Heads are decorative blocks that were added in the coveted Minecraft 1.4 update. Although heads are technically decorative blocks, they do actually have some practical purposes in single player Minecraft. Player heads particularly are also commonly utilized by Minecraft servers within several server-side plugins.
There are six types of heads that can be obtained within Minecraft, these are: player, zombie, skeleton, wither skeleton, creeper, and dragon. All heads can be broken without requiring any specific tools, and will drop itself when successfully destroyed.
To Get Player Heads on the newest version of Minecraft you can simply use the command /give @p minecraft:player_head{SkullOwner:PlayerNameHere} but for older versions of Minecraft you need to use a command block.
Here is the step-by-step pictorial guide you need to follow to get Player Heads in Minecraft:
If you’re on the newest version of Minecraft you can simply use the command /give @p minecraft:player_head{SkullOwner:PlayerNameHere} but for older versions of Minecraft (below version 1.13) you need to use a command block.
TIP: You must either be in creative mode, or have cheats enabled to use commands in Minecraft.
Step 1.) Type the command: /give <your username> minecraft:command_block
Step 2.) Place down the command block and in the Console Command section type this command: /give @p minecraft:skull 1 3 {SkullOwner:username}
Step 3.) Once you have pressed done, you will need to add something to the Command block in order to power it. In this case we will use a button for simplicity, as shown below.
Step 4.) Press the button and you will receive the player head of the username you entered!
Yes, but only with command.
No, Steve heads are only currently able to be obtained via creative mode.
You can get a wither skeleton head by killing a wither skeleton, the chance of getting a head from killing a wither skeleton is 1/40 (2.5%).
You can also try to blow up the wither skeleton with a charged creeper, which will make the chance 100%, but it will be difficult to go such a dangerous mob to the nether.
Wearing a creeper head will mean that the range the creeper can detect you from is reduced by 50%.
The same principle actually applies for skeletons and zombies too with skeleton heads and zombie heads respectively.
Heads are a very interesting and unique decorative block within the game, primarily due to the fact they are smaller than normal blocks and any custom texture can be applied to them. Minecraft servers and adventure map creators particularly utilize player heads to their advantage due to the fact their textures can easily be changed to represent real life items; this effectively adds new decorative blocks to the game.
In a practical sense however, players can wear certain mob heads to deter specific mob detection ranges, thus making said mobs much easier to farm and fight.