More from the archives of Myst 3 sketches

These two sketches from the tower at J'Nanin show Seth's understanding of architecture and of Art Nouveau architecture in particular. Art Nouveau was not just a matter of curving forms instead of right angles; it features stylized plant forms, balance, and proportion. The harmony between white space and busyness is a one of its hallmarks. Too much blank space and you have something that looks like a grain silo; too much busyness and you have Los Vegas for the eyes.

Good proportion makes your eyes happy: they want to just feast on the vision.

Both the sketches are views of the tower that is shown here in its final form. Like an architect Seth imagined and drew out even most of the hardware. My husband and I have done some home remodeling, and I know that there are some elements that I for one can ignore forever. And then I find that I have to make a decision about something I had never noticed before: "Do you want those hinges to be brass or stainless steel? --gloss or matte finish? --three screws or two?" But here they are--imagined in nearly all their detail in Seth's sketches.
I suppose that is what concept artists are paid to do. And it suited Seth's vision to imagine the detail work.

Myst 3 drawings

A kindly and observant Mystophile wrote to me this week to send me links to a couple of other places on the web where Seth's drawings had been posted--drawings that I had not put up myself. Here is one link he sent. And here is another (both put up without mention of Seth's name). With the aim of keeping this blog interesting, I had not posted ALL the drawings that I have. But it seems that people who love Myst really want to see everything. And I am glad to put something up here every month or so. So let me find a few drawings from Seth's notebook that I had not previously posted.

Here are some sketches of plants and animals for J'Nanin. The flowers I recognize. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the animals made it into the game.

Seth's drawing of the crab is quite a bit nicer than this scan. He didn't often use shading in his drawings, but he did on this, and his is far more subtle than what you see here: much lighter and rounder, even with as much softening as I could do on Microsoft Picture Manager and Picasa.
I don't remember seeing these half-buried bones in J'Nanin anywhere. But of course, at the time, I wasn't looking.