HOME | DD
narcomanic — Dovah
Published: 2010-03-11 17:01:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 3254; Favourites: 53; Downloads: 48
Redirect to original
Description
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.
Related content
Comments: 38
This would make a great stained-glass in Uru. Perhaps you could pitch this to be used as fan-content in the MOUL Creativity forum: mystonline.com/forums/viewforu… I'd love to see this in-game as it really suits Myst and D'ni.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
beautiful colours, I like how you've captured the style
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
O.O Stunningly beautiful. She looks like she could've been Queen of D'ni (had there been any queens).
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
There's a Myst community of sorts here. Not large, but it's there. Do you play Uru?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I used to, back when I had use of a Windows laptop. I've never been able to get it to work on a Macbook. :\ But yeah, the Myst community pops up every once in a while in here and on tumblr, where I'm more active nowadays.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Ah. That makes sense.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This amazing work has been featured in my journal: [link]
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This IS very impressive.
Fabulous work.
It would look great as a stained glass in perhaps one of the D'ni temples in Releeshahn.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
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......
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...
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
*deep breath / gasp* Fah; OHHHH MY YAHVO!!! That is AWESOME!! 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
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.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
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
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is beautiful! I assume you've joined the by now, right?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I have indeed. : D I've just had very little time to draw anything for the past... six months or so, so I haven't been very active on dA.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is quite beautiful, and very Art Nouveau-ish. Good work! I like it!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you! Yeah, I'm not too familiar with Art Nouveau, but it kinda sneaked in on its own. XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hi! I just wanted to let you know that I am currently working on a similar project for Rehleeshahn, since you wanted to see something like that ^^ Not sure what the final outcome will be like, though. I'll be sure to give you a link once I upload it here on DA
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hey, that's great! Keep me informed (my version of Releeshahn got forever stuck in sketch hell <.<).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh, you had your own version too?
Perhaps we could compare both sketches and see how they could be improved or merge them or something ^^
I just submitted two rough sketches here:
[link]
[link]
It's all very rough, but I'd love to know your thoughts on this, or get a bit of advice from you ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Emphasis on "had", I'm afraid. :"D I've moved apartments and changed computers twice since, so the files are long lost.
But I'll gladly take a look at your of Releeshahn and tell if any ideas come up.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Awesome! Care if I submit this to the Myst fan club here on DA?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
If you think it fits, sure! I don't really know how the submitting stuff thing works, to be honest... :"D And thank you for the favourite as well!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Actually, I tried, but the group founder said that people must join the club before submitting anything
If you're interested, then you could probably send them a note here: [link]
And yes, it would fit in there, since I have submitted quite a few sketches of similar concepts myself ^^ None were nearly as intricate as yours, though!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow, this is amazing. I'd love to see a personification for Releeshahn.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you for the comment and the fave! : D I'll keep that in mind, then. So far s/he's stuck on a sketch level. :'D
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
And thank you again!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh my god, haha, that's so awesome - thanks!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I really like it! The clothes, the background looks like Gehn's pictures in Riven! (the one's in the gold beetles XD)
Love to colors too!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, I actually went through all the glass paintings in the Temple Island for references! : ) Glad you noticed it. And thank you for the fave as well!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Oh, isn't this interesting. I don't know that world nor that race, but all this reminds me of a book, or was it a series of books, oh well, that I read a couple of years ago. There was also a patriarchal race living in a city below the surface of earth.
I also like the picture itself. It looks like a glass painting.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you! Yes, the glass painting look, I'm glad you noticed that. : ) It was exactly what I wanted to convey.
That series sounds very interesting, too. Do you happen to remember the name? I just put in an order for the three Myst novels, so I'll have those perhaps in a month or so... might be nice to compare. : ) And because I'm always recruiting more people to this fandom: if you like puzzle games and logical puzzles, do find out more about Myst.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
To notice? I think that's pretty obvious. : D
I do not remember, that's the problem. I have a guess though, and I'll tell you about it if I happen to rediscover it, okay? Myst sounds really interesting, and since I do like puzzles and stuff, I think I'll take a look at it later~ ^ ^
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Oh, this is excellent! Very pretty and well-drawn, and the symbolism you discuss is spot-on. I for one think the LJ comm would love to see this drawing too. Do you mind if I link to it on the Dreamwidth Myst comm I moderate? ( [link] )
There are more Myst folk on DA than you might think 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh, thank you so much! : ) Good to know that, then I might post this over there as well. In any case I need to ask people's opinion about a possible Releeshahn.
And I don't mind at all, feel free to link this (oh, what a pun, eh? XD). And yeah, I remember seeing that Myst club around. I might even have joined it at some point, though considering I rarely draw anything Myst-related I've never had much to contribute. XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 0