How One Creator Used Painting VR As the Canvas to Reach Half a Billion Views

When Belgian studio Oisoi created Painting VR, a virtual reality painting game that gives players their own digital art studio, the idea was simple: let anyone pick up a brush and paint inside a VR headset. What they didn’t expect was for one of their players to turn the game into a social media phenomenon.

Dutch creator Hidde Kip (22), better known online as HydraVR, creates his Painting VR videos with the same dedication as a full-time job, with some taking up to eight hours to complete.

His biggest hit? Painting a Minecraft lava bucket. It has more than 81 million views on YouTube alone:

 

It’s part of Hidde’s “Minecraft vs Realism” series, where he reimagines familiar objects from the game as detailed paintings. He has also painted everything from the Mona Lisa to Meccha Chameleon, one of 2026’s biggest breakout games.

There is an almost ASMR-like quality to the videos: the sound of brush strokes, the gradual reveal, and the satisfaction of watching a blank canvas slowly become a finished painting.

Hidde started HydraVR from scratch in November 2024, creating videos in his spare time alongside his full-time job:
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​“I discovered Painting VR through a viral YouTube Short and was immediately hooked. I’d already been making VR content and loved experimenting with ideas that could take off, so combining painting with trending topics felt like a natural fit. When my first ‘Minecraft vs. Realism’ video took off, the response was incredible. Seeing the series resonate with so many people has been an amazing experience.”

“We built Painting VR to let people create, but Hidde has taken it somewhere we never expected. Seeing 81 million views on a Minecraft lava bucket painted in our game is pretty wild.”
​- Wim Reygaert, founder of Oisoi.

What starts with one person, a headset and a blank canvas can end up being watched half a billion times.