Heads are decorative blocks, added in 1.4.2 - The Pretty Scary Update, that can be placed in the world, or worn by any humanoid mob or player as a helmet though they offer no protection. They are only used for decorative headwear.
Types of Heads[]
Six different heads can be obtained:
- Creeper
- Skeleton
- Wither skeleton
- Zombie
- Ender Dragon
- Player head (only via creative mode or commands)
The Wither skeleton head may be obtained by killing wither skeletons, and as of 1.8, the creeper, skeleton, and zombie heads may be obtained by killing the respective mob with a charged creeper explosion.
The dragon head is obtained by entering the Outer End and breaking the head on an End ship which can be found next to some End cities.
There is no way to obtain the player head in survival mode without cheats. However, one can recreate a specific player's head with the command /give @p skull 1 3 {SkullOwner:(username)}
.
The wither skeleton's head can be used to create the Wither, a boss utility mob, but these heads are a rare drop. Creating the Wither is similar to creating an Iron Golem. One will need three wither skulls and four blocks of soul sand. After placing the soul sand in a T-shape, place the three Wither skulls on the T-shape to spawn the Wither.
Trivia[]
- Heads can be placed in sixteen different directions, but cannot face upwards or downwards.
- A head will turn into an item if water or lava touches it, or if a piston pushes it.
- Heads can be placed on the side of blocks, but will not face the direction of a player, but forward.
- Heads can also be used as helmets, but will not provide protection; they do, however, have the detection range of the corresponding mob (e.g. wearing a skeleton skull will keep any skeleton from noticing a player until they are 8 blocks away, as opposed to the regular 16).
- Mojang created several accounts called MHF_(name), which can be used as the username for player heads to get mob heads that look like food, solid colors, etc.
- Heads in the inventory and creative menu are shown at a different angle than in the console versions.
- The Steve head is the only head that does not change in texture packs.
- To unlock the achievement Camouflage, a player must wear the head of a mob while killing the same mob (for example, killing a zombie while having a zombie head on).
- In update 1.11, the heads icon in the inventory was rotated (possibly by accident), so that only the back-side of the head is visible.
- Wither skeleton heads and creeper heads can be used with a banner to make certain designs. The wither skeleton head creates a "Skull and Crossbones" icon, while the creeper head creates a creeper face. Both icons are arranged in the middle of the banner.
- Wither skeleton heads can also be obtained from charged creeper explosions, but this can be hard since you would have to lure one of them into a nether portal.
- Dispensers can place mob heads onto players similarly to how they can place armor onto players.
- Mob heads can also be placed on armor stands.
- Breaking a head will have the soul sand particle effect on it.
- A Wither Skeleton Head has a 2.5% chance of being dropped by the corresponding mob, the Wither Skeleton. The chance will be increased by 1% per level of Looting added to it.