this basic pattern i am just covering the tops first with the azalea and i’ll

Probably want to stack it a few blocks away from the branch don’t go too far off but also with bond size sometimes they tend to be more trimmed and that the leaves look more compact or i don’t know what the word for is i’m trying to think of

But yeah they basically look more compact and not so noisy i i don’t know what the good word would be for that so you could always pack them a little bit more closely for this kind of tree but you know it’s up to you also remember not to cover up all the

Branches underneath it is a good idea to leave those exposed so if you want to just do a few blocks on the sides i don’t even know if i want to do too many blocks underneath of these just because of the way bonsais are they typically have the lower branches exposed anyway

So i’m just going to try mine with the azalea on top and maybe just a few moss on the side but not as much on the bottom and we’ll just see how that looks I’m gonna pause the replay for just a moment something i have found out as i’ve been adding these is i think the moss block might be a little bit too much for the bottom so i’m still going to use it but i’m just not going to use it too much so

For example this branch here only has a few moss block there i wouldn’t go overboard with it unless you were only using moss block if you’re going to combine it with this i think i’m just going to try using it very sparingly also since i am talking now

I’m trying to think about you know how flat all the branches are so this is how it’s looking so far you can see i still have this whole lower section to do it’s kind of flat right here and typically i don’t like it when it’s flat like this and flush with the branch

But i think in this case i might have to make an exception because i don’t think i can really do anything about that in this case so just thinking about how flat you want it or how round you want it because sometimes they could have flatter branches or flatter leaves or rounder

Leaves it’s really up to you and another thing i noticed is that if you are doing flat branches make sure to not have it super thick like this but have it kind of taper off almost like it’s coming to a point so i have it a little bit smaller on the

Bottom layer and then a little bit longer here and then smaller again so then it looks like it’s actually coming to a point and it just makes the whole shape looks much nicer so with those comments aside let’s go ahead and continue the time lapse i’m still going around adding leaves in

A few places but for the most part i think it’s okay something else i’ve been trying to do is keep all the leaves on the tips of the branches so if i do have some places where the leaves go too far on the inside of the branch then i’m trying to remove those

And just keep it on the ends because and it is nice to have more exposed branches in that way so i’m trying to get rid of some of these i’m trying to tweak it just a little bit more trying to trim our little bonsai our little bonsai it’s a pretty big bonsai this

Turned out a little bit bigger than i was thinking it would i would love to hear your thoughts on it i’m not sure how i feel about it i think it looks good as a standalone treat but as far as making it look specifically like a bonsai

I guess it works i would have to experiment more with this and try out some other techniques but again this was my first attempt and this recording took me about 40 minutes to do it’s a little bit bigger of a tree than most of my other tutorials but it

Is necessary if you want to include more detail like this i’m sure you could scale it down and try something a little bit smaller too but i like this size if this video has successfully inspired you to make your own bonsais i would love to see them somehow if you want to

Send them to me i would love to see those but this is my bonsai i hope you guys liked this video and i look forward to seeing you in another one bye you