By: Julia Yang

The ‘Life Series’, as previously stated in a past article, is a Minecraft server where the members have a certain amount of lives and must be the last one standing in order to win.

The ‘Hermitcraft SMP’ is a server where around 27 friends/YouTubers/stream-ers come together and play Minecraft. That’s basically it.

The fan artists enjoy taking aspects of the events in those series’ and seasons and input them into what they think the Minecraft skins should look like, or just have fun with it. Today I’m explaining each fan design for those who don’t know what they are or why they’re there.

First, what’s up with Jimmy and yellow feathers/wings? Most people who are fans know this already, but the yellow wings and feathers are a callout to the canary bird. The reason why fans draw Jimmy with canary wings is because they’ve all collectively decided that he has something called the “canary curse”. This curse is rooted from the fact that in every season of the ‘Life Series’ he’s the first to die. I know, “well what’s the connection to the canary?” It’s a canary because in the past, canaries were used by coal miners to tell if danger or hazard was near because there would be potential gas leaks that would kill the canary first before the miner. Jimmy is the canary of the server as he dies first, which always signifies in the server that things are going to go downhill very fast.

Grian is often drawn with rainbow parrot wings; the reason for this is actually very simple. One time Grian was being annoying in the ‘Hermitcraft SMP’ and was called a “pesky bird”. That’s about it for this one.

Another thing you may see on Grian is purple eyes and wings. This one ties back to lore and a complicated story, but to put it short, Grian is a “watcher”, hence the eyes, and the purple wings I believe just tie back to the parrot wings. Both however, people like to draw as biblically accurate angels, because why not?

BigB will sometimes be seen drawn with dog ears and tail, or very recently, as the creaking creature in the new Minecraft update. The dog ears and tail is because he was Ren’s soulmate in ‘Double Life’; Ren’s full YouTube name is RenDog, and his skin has dog ears and a tail. BigB changed his skin to match Ren (giving him ears and a tail), which fans found adorable and ran with it.

BigB is drawn as the creaking creature in Minecraft recently because in the new ‘Wild Life’ season, he lives in the Pale Garden (where the creaking resides), and fans thought it would be so cool to draw him as the terrifying creature.

Doc will be drawn with goat horns and sometimes legs, basically all the time. This is because he calls himself the G.O.A.T. Usually when people call themselves the G.O.A.T. it stands for “Greatest Of All Time”, but in Doc’s case, it stands for “Grind. Optimize. Automate. Thrive”. You see, Doc loves making automated machines, grinding for materials, and doing some of the most absurd activities like bringing the Ender Dragon to the over world just to have it as a pet.

Mumbo is sometimes drawn as a moth, this one is because of ‘Hermitcraft’ season 8. In season 8, the moon started to grow at an alarming rate, and to “calm down” the moon, Mumbo decided that he was going to never sleep. Fans then thought of Mumbo as a moth because, well, moths love their moon.

Tango is sometimes drawn with fire for hair and a tail, and this one doesn’t really have a solid reason. Tango’s skin has slicked back blonde hair that fans just interpreted as fire since it was cool, and the tail is because Tango’s skin has red eyes and used to be drawn with horns too. They used to make him into a demon/devil type creature because of his red eyes, but then Tango said at some point “just because I have red eyes doesn’t mean I’m a demon”, so fans took away the horns and made him have a tail, making him his own species of creature.

Impulse is drawn with horns and a tail, just like how Tango was, but for a very different reason. Skizz, Impulse’s friend of 20 years, nicknamed him “Impy”. Of course Impy is short for Impulse, but fans immediately thought of the type of demon “Imp” and made him an Imp. You can thank Skizz for this one.

Scar is drawn with scars on his face. I think this one is self explanatory, but I’ll explain anyway— Scar is drawn with scars on his face because of his name, and because it’s easier to differentiate between him and another player (Scar’s skin looks like a normal person otherwise).

I’ll admit, this may not be all of them, but it’s definitely the most recurring ones. Just keep in mind that if you ever see one of the members drawn with a characteristic that isn’t on their Minecraft skin, there’s always a reason for it.