I have no idea whether this ought to be fanart or not. Anyway.
After a discussion in an internet community about national personifications, more accurately about possible national personifications of fictional nations, I began to think what a personification of the D'ni would look like.
D'ni, for those not familiar with the term, are a fictional people from the Myst games/novels universe, who live(d) in an underground city some 3 miles beneath the surface of the Earth. The lack of sunlight for over a millenary eventually turned their eyes and hair very pale and made them oversensitive to normal surface light.
I wasn't sure whether the personification ought to be male or female, considering the D'ni were apparently a very patriarchal society, but made her a female in the end. I tried to make her look both very intelligent and civilised, but not particularly gentle, considering how cruelly the D'ni enslaved other races/species like the Bahro.
As for symbolism, the coloured lining of her cape represents the 18 major guilds of the city. Books are, well, linking books. The tree in the background as well as in her clothing is the Great Tree of Possibilities,Terokh jerooth, from the mythology of Yahvo.
"Dovah", supplied by online English to D'ni dictionaries, means "world".
....
I know maybe one person in dA who knows Myst besides myself, so I don't know whether to post this in the Myst LJ community or not. XD I don't want to be hammered to death, but in the case I'm not... It would be interesting to make a contrasting personification for Releeshahn.
i really like this but but.......first of all Shorah!
um 3 probs i have about what you wrote in your description of The "D'Ni"
1 - The Early D'Ni didn't change due "The lack of sunlight for over a millenary eventually turned their eyes and hair very pale and made them oversensitive to normal surface light."....i think you'll find they are not of Earth and are of Gartenay-Homeworld to The Ronay that had a slightly diffrent Sun than we do-hence the colour of the cavern(Dimmer Sun). 2 - The D'Ni do not Enslave Race's the people on Terahnee did...(can found in The Book of D'Ni)..The Bharo were not slaves to/of D'Ni 3 -Yahvo The Maker is not a work of Fiction,nor is The D'Ni a fictional People
please excuse me i have experiments i must be getting on with...... "Wah Wah Waoom" .
Shorah Gah Bigotee!!...."eh...is this in Facebook can i share it with the many Explorers i am connected with i AM sure they will love it if they haven't already??".....(Jus Did) This Image has the Power to Save Uru....and continue the story...on...
Well thought-out and nicely executed! I like her sash with the tree. Definitely a good match to the golden glass art of Gehn, but it feels a little more organic, which I think is appropriate.
My critique: her face (or really, everything above her arms) seems too plain compared to the more organic shading and textures on the rest of the image, and the guild colors on her capelet aren't blended into the image enough. I think if you hadn't drawn her with a waist, she would have come out looking very androgynous, which imo wouldn't have been a bad option for the D'ni. I mean I always pictured them as being a sort of androgynous people anyway for some reason - they've always sounded sort of ethereally beautiful with a very cultivated taste in art and so on.
Hm. I never really paid attention to how patriarchic a society they were, but now that I'm thinking over that again, I really have to wonder what the women *did* all the time while the men were running everything. I mean, they didn't even have that many kids, and when they did, the kids were sent off to boarding school... So they wouldn't even have been filling their days with taking care of children.
This stands out in the Myst fan club galleries. Wow! What a great concept piece. Thanks so much for sharing it! I can't help hoping you'll be inspired to create more. This is a treat for the eyes
Fabulous work.
It would look great as a stained glass in perhaps one of the D'ni temples in Releeshahn.
--
Et ego in Arcadia
Achenar ->
i love myst!
--
Animator and Illustrator
Tumblr: [link]
Blog: [link]
um 3 probs i have about what you wrote in your description of The "D'Ni"
1 - The Early D'Ni didn't change due "The lack of sunlight for over a millenary eventually turned their eyes and hair very pale and made them oversensitive to normal surface light."....i think you'll find they are not of Earth and are of Gartenay-Homeworld to The Ronay that had a slightly diffrent Sun than we do-hence the colour of the cavern(Dimmer Sun).
2 - The D'Ni do not Enslave Race's the people on Terahnee did...(can found in The Book of D'Ni)..The Bharo were not slaves to/of D'Ni
3 -Yahvo The Maker is not a work of Fiction,nor is The D'Ni a fictional People
please excuse me i have experiments i must be getting on with......
Shorah Gah Bigotee!!...."eh...is this in Facebook can i share it with the many Explorers i am connected with i AM sure they will love it if they haven't already??".....(Jus Did)
This Image has the Power to Save Uru....and continue the story...on...
--
Like Vampires? Come be one. [link] We call ourselves the Nex. You can too.
Dhi lece keh leou'un sta moci'un tig sta matho'un.
Ry nevi ap sta Amedlet!!! *Tyru cef.*
My critique: her face (or really, everything above her arms) seems too plain compared to the more organic shading and textures on the rest of the image, and the guild colors on her capelet aren't blended into the image enough. I think if you hadn't drawn her with a waist, she would have come out looking very androgynous, which imo wouldn't have been a bad option for the D'ni. I mean I always pictured them as being a sort of androgynous people anyway for some reason - they've always sounded sort of ethereally beautiful with a very cultivated taste in art and so on.
Hm. I never really paid attention to how patriarchic a society they were, but now that I'm thinking over that again, I really have to wonder what the women *did* all the time while the men were running everything. I mean, they didn't even have that many kids, and when they did, the kids were sent off to boarding school... So they wouldn't even have been filling their days with taking care of children.
--
URU Live KI# 424791
My old signature was outdated. Anyone have a good idea for a new one???
--
There are people who think death a fate worse than boredom.
--
Muse is aural sex.
'Don't waste your time or time will waste you.'
- Muse, "Knights of Cydonia"