D'ni monograms by yours truly

larryf58 · **Posted:** Tue Dec 15, 2015 4:17 am

Recently I sort of fell into making a few D'ni monograms for various people. It was accidental, but that's how it goes sometimes.

To round off the set, I decided to make one for Richard A. Watson. I made a page on my site for them, and uploaded copies to a Facebook photo album. Richard's went through about four, maybe five changes as I settled on a theme and tried to make it tell a story of sorts.

Much to my surprise, I got a "thanks" from him on Facebook, and his mother gave me her approval as well.

LOL. I guess after that, I don't dare make any more changes to it.

Tai'lahr · **Posted:** Tue Dec 15, 2015 6:21 am

Wow, those are all so beautiful, Larry! And, each one has so much thought put into it. They're absolutely stunning. And, I think you did an excellent job on RAWA's. Very, very thoughtful. Thank you for sharing these with us.

janaba1 · **Posted:** Tue Dec 15, 2015 12:52 pm

These are really remarkable pieces of art, Larry, every single one as beautiful, unique and extraordinary as the personality it represents ... very impressive and sublime ...

There are no accidents, but you know this of course lol, your inherent creativity and natural sense of beauty and the creative expressions and creations thereof intuitively lead you now to this new passion, only one of many more to come, and many will appreciate and honor it, as do I ... Yeah, just wonderful ...

KathAveara · **Posted:** Tue Dec 15, 2015 1:44 pm

Those are absolutely beautiful.

larryf58 · **Posted:** Tue Dec 15, 2015 2:00 pm

It was an accident in the sense that I hadn't intended to start doing them.

Kaaja had posted a copy of Yeesha's monogram as her Facebook image, and I commented on it, asking why she didn't make one with her name on it. I threw an example together to show her that the basic ideas are easy. It was then refined it a little by asking her for her favorite colors, and two things she associated herself with. She told me that she liked green and black as a color combination, and liked songbirds and feathers. So I picked up some southwest Indian bird art and feathers, and included the spiral hands to represent her love of Myst games.

After that, Misty Loges requested that I try doing one for "Hummingbird". I ended up just using "hb" for the monogram because "humingbirD" has too many letters to look good as a centerpiece. I chose the hummingbird art, and asked her for colors and other things she liked. She told me "earth tones" and "desert flowers or cactus". That made me think of the Southwest desert right off the bat, especially since I'd just used that style of art in Kaaja's monogram. So I picked southwestern colors and pueblo flower artwork. The second design came about because the hummingbird in it was just too pretty not to have it in one, and I didn't want to reduce the size to fit in a border rosette.

George and I began talking about how I made them, so I threw together some examples to show him possible looks after telling him I use Macromedia Fireworks 8 for image editing, but that he can get GIMP because it's free. The metallic disk came about from discussing what he'd like in a design while I was playing around with metal effects.

Then Yutiel commented on how much she liked the simplicity of the "hb" in Misty's monogram lettering, and asked what I could do with her name. As you can see, I tried making up one that read "yUtEel", but didn't like it because the monograms start getting messy when they have more than four letters. So I started over with the initials "yy" for Yutiel Yoshi. She never answered when I asked her for things she liked, so I decided on "simplicity" as a theme. I was playing with glass effects then, and stumbled across a way to make a pearl look. I used that as the background and just slapped a nice circle pattern on it.

The two of mine were designs I'd had sitting on a back burner from when I was playing with logos for my web site. I pulled them up and revamped them using the metal effects I'd gotten. The bronze one only had the center part when I started; I added the scroll work and books as a rosette and upgraded the metallic look.

I made Jeanne Raney's because we are friends. I didn't talk to her about it before I made it. I just did it as an exercise to see what I could do with just her avatar name and her home State.

And RAWA's was made to see if I could make one that actually had a message in it. It was modeled after the designs on the tops of the Relto pedestals. The symbols in the circles came from the d'nidings font pack, except for the Narayan bird. It came from the Narayani Light font. I got the Narayan glyphs by internet search. I'd tried using a Warhk to represent Riven, but the shape does not reduce to that size well.

Please note that none of the graphics I've used were from the games; I specifically avoided using Cyan graphics sources. That's because I didn't want to stray into a situation where Cyan might tell me I had to remove any of them from the internet. All of them were made with freely available graphics, public domain fonts, or my own design work.

larryf58 · **Posted:** Tue Dec 15, 2015 2:11 pm

janaba1 wrote:

These are really remarkable pieces of art, Larry, every single one as beautiful, unique and extraordinary as the personality it represents ... very impressive and sublime ...

That's deliberate. Each monogram is meant to be an expression of their personality.

Yeesha's monogram set the pattern for it; hers has hand trees for her D'ni heritage with a spiral palm for the Journeys, roadrunners for her "desert bird" nickname, books for her writing, and volcano shapes for the Cleft.

Acorn1 · **Joined:** Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:46 pm **Posts:** 982

Very impressive, well done Larry! :mrgreen:

angelmyst · **Posted:** Wed Dec 16, 2015 3:07 am

Those are stunning Larry.
Dare I ask what you could do with angelmyst?
I like green and orange, and mountains. ;-)

larryf58 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 16, 2015 3:23 am

Okay. Let's ask a few questions then. First off, if you had to name two things you really like, such as animals, hobbies, or anything else, what would they be? In other words, what are a few things that you believe define you as a person?

Angelmyst is a very long name. In D'ni, it would be Anjelmist (Anjelmist). That's too many letters to look good as a centerpiece, so I'll probably end up using Am (Am). For your name, the first thing that springs into mind is to use a pair of angel's wings around an icon symbolizing the game Myst, so that's one design element I can work on right away.

...orange and green? You're making it tough, aren't you? ^_^;

Here's a first draft, just using your name, the colors, and a mountain design. I'm not very happy with it, but hope to do better with more info. I really should play with the colors more; orange are green really are difficult to put together right.

(image deleted)

Edit: And here's a different color range to see how it works. So, which looks better? All opinions welcome. I'm refining a design in this one, but I'm still waiting for more input. Her request for mountains has turned out to be a stylized triple-peak shape arranged into a four-pointed star.

(image deleted)

What's gone into this so far? The wings and book are her name -- Angel (wings) and Myst (linking books are common to all the games). The initials are Am, and the ring of smaller letters are her name in D'ni orthography repeated continuously. The star is, as mentioned, for her love of mountains. The wings are white and black because all Earthly angels have both a good side and a naughty side depending on their mood.

There's room for at least one more major symbol in the lower star point, and perhaps some smaller ones as well.

angelmyst · **Posted:** Fri Dec 18, 2015 1:35 am

Very nice. I like the first draft better, the wings are more defined. Could you do the wings in the orange, with the 'mountains in the back...and the Lettering in the green??
Sorry I did not see htis sooner....I have been very busy.
luv angelmyst

larryf58 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 18, 2015 2:09 am

Just reverse the colors of the disks? Easy enough.

I still need something appropriate to put in the blank space at the bottom quarter. The question is whether you like the darker, richer colors of the first draft better; I defined the elements in it by using a glow around them to keep them from fading into the dark colors.

Color swap is done. Want it darker?

ZestyOfXeniphers · **Joined:** Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:54 pm **Posts:** 583

these are amazing Larry. can you do them for Zesty of Xeniphers and Kirk of Xeniphers too please ? in our guild colours - shades of purple (from royal purple to lighter shades) with gold accents ?
wizard is symbolic of the four functions of the human psyche - intuition, feeling, thinking and sensation. wizards can draw upon forces from above to help give a form to an idea and make it a reality in the material world.
so stars, magic wand, alchemy, etc. and of course followed by winged beings. we love angels too ...... so ......... i hope this give you some ideas to start with .........

larryf58 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 18, 2015 1:09 pm

Can do, but I need to know three things about each of you that you like or which are important to you, to personalize them. These monograms are intended to represent your personalities. An overall theme to show membership in a guild is just the start.

ZestyOfXeniphers · **Joined:** Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:54 pm **Posts:** 583

ok it is easy for Kirk - he is an avid, 1st class Morse code radioham operator and volunteer to help senior citizens.
i am an artist, play piano, love to read, love angels and all things magical.
we both love animals, especially cats and dogs, traveling, sea, lighthouses and nature.
that's for now.

angelmyst · **Posted:** Fri Dec 18, 2015 2:05 pm

Okay, after seeing these examples lets try this.
Dk green background
Wings in light orange
Book at top in light green
Mts at bottom in white or maybe blue and white like Er'canas mountains
Center disc in light green with lettering in black.

D'ni monograms by yours truly

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