The Pyramid Temple shows how Gem architecture is unbound by normal gravitational forces, even on Earth. I think I watched a PBS program on Buckminster Fuller at some point.” “He’s always been the person in our family to point out interesting engineering things. “My dad is an engineer,” he says, laughing. The Gem moonbase there is topped with what Johnston confirms is a geodesic dome, like those of the futurist architect Buckminster Fuller. That visual-centric storytelling is apparent in a sequence that Johnston storyboarded toward the end of Season 2, in which Steven and the Crystal Gems go to the moon for information about a weapon growing deep within the Earth. This method might contribute to the strength of the backgrounds instead of starting with a script, the ideas come from sketches. Steven Universe, like many animated shows, is storyboard-driven: Artists conceive the plot and write it as they go. Some of these architectural elements were thought up by Joe Johnston, a supervising director on the show. But also like Fuller, they never quite got there. Like Fuller, the Gems strived for utopian perfection. Steven, in his adventures, thus encounters floating platforms, impossibly twisted columns, and an upside-down pyramid. Gem buildings are able to defy gravity, creating very unusual tectonics-ways in which structural loads are carried and expressed. Luckily, they had magical alien technology for an assist. The show’s crew had to carefully create structures both alien and aged just as in the Star Wars prequel movies, these environments had to dazzle with sci-fi sparkle while seeming less advanced than their contemporary counterparts. As a result of an earlier colonization attempt, there are Gem spires and temples hidden throughout Earth-a unique blend of Ancient Greek and Art Deco styles, they’re rich with ornamentation.
The Gems that Steven lives with, called the Crystal Gems, are rebels who’ve fought to separate themselves from a vast space empire that serves as the show’s ongoing menace they act as the Earth’s protectors against corrupted Gem monsters and Homeworld invaders. And far from being passive, the design assists in the storytelling: The two distinct kinds of architecture on Steven Universe-Gem and human-ingeniously double down on the show’s messages about coexistence and self-transformation. Eschewing styles that resemble watercolor or oil paintings, the show instead looks like something that could only be created on a computer, while maintaining elegance and subtlety.
The architecture is intricate and surprising, and it takes a lot of inspiration from video games.
Many backgrounds are colored with unexpected, complementary palettes (pink sky, purple trees) and traced in outlines that are slightly off-registration and rough.
Along the way, viewers might see anything from geodesic domes to disappearing sand castles to human zoo satellites. The setting of the show moves throughout the universe, eventually reaching the Gem Homeworld. (Cartoon Network)īut in many ways, the show’s built environments -one of the subjects of a new book, Steven Universe: Art & Origins-are the star. The Sky Spire floats above the Earth, hidden by alien Gems thousands of years ago.
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