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arvale-artist · 28 days ago

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ARVALE ANIMATED TRIBUTE (EXPLAINED)

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Here’s the link where you can download Arvale 1 Journey of Illusion & Arvale 2 Ocean of Time for free :

Anyway...

I started this project around end November/beginning December 2024 and now it’s done.

That’s.. half a year’s work, damn.

What’s surprising is that I… don’t feel burned out at all. I could keep going and make more Arvale art and animations, I would not mind at all. I’m… motivated, even.

Only around 1.5 or 2 years ago, animations that were far simpler and shorter than this one would quickly become unfun and a grueling task I slaved to complete because I felt the need to finish it. And it’s not like those projects back then were somehow demanded of me, tasked to do them, no, they were hobby projects just like this one. (BTW if you decide to look up my old art, just please keep in mind they were done by a literal schoolkid. They might be a little embarassing at times...)

I did get better at animating, especially more efficiently. That’s probably a big reason.

The most challenging part of this was certainly the sketching phase. This is something I noticed in the past, and has become very obvious while I worked on this short film. Which might be surprising to some of you, perhaps even other visual artists among you, but it makes perfect sense to me and I’ll explain why.

The sketching phase, and I mean the finished animation sketches in this video, and not the concept scribbles in my notebook, are where:

1). The actual animation takes place, I'd say.

Animation is the Illusion of Movement, and during the sketching phase is when I am actually creating this Illusion. This is the moment where I am creating Every. Single. Image. For. Every. Single. Frame. The rest is just refining! But this is where I am creating every single pose and it’s many iterations to create the illusion, and making sure I get the movement right. And this is the process where for me, the majority of mistakes and fixing happens. Redoing, fixing, and tweaking things over and over and over again until I finally get it right.

2). The sketch is the finished plan for the rest of the animation.

In order to make my life easier, I create- and I know this is debatable compared to others- very detailed sketches.

Because the more detailed my sketch, the plan for my drawing, is, the less trouble I’ll have following it.

Having to guess where to constantly put your linework, and redoing it over and over because it creates an error in your animation because it’s not similar enough to the linework that came in the frame before or after it, is hellish! And wastes so much time! A detailed sketch where you can easily trace your lines makes things a lot easier.

And for me personally, everything after the sketching phase is ‘‘‘‘‘mindless’‘‘‘‘ work. Because now I am just following the plan. I do the linework, I do the colouring, I do the shading/effects. I know what I have to do and how to do it. But the What’s and How’s are something that have to be figured out in the sketching phase.

What also helped for this to not take forever is that I limited myself to not do any fancing shading and lighting. If take a closer look at the animation, you can tell that the majority of the shading and lighting is not detailed, but rather vague and ambient. Instead of actually painting the shades and the lights on the characters, I placed a coloured gradient over ther individual body and clothing parts of the characters with a low opacity. Where no light hits the character at all, I either placed a really dark gradient or just straight up one dark colour. The colours for those gradients are picked from the backgrounds, so that the characters have the same tinge as their enviroment and feel like they are… well, part of the enviroment. Sometimes these gradients have multiple colours instead of just two, and depending how bright or dark the scene is, the more prominent the darker or lighter colours in the gradient are.

Actual shades and lights painted on the characters do appear, but rarely and only when it felt significant.

A good example of this is the shade cast by DeMenchev’s hat, which makes his dark brown hair and dark brown eyes melt into the dark brown shade, and, well, IT JUST LOOKS COOL. It does not make sense for the shade to be that intense, or always be dark brown for that matter, it’s very much a stylistic choice on my part. But it makes him look even cooler than he already does so I had to do it, yaknow.

And that is how, just around two months ago, I published all the finished sketch animations that took me around 4 months to complete, and only around half of that time later I am already here with the finished thing.

The fact that I am:

1). A lunatic.

2). Had lots of free time on my hands certainly helped too.

Reason 2). will vanish for the time being, because I am nearing the end of my first semester and need to pay more attention to my university work now. So… don’t expect an influx of art for quite some time. (Unless I find ways to sneak Arvale into my uniwork ehehehe) After I am done with exams and assignments though? Heheh…

While I am studying art and animation, we haven’t done animation yet at all. So all of this!!! Is STILL pre university professional animation knowledge. Who knows what sorta crazy things I’ll learn once I actually get to the animation part of my studies.

So. Regarding the actual contents of the video… I’m going to explain every single thing, every single scene now, because there is SOOOOOOO much detail, intent, thought and precise decision making ALL OVER THIS THING, and I’d rather explain it all than for information I built into this to be lost and unrecognized.

The Thumbnail. Yes, I’m serious.

(A lot of character names will be named, but I will explain those very characters later during the scenes where we see them appear).

The very letters that spell » Arvale « are taken originally from an old promotional image from the defunct PDAmill website.

I edited them a lot by painting over them, making them more shiny and vibrant and colouring the A in the beginning red, referencing the icons of the first two games. And, of course, referencing Duncan’s unique hairstyle from the first game. And to a degree the last game’s icon too, although that one has a golden A instead of a red one, but still has the same shape.

The pixel gothic font that says » Animated tribute « and can be seen throughout the video itself, is referencing the font you see in the game when you are reading text from a book, or a piece of paper, important lore bits, item names, etc.

(If you played Arvale 1 Journey of Illusion, you're probably wondering how the hell I got 2 tickets. Well, I didn't. But one of my friends wanted to try and see if grinding the bonkers amount of gold to buy one was possible, so she... yeagh.)

The shield, well, why is it a shield? Because a uniquely designed shield is part of 3 out of 5 of every Arvale game’s icon. Just like the uniquely designed letter A.

Arvale 1 Journey of Illusion, Arvale 2 Ocean of Time and Arvale Short Tales.

Within the shield, I painted the titlescreen background of Arvale Journey of Illusion, a dark nightsky with a unique star. The titlescreen background of Arvale 2 Ocean of Time depicting a sunset or sunrise on a cloudy ocean and made a daylight version of that cloudy ocean as well, which you can see within the reflection of the shield.

The daylight version is both a reference to Short Tales and Arvale Treasure of Memories. Arvale Short Tales’ unique gimmick was that it had a day and night cycle. And now we have a day and a night (Journey of Illusion background) within the shield.

The official artworks of Treasure of Memories always depict the characters in daylight. And I feel like… that probably was intentional? Considering how in Journey of Illusion and Ocean of Time different daytimes were choosen for the title/menuscreen background, and then making a whole game, Arvale Short Tales, revolve around day and night cycles… choosing daylight probably wasn’t a random decision.

At the bottom of the shield I snuck in a Melonchi Minecarts reference, it’s Grywth, DeMenchev and Duncan Riding the Melonchi Minecarts, haha.

The golden decorative edges in the corners are the same ones, or at least I tried to paint them close to the pixelated originals, that we see in the Arvale Short Tales title screen.

Or, well, at least I can see them. It’s not unlikely that I am the last person on planet earth still playing this game. A game that’s no longer sold for almost two decades, for a device that is no longer produced for almost two decades. Unless you go through… insane lengths… you’re not gonna be able to experience it. I’m sorry. Sucks a lot, because I think it’s quite frankly a really gorgeous RPG... Oh well.

The backgrounds in the thumbnail should look familiar once you finished watching this video because those are backgrounds from this very video!

I didn’t place them randomly as well. I tried my best to place them in such a way a connection caaannn be made… sorta…

Example, at the bottom we actually see them same town twice right next too/reflect eachother. Thimpote, from Journey of Illusion when you meet ‚Breyn‘. And Thimpote again when it’s destroyed and burning in Treasure of Memories.

Highwatch castle background from Arvale Journey of Illusion, where we have an important cutscene with Brodyn. This background is reflecting the Dividion temple from Arvale 2 Ocean of Time. Dividion and Brodyn are connected and so I made them reflect eachother here.

Invyl from Journey of Illusion and Treasure of Memories reflecting the library of Garga, referencing Cyper’s presence both in the library of Garga and Invyl in Treasure of Memories.

And we have, well uhm... These are not connected at all actually, but on the left side we see part of the flourishing city of Arhaeldem 2000 A.D. (after dragons), a haven for humanity.

And then on the right side we see a part of Beylord Manor which, very much, is not, a haven for humans. At all. Stay away from it.

00:00 Scene 1 : The Intro.

I tried to represent every major playable character here. And every Arvale RPG, which is all of the Arvale games except one (Melonchi Minecarts).

Duncan actually appears twice, in both As that spell Arvale.

The red one from the first game, referencing his design/hairstyle from Journey of Illusion, and then again but this time golden, representing the icon from Treasure of Memories.

But instead of hair we have plants growing out of it, because the logo for the last game Arvale Treasure of Memories looks like it is surrounded by golden plants. And it fits Duncan perfectly, cause he’s a gardener! The first game Arvale Journey of Illusion also had lots of plants in it’s title/menu screen, so it checks out.

From above, 3 swords and one staff crash down.

The one all the way to the left is the sword of the playable character Koden the Warrior from Arvale Short Tales! The design of the sword is based on the one ingame, as well from ancient and super cool looking wallpapers I dug up from the defunct PDAmill website.

The staff belongs to Varju the Druid, another playable/major character from Arvale Short Tales and he’s a good friend of Koden! In one of the wallpapers you can literally see them fighting back to back. That’s the reason I put them next to eachother and also made Varju’s stick lean onto Koden’s sword.

The katana from the very right also belongs to another major playable character from Arvale Short Tales, that one being Tabys the Assassin. Fire, water (ice) and earth magic appear next to it, refrencing yet another playable character, that one being Lotus the mage who masters all 3 of those elements throughout her journey in Arvale Short Tales. You can also totally see it as a refrence to Arvale’s 3 major magical elements in general. (with the exception of »Everything Else« hahaha I’ll get to that later.)

And you know, of course, the sword next to Taby’s Katana is none other than the trusty broadsword of The Great DeMenchev himself. Accompanied by his cool hat AND later the crossbow bolts forming the V, because if Duncan gets to appear twice because he’s a major playable characters in two Arvale games, then so does DeMenchev.

You thought I was done with Arvale Short Tales refrences in this intro? NAH. Because now it’s time for the last major playable character, the secret 5th playable character from Arvale Short Tales, Beylord The Vampire. The colour of the BeyBat actually is the same exact one that I see in Arvale Short Tales. And of course, there’s a shield in the background refrencing the past Arvale logos/icons.

Now to the sounds… this entire video only uses Arvale sounds/music made by none other than the same guy who wrote, composed and (level)designed the world of Arvale: 🤖 Jaybot7.

🤖 Jaybot7 made so many soundeffects, it wasn’t very troublesome to find ones to accompany the intro animation with. Except for the flapping/flying noises for the BeyBat, I had to get a little creative there and ended up using a faster and highpitched version of the soundeffect when a character enters an arid city, footsteps on dry ground.

The soundeffect that plays when the white text appears is a very specific one. It’s the one you hear when you recieve/find an item in the games. And this entire video… is a gift.

The music that is playing throughout the majority of the video is a piano cover af the Arvale 2 Ocean of Time title music by, you guessed it, 🤖 Jaybot7.

I mean, who else!

This guy made ALL the music and sounds.

And wrote the story and the lore.

And designed the levels and the world of Arvale.

This is HIS world and characters I am depicting here.

I chose this one music piece because due to it being a piano cover, it sounds like a mix between the Arvale 1 Journey of Illusion/Treasure of Memories title music (which is mostly just a piano) and the Arvale 2 Ocean of Time title music. So not only is it representitive of multiple games, it also has the… I believe it’s called a musical motif, they both sound similar already because they play similar string of notes that could be representitive for Arvale, the world. Kinda like... Arvale’s theme in a way. Maybe.

I tried to represent important scenes, story bits and major characters from all the Arvale games here and treat them with the same, uh, importance? As they are treated in the games but ahhh... I think it's a bit obvious that I have a certain bias for Arvale's Indy-DaVinci. Whoops.

(If you watched my Arvale Treasure of Memories gameplay that should be of absolutely no surprise. I am such a blatant DeMenchev fanboy in that playthrough.)

The 2 major inspirations when 🤖 Jaybot7 created DeMenchev actually!

And you can absolutely tell with DaVinci- And this is by no means meant negatively, I found it to be really endearing and entertaining. When I figured out what DeMenchev's flying device is based off, I had such a stupid grin on my face because of course. Of course. It's DaVinci's damn helicopter. Brooo... Also, this guy is the coolest nerd ever. An adventurer who primarily seeks knowledge instead of treasures, what's not to love?

I dunno man, 🤖 Jaybot7 managed to create one of the coolest and simultaneously silliest guys ever, somehow, without making these two aspects clash. Because DeMenchev can be really silly as well- Have you seen this guy play the barrel?

Anyway...

00:18 Scene 2 : 2 Millennia In The Blink Of An Eye.

Arvale has 4 major dragons, who are kinda like... Almost like laws/powers of nature with sentience? They are responsible for the magic in the world.

Malzubed, The Dragon of Fire.

Hyandine, The Dragon of Water.

Klaetrocus, The Dragon of Earth.

And finally, Tsilon, The Dragon of »Everything Else.« which is the one we see in this scene!

Dragons are pretty friendly in Arvale, unless they are... corrupted by some outside force.

They gift and teach humans magic because they are just that friendly!

ESPECIALLY Tsilon who loooves humans that much that he not only makes friends with them, gives and teaches them magic, a warrior by the name of Blynt in particular, he builds an entire damn CITY for them.

A haven for humanity called Arhaeldem.

Unfortunately a crafty kid by the name of Kryphen had the world's worst case of envy, ever, and proceeded to ruin it all, but I'll get to that later.

And here we see Tsilon chilling with his best friend Blynt in Arhaeldem 2000 years ago. We actually see the outside of Arhaeldem in Arvale 2 Ocean of Time and that place is blooming with flora and looks really gorgeous. And it's also a place we actually see Tsilon and Blynt briefly together.

And in the blink of an eye we switch to present day, the dragon of Everything Else being awoken by none other than Duncan Forsythe himself. 2000 years passing within the blink of an eye from Tsilon's perspective. From the sunny and luscious Arhaeldem to the cold cave within the Locrian Mountains Tsilon has been kept prisoner for two millennia.

What the hell happened? Well…

00:32 Scene 3 : Calamity Of Year 0 & The First Hero

So remember that Kryphen guy I talked about earlier with the world's worst case of envy? Well his envy got so bad he plunged the entire world of Arvale into a new and worse age: A.D. (After Dragons)

He was friends with a dragon who taught and gave him magic, as they do.

But then he got so ultra envious of their powers, asking himself why they were gifted with these powers while he and the other humans had to struggle to survive, which, okay, fair.

But then to end up putting dragons into a stupified sleep so you can siphon their magic and then sell it in bottles, you know, magic that was given for FREE to everyone before you bastard, and on top of that basically give the dragons you don't siphon artificial turbo rabies by poisoning them one after another IS A BIT EXTREME. Most unethical alchemist ever.

Now, when dragons are poisoned by Kryphen's turbo rabies they turn into the classic evil very-much-hostile-to-humans-and-devouring-them fairytale monsters we know.

And he ends up poisoning Tsilon. And you can see in the animation how that turned out for Arhaeldem.

In the end it is Blynt who has to take down Mad Tsilon with a special spear, because Tsilon is the most powerful dragon of them all, and normal weapons do fuck all.

The design of the spear »Dragon Stun« is basically the one we see in Arvale Journey of Illusion!

I just made the more decorative bits look more like dragon wings, but other than that it's a 1:1 replica of the one in-game.

Which looks like an ultiven weapon. I assume the game art was originally made for that purpose. Interesting how all ultiven items resemble Tsilon in a way... But anyway.

Okay, I didn't tell you the entire truth. Normal weapons can hurt Tsilon, but only under very specific circumstances.

Because after Tsilon is defeated/stunned by Blynt, the few survivors left try to kill him with normal weapons, but they don't even pierce him. They carry him far away to the Locrian mountains, and leave him there.

Then Kryphen, who now has started a damn magic potion selling company called Sorcynth, proceeds to drain Tsilon constantly for magic as well.

Now, there's a slight 🤏 issue in his business model here, and it's the fact that Tsilon seems to stir from his sleep after around 2 decades.

So what does this madlad do who is starting to control the entire continent and control the beliefs and people's way of life with his magic corp. ? Every 20 years some unlucky bastard is chosen by

"""""destiny""""" to go on a Legendary Hero Quest™ to administer a knockout potion to Tsilon.

Why doesn't Kryphen/ Sorcynth do this himself? Well for some reason this knockout potion has the nasty, or probably intentional, sideffect of making Tsilon briefly wake up, go mad, and consume the unlucky 'Legendary Hero'.

My ongoing theory is that Krpyhen is feeding Tsilon a 'Hero' every 20 years on purpose probably to just barely keep him alive.

Now Duncan, The last of those Legendary Heros, does not do the same mistake and just ends up waking up Tsilon straight up. Tsilon ends up confusing Duncan for Blynt briefly when he wakes up, which is why you see a blurry Blynt after Tsilon first opens his eyes. Which is totallyyy not foreshadowing something, nooo...

At the end of Arvale Journey of Illusion, Tsilon is one of the final bosses, and only after:

1). Being drained for 2000 years

2). Being additionally extra drained right before the bossfight

3). Only eating a single 'Legendary Hero' every 20 years

Only THEN Tsilon is so weakned that he becomes vulnerable to normal weapons.

So just IMAGINE the calamity he caused when he first went mad 2000 years ago when he was in his prime. One of the survivor's entries described how the entire city was engulfed in flames, which, hey, another neat reference to classic evil fairy tale dragons.

When you visit Arhaeldem in Journey of Illusion, despite 2000 years having passed, the earth around it is still pitch black, barren, and there's no plants anywhere unless you go to the very edge of the level where you can spot a measly few. Nice contrast to the flora filled Arhaeldem to back then. My guy practically nuclear bombed his own city!

If you look closely, you can see that I based the architecture of Arhaeldem on none other than Tsilon himself. It's his city after all… and dragon imagery can be found within Arhaeldem.

Only in Arvale Treasure of Memories does life returns to Arhaeldem, Tsilon probably lifting any potent magic that was still lingering. And probably helping in other ways.

Also the calamity happened at night so I added that one bright star you can see in the menu/title screen of Arvale Journey of Illusion.

00:40 Scene 4 : Devious Deceiving Devil

It's a scene from the beginning of Arvale Journey of Illusion, where Duncan meets am important side character called Breyn.

Your friend, your good old pal Breyn. Breyn, who leads underground resistence organisation Veritaes against Sorcynth who know the truth about where the magic they are selling comes from. He's totally on your side! You can trust him.

Here he's offering Duncan a key to help him explore further in Arhaeldem ruins, in exchange for helping to free one of the members of Varitaes who is currently stuck behind bars. Her name is Silk and she'll be important later.

Breyn totally isn't secretly Krpyhen still pulling the strings to this day by staying alive on youth potions (something he invented himself actually, he's an impressive alchemist, I'll give him that).

At the end of the game, after draining Tsilon dry, he creates an Elixir and then DRINKS IT. A little freaky if you think about it, because he's in a way consuming Tsilon. He's the monster eating people now! Or, wait, actually, everyone buying Sorcynth potions was technically... Mmh.

Okay anyway, when Kryphen drinks it, his body can't handle Tsilon’s magic/power/energy/essence and starts grotesquely transforming him.

I even made a rough animation of that:

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Tsilon's physical features and Kryphen's human ones mix in such a way that he ends up looking DEMONIC. Which is SO COOL that's some amazing symbolism. Devils deceive, and now we see his true nature revealed, externalised. That is so coooooool.

What's ironic is that Krpyhen in his envy calls dragons demons instead... Hah!

I put the sun behind behind 'Breyn's' head to make it look like a halo, you know, since he's a totally a good guyyy.

I tried to emulate the attitude of Duncan and Breyn based on their dialogue in Thimpote, where this cutscene takes place. A comfortable, cozy village in the woods.

Which I then make completely clash once I show Kryphen's true nature. I ended up re-using parts of my Kryphen Transformation Video here. The static image of demonic Kryphen is new though. He's still looking at Duncan and it looks like he's offering the Dark Elixir to him (referencing how Tsilon is falsely titled as the Dark Dragon according to Sorcynth's propaganda instead of The Dragon of Everything Else. Technically it should be the Elixir of Everything Else but Kryphen seems to try to convince himself as best as possible that dragons/Tsilon is evil after all).

And at the end of the game, he does offer it to Duncan. Kryphen believes his body could not withstand the Elixir (and, well, he was right I suppose) and offers it to Duncan instead, but in Duncan's case it would just turn him into a powerful servant unable to resist Kryphen's will. So obviously he doesn't drink it. Also poetic if you think about it. Finally, Duncan gets to make his own decision and is destroying the very being responsible for forcing him on this Journey (of Illusion) in the first place. He never wanted to be a Hero. He's on this adventure very much unwillingly. He was content being a gardener. And then Kryphen tore it all away. And the fact that the potion would take away his will? The very thing that gives him the ability to decide for himself? Oh I love that. That's so smart.

I wonder if I maaayyybe overdid it with the spooky factor here, because while the things Kryphen did were horrific, the game is never actually scary... Maybe I overdid it a little bit...

Before I move on to the next scene, I wanna share another theory I have about the 4 main dragons of Arvale.

We have one for Fire, Water, Earth and then one for »Everything Else« and this seems silly at first, and probably is supposed to be because Arvale is INTENTIONALLY silly. All Arvale games got lots of humour.

But. I do have one theory for the Everything Else part.

Because Sorcynth sells Fire, Earth and Water magic for offensive battle purposes. You attack with them. Obviously they get the fire magic from The Fire Dragon Malzubed, water magic from The Water Dragon Hyandine, earth magic from The Earth Dragon Klaetrocus.

But they also sell potions that heal, boost your attack, defense, magical resistance, dexterity, capabilities for magic in general... And well, they probably get that all from Tsilon. They get Everything Else they can't get from the other dragons, from Tsilon. Hahah.

As a sidenote, I'm a big fan how Tsilon has such a typical villain-esque design, yet he's literally the nicest dragon ever. He looks so threatening, but out of all the dragons in Arvale he's literally mankind's best friend, mentor, and protector.

00:44 Scene 5 : The Fall Into The Ocean of Time.

This is one of the most important scenes in the entirety of Arvale 2 Ocean of Time.

The Great DeMenchev after getting blackmailed, sent back in time AGAIN, imprisoned in a castle by a bastard emperor, then escaping with a newfound friend, fighting a bunch of soldiers and a dragon??? (I'll get to that in a moment) only to get surrounded on the bridge connecting the two great towers of the castle.

Okay but what are the Konjia doing to the dragons?? I do recall learning about them being able to summon/control dragon spirits, but since when are dragons human unfriendly? I mean, I guess since they are individuals and every individual has the capacity for evil I suppose it’s not impossible… but it was still shocking to be fighting a dragon.

DeMenchev is at his wit's end and his newfound friend suggests jumping off the bridge, for non suicidal reasons, to avoid ending up R.I.P. (Resting in Pieces).

I LOVE this scene and things only get crazier after he falls into The Ocean (of Time) but I didn't get to animate that, because then the scene would just be too long.

And also uhm. I'm giving DeMenchev way too much attention in this entire video already, probably.

The MOON. It's very present in this scene in-game, but also.

I kept placing it behind DeMenchev's head to make it look like a halo, because he's the good guy here. (For real this time, not like with Kryphen.)

But ALSO. In Arvale 2 Ocean of Time there are 3 time'gods'. Panther, God of The Past. Lunar, God of The Present. And finally the main one: Cedar, God of The Future.

And after DeMenchev falls into the Ocean (of Time) there's an insane short future conversation (»Encore Vu« my beloved) in the void and then he's transported back to THE PRESENT!!!

Not the right kind of present, he gets transported into a messed up alternate timeline where his worst personal fears/ nightmare scenarios have come true. That's rough buddy. But it's the present nonetheless, so that's why I put the moon there, hehehe. I'm insaaaaane.

This goes for all backgrounds pretty much but everything is originally colour picked straight from the game before I started shading it to get the most accurate look + I obviously referenced the design of everything from the things we see in the game.

Except. I took. A few creative liberties here. Not sure if I should have done that... But I did.

Arvale is home to a bunch of fantasy races, some of them we are already very familiar with from other settings like dwarfs and elves, but it also has unique ones.

These include the Konjia (ninja guys you see here) and Mazulens (one of them is the one standing behind DeMenchev's back, his name is Petya).

The thing is, despite being treated as their own unique fantasy races, they both still look just like humans, which is probably just a limitation of art assets in the game.

It's not new, In Arvale Journey of Illusion some of the very clearly elves in Invyl (Smith guild master comes to mind) also had human sprites because only having two base sprites for elves gets a bit repetitive after a while.

So I made my own design for these two, and my thoughts and process about how I went over it I explained here.

Nonetheless, this part isn't canon/official.

They look very close to their in-game counterparts but not 100%.

When the soldiers run past the emperor Cervantes (bastard), they are wearing the same armour/outfit as they do in-game! Might be a bit hard to see since they are fast silhouettes, but they do!

This is one of the scenes where I used a bit more fancy shading.

For one, there's this rimlight/glowing line around DeMenchev and Petya before they jump. It's supposed to be caused by the moonshine. What's actually happening is that I just duplicated the colour layer, coloured everything white/ pale yellow, put it underneath the original colour layer and moved it just a tiny bit upwards. Boom. Fancy rimlight.

When they jump, I still used the gradient technique for the shading, but I was a lot more careful with it and tinkered with much more. For one, there's a much more noticeable contrast between the shades and the light, so I had to be much more careful with the placement, otherwise things ended up looking wrong. Light and shadow being where they aren't supposed to be.

Oh, also, protip to make your shading in general look extra delicious:

Right between the shade and the light where they make contact or even contrast, add another, secret, gradient that's really small and a really vibrant colour. It just looks good. Something you can also notice occasionally in life.

Here it's a pale yellow (moonlight) and a deep dark blue (shadow) and in-between I put purple!

Another way I saved a bunch of time really. Both my shadows AND light are on the same layer, done simultaneously.

The power of gradients and ambiguous/ atmospheric shading, everyone.

So, when they actually fall into the Ocean (of Time) (okay, the waters below are never referred to as the Ocean of Time but when DeMenchev falls into it he literally gets transported through time so. Yeagh).

DeMenchev says himself he blacked out after the fall at the end of the game. So that's what's happening here!

Took a while (and looking up lots of references later) how the hell I even animate waves from underwater. But I did it! The fish certainly help communicate that that we are underwater too.

When something falls into the water, especially if it's something big and came with lots of speed, like, let's say, two people jumping off a bridge, (for non suicidal reasons) they're accompanied by bubbles! Originally I did the linework for all the shapes/ bubbles, filled them in with white colour and then put them over the characters with a low opacity. And yeah, you could tell it's air. But it didn't feel air-y enough. So I blurred the colour layer, made the linework and colour different levels of opacity/ transparency and voilá.

I really wanted to get that feel across that DeMenchev is sinking into the deep dark depths below.

Also, the entire move to jump off a bridge (for non suicidal reasons, lmao) into the Ocean (of Time) from insanely high up is straight up insane. DeMenchev even calls Petya insane for suggesting it. And I agree.

(The waters below are never referred to an Ocean as well but. I'm just extra dramatic.)

It's insane, and SCARY. And with their worried faces I hopefully got that across. 👌

Also, at the end of the scene, when DeMenchev is blacking out, you can actually see:

1). His breath escaping him.

2). The light leaving his eyes because I'm fucking evil =)

Except I'm NOT evil because if you look closely in the background you can see Petya coming to his rescue!!

This is. Uhm. Also not strictly canon. Petya rescuing DeMenchev from drowning could have happened. It's never stated anywhere though.

We know he blacked out after the fall though. And I just wondered, how the hell did he not drown? So I snuck Petya in there as a possible answer.

00:56 Scene 6 : Facing The Root of The Problem

Here I did something super insane. I made a damn 3D ROTATION of a 2D CHARACTER. This shit is REALLY HARD. I used a 3D model for reference after some failed attempts. Why is it hard? Because you need to make sure all the proportions and perspectives match perfectly and are not even a little bit off model otherwise everything looks wonky. I mean, you need to do that in character animation anyway. But with 3D shots like this you need to pay super duper special attention to it otherwise everything's fucked.

UNFORTUNATELY the power of gradients is now working against me and some of that 3D rotation effect is lost because the shading isn't specific/ on model enough and honestly that's on me. Should have just done normal cell shading here but. I didn't. RIP.

The fact that DeMenchev's coat is covering his arms doesn't help either but that could have been fixed with fancy shading!! But ahhhhhjhh whatever. Perfect is the enemy of done anyway.

Ah, also, because I am extra insane: the blue ribbon flowing through the wind.

Bro. BRO. GOOD THING I ALREADY HAD A PLAN READY HOW TO DO THIS.

Because that is insanity of consistency times TWO. Flapping/Flowing cloth and such is already difficult as fuck because you need to be acutely aware of the invisible waves bro THE WAVESSS!! Unless it's like, really insanely strong wind, cloth (and hair) (and anything with similar physics) does NOT flap around randomly! It follows wave like patterns! And you need to make sure each wave flows seamlessly into the next otherwise everything looks jittery and like a bad glitch!

And often these waves aren't even perfect replicas of themselves. But that's what I did here anyway and in later animations where DeMenchev's ribbon goes flying with ONE ☝(1) exception but I'll get it it when I get to the scene that has that.

What I did in the sketching phase in oder to spare myself the insanity

1). Already picture in my mind where in the 3D space they are flowing. Before the camera rotatets, the ribbon is flowing into the background. Which is not that obvious yet actually but it becomes more obvious when the camera starts rotating.

2). My technique for animating flowy stuffy like this is to actually sketch the invisible wave (singular) copy paste that shit until I have a line of waves (plural) and then mark the spots where the waves start repeating. Then I take this sketch and reposition it every frame a little to the left or right, or whatever direction the coth/hair/whatever is flowing and THEN I do the actual sketch of the cloth/hair/whatever on top of that and use the sketch wave as a guide so I vaguely know what shape the cloth/hair/whatever has each frame. And then I delete that invisible wave sketch once I'm done with the actual sketch cause I don't need it anymore.

Do I make sense? No? Well too bad because I honestly don't know how to explain it better in words 😔

3). Because of the perspective, before the camera starts rotating (actually it's the character rotating but this effect makes it looks like as if it's the camera doing it) the ribbons/waves are tighter together.

And when the camera starts rotating they just. Elongate. So I just take the same animation and stretch it.

BOOM. Consistent 3D flowing cloth rotation because I'm INSANE and POWERFUL. ... And it doesn't even look all that impressive, but whatever!

Okay, so. The Great DeMenchev and The Great Cedar, right. DeMenchev is great. The Cedar isn't. The Cedar is a fucking bastard, actually.

I have to say though that the concept behind The Cedar is metal as hell AND super smart like DAMN?

The Cedar is actually a fire demon entity who PRETENDS TO BE GOD. And cosplays as some kind of tree of life but underneath that costume is just FIRE AND MALICE.

AND the Cedar calls himself and is referred to as the God of The Future, The God who created Arvale, worshipped as an idol representative for hope, change and transformations.

Now the thing is.

This control freak is LITERALLY responsible for DETERMINISM.

YES.

THIS BASTARD IS TRYING TO CONTROL EVERYONE'S DESTINIES AND FREE WILL.

BRO.

And not only that. This motherfucker chose a CEDAR out of all trees for his costume. You know? A CEDAR.

The tree that stays the same during ALL THE SEASONS ARE YOU KIDDIIIIINNNNG ME THAT'S SO SMART.

You can see bits of The Cedar's true identity, the fire, glowing through his eyeholes.

Also, the final boss area takes place in an dark forest pocket dimension that is overcome with a deep red mist you never see anywhere else in game. Really only barely keeping that tree of life and hope disguise up, huh.

Now. The Cedar looks quite different here to his in-game design. I may have. Once again... Taken creative liberties. The reason for this is because The Cedar in the game didn't actually resemble a Cedar at all so I made him more Cedar-y as you can see here.

At this point, The Cedar, final boss of Arvale 2 Ocean of Time, has been messing with everyone's lives, especially DeMenchev's because HOLY SHIIIT DUDE. These alternative timelines DeMenchev got transported too feel like they were personally crafted to fuck with him specifically. And like, I'm not pointing fingers... But I am totally pointing fingers, that feels like Cedar crafted these on purpose after seeing how DeMenchev is threatening his position of power.

And this motherfucker has the BALLS to dangle his girlfriend's life over his head, he's PISSED. He's gonna make his OWN decision now. And that decision is turning this bastard into a pile of logs.

Now, before I even attempted to animate this, I was playing around with the idea of just making a short super epic fight scene because I totally could. And if you take a look at my rough draft scribbles, originally I planned short fight scenes between DeMenchev and the Panther and Lunar god as well, but I had to scratch that because it timely it couldn't fit anymore. I had to pack this all during the same time the music is playing after all.

So why not a fight scene?

1). A 3D rotation already feels and looks epic

2). I like to torture myself, apparently?

Nah but honestly, I'd just like to save that for another time. I have SUCH a vivid fighting animation in my head already between them when I listen to the final boss music of Arvale 2 Ocean of Time since... I dunno, a year now? One that goes perfectly along with the music, fuck it, I might just do it someday.

Also, I got a short comic in the works about them duelling it out and DeMenchev's adventure in Arvale 2 Ocean of Time too so you can look forward to that, hehheh.

When you look at the Cedar in the animation, you can actually tell the 'hair' is moving.

The process behind that is actually really simple, It's just one image that bends in specific ways every frame.

I did it this way to save time since it's just one drawing that's just manipulated a lot over a certain timeperiod and not multiple drawings like in frame by frame animation.

Nonetheless, my animation programm completely SHAT ITSELF when I did this.

I don't know why, but the lag was terrible and I'm not so sure if I even saved time in the end.

The lag was probably caused by me giving the drawing of the hair too many 'bones' (that sounds so weird). Cedar's 'hair' has an invisible skeleton basically (that sounds even WEIRDER). Also, I added lots and lots of smoke and fog because again, the red mist and also this place ends up burning once they battle.

OH, BTW, the scene title is also a reference to something: The Cedar Root, one of the timetravelling artefacts in Arvale 2 Ocean of Time!

01:01 Scene 7: Melonchi Minecart Memories

Okay, enough seriousness! Time for the sillies!

Grywth, Duncan and DeMenchev from Melonchi Minecarts! I ... Could not get that ultra specific with this. I tried to learn as much information about this puzzle game as I could, but in the end it's unfortunately the one Arvale game I didn't get to play 😔

Since it's a puzzle game, I'm hopefully not missing out on too much lore.

But what I DO know is that the dwarves have SOMEHOW constructed minecart rails in such a ridiculous way that they, I dunno, have some hyperspecific chemical reaction I guess that they end up EXPLODING after you ride them. Very inconvenient for Grywth, Duncan and DeMenchev involved!

While trying to dig up any information on this puzzle game, I found a few promotional illustrations that helped me for reference purposes + there's one singular video of this game on YouTube and that's the trailer for or it on 🤖Jaybot7's channel from... 17 years ago... Goddamn.

The poses/animations of the characters (aside from the scene where we have 3 characters in one cart, I'll get to that in a bit). Are referenced from promotional illustrations I dug up + the in-game sprites. I even took the colours & design from the minecarts from one promotional artwork with Grywth in it! In the trailer of the game we see how DeMenchev is holding onto his hat, so he's doing that here as well. Also! One promotional illustration for this game depicts him holding a lantern. And here it is! In the animation!

I gotta say, I am very satisfied how smoothly the ribbons of his hat are flowing in the wind here.

In Arvale Treasure of Memories, one part of the game is referencing Melonchi Minecarts and also introduces us to a new character, Kryngk the dwarf! Which is the one with the axe you see here!

That's right.

You already know the other two characters! The red haired one is Duncan in a different outfit and the other one is DeMenchev... But in disguise this time.

And also only with one eye. Heheh.

In Arvale Treasure of Memories the dwarves finally fixed their minecart tracks so that's why there's no explosions this time.

01:09 Scene 8 : DeMenchev through the Ocean of Time.

This one is short and simple, actually shorter than its supposed to be... Cause the first two bits of the animation are actually sped up to match the music, which is usually a big No No in animation. Changing the speed of a finished animation usually doesn't end well. Here it works out. Kinda.

Anyway, it's DeMenchev! And how he changes/looks game after game.

First, DeMenchev from Arvale 2 Ocean of Time! The background is based on the Arvale 2 Ocean of Time title screen background.

Remember my ramblings about invisible waves? Well here's this one instance of the ribbons flowing in such a way that they are following a pattern of irregular invisible waves instead of perfect replicas.

Which does make them look more natural because it feels more random without it actually being random.

Then we have DeMenchev from Arvale Short Tales! And. Oh boy.

He's older now, lost an eye, and is having a bad time over all.

Since the animation here is sped up, you can barely see it anymore but the cause of him having a not so swell time can be seen in the background.

There's a bat flying through the nightsky.

I'll get more into detail about that later...

Again, I took some creative liberties. DeMenchev does have an eyepatch, his face is even more unkept than last time and he does look significantly angrier.

But the additional holes and damage on his outfit, the longer hair, the additional wrinkles, that's from me.

I drew my slightly modified high detailed version of him once here.

Aaaaaand I see now I forgot the grey streak in his hair... Oh well.

And then finally, DeMenchev from Arvale Treasure of Memories when he's in his disguise. The light is returning to his eye, (emphasis on eye singular since his other one is gone) because he's doing... A liiittle better than in Arvale Short Tales?

And of course it's in daytime because majority of official Arvale Treasure of Memories art depicts the characters in daylight! With two exceptions, but still.

01:12 Scene 9 : Koden the Warrior.

It's Koden the Warrior from Arvale Short Tales!

With the sword from the intro!

Every character in Arvale Short Tales has unique abilities, especially to get around. Koden has a mattock to smash things in his path, like the screen! Hah!

One of my friends looked at the animations while I was still finishing them and told me they feel like character selection screens/animations and I'm like YESSSSSSSSS. That fits perfectly!!

Arvale Short Tales has a character selection, because, for the first time in the series, multiple characters are playable!

With each playable character in Arvale Short Tales I tried to showcase one of their unique powers + their personalities.

Well ... With the exception of one... But I'm going to be disgustingly detailed about him later. I have been disgustingly detailed about him in the past already and I sure do not mind doing it again.

Anyway, Koden is an experienced ex-general. He knows how to fight and does so in an experienced, trained and knightly manner. Combat is nothing new to him.

He's a little... nonchalant here. Not much to smile about in his life after his wife "left" him (she didn't, she got kidnapped instead but he got tricked into thinking she left him) and become pretty much a shut-in. Of course, in Arvale Short Tales he finds out the truth and stops rotting away in his hut! And uncovers some pretty big secrets about his wife's past. (Her name is Tizlah BTW)

For one, turns out she isn't even human. I think...

She's the heir of the island kingdom Lanthys, but ran away form her royal duties and tried to live life like a normal person. (I'm sure Brodyn would understand, lmao.)

Lanthyians I thiiiiink are supposed to be their own fantasy race. They're blue.

(They tried their best with limited art assets, okay?)

Eventually Tizlah's old life caught up with her and she ends up getting kidnapped by a rival kingdom who's now using her for ransom and is simultaneously framing KODEN out of all people as a crazed lunatic kidnapper (the Lanthians don't know yet that he's her husband, not some crazed kidnapper).

What's neat is, after cleaning up all of this mess, Koden finally gets to retire thanks to his wife.

Let's goooo

Each selection screen has a painting of the character. Problem is that fully rendered paintings are not usually where you want to pick your colours from when you want to draw the same characters, since all their original coloures are affected by the light and the shadows within the painting.

For all the characters in Arvale Short Tales, with a slight exception for a certain... Vampire... I picked their colours from their battle sprites instead. Which are rather cell-shaded, than painted.

And looking at the individual pixels, it's a lot easier to pick the colour which is right in the middle between lighting and shade.

01:16 Scene 10: Varju the Druid.

Varju the Druid with the very staff we saw in the intro, hehe.

Varju is a druid, and druids can transform into animals, like a crow! And Varju is even friends with one! And his NAME is Hungarian for crow too and I didn't know that until just 2 weeks ago...

Funny how it happened really, I was showing my progress to my sister and her boyfriend, who is Hungarian. And when I started talking about / showed them Varju he started to . Squint. At me.

Suspiciously.

»What's his name again?« »Varju...« »... How's it spelled?« »Uh? Uh... V, A, R, J, U. Why?« »Dude, that's Hungarian for crow!!« »DUUUDE THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE PDAMILL MADE THESE GAMES IN HUNGARY« »No way?!«

Years later and I still learn new things about Arvale to this day it seems.

Varju is/was the character most people who played Arvale Short Tales probably picked first when they started playing this game!

He's your first option!

And lore wise, this fits with how the player would operate Varju. Because Varju in the beginning of the game suffers from memory loss and possssiiiiblyyyy some form of brain damage after getting SNIPED from some archer after getting/contacting reinforcements to help his friend Koden and his men during a war, so they don't »die like dogs«, as Varju put it himself. (You know I played these games way too much because I can quote the characters now).

(Old wallpaper I dug up)

Varju is a very famous druid, but whoever sniped him when he was flying across Malzubed Forest in his crow form got him good. Cause he fell. Hard. And probably got one of Arvale's, perhaps even the worst cases of a concussion.

Now, the player, who has never played Arvale Short Tales before, would stumble around aimlessly around the world and get lost a lot or don't know what to do like a certain druid at this point in time.

But the longer the player plays Varju, the more familiar they get with the world, the more Varju gets his memories back and recovers from his fall, the less lost they get!! The more they know what to do!! And that reflects in how the player operates Varju! That is some cool game design right there!

Varju peeking from under his hat like that is actually something I got from the character select screen, haha. Here's another promotional image I dug up where you can see everyone's paintings (except for one, heheh).

I had to simplify his outfit a bit. His coat had a lot more leafs on it, but I ended up drawing only the most prominent ones because the other ones would be hard to accurately keep track off without them changing position where they are placed on his coat.

Added bunch of leafs raining down as a cool effect instead to make up for it + it feels naturey.

01:21 Scene 11 : Tabys the Assassin

You know it's over with the sillieness when a character with an eyepatch appears.

TABYS... Oh my god this guy...

If you read this far, you're probably thinking "Hey, this guy is Konijan, right?"

Well you're WRONG... Partially.

See, Tabys is very much a human. But he's Konijan in spirit.

You start his tale and immediately things go south because this entire guy's deal is VENGEANCE. Why? Well his parents were politians and got assassinated. As they do.

Aaaaand his younger brother kidnapped. When Tabys was still a kid himself probably. Or a teen?

Anyway, and what does Tabys do? Tabys does the insane thing of GOING TO THE KONIJA AND DEMAND THEY TRAIN HIM INTO AN ASSASSIN HIMSELF. You know, majority of Arvale doesn't even know the Konija are still a thing but I guess when your parents are politians you know a thing or two. And I don't know WHAT the Konijan in charge where thinking but they did it. They took him in. What the hell were they thinking?? "Wow, this kid is insane and out for blood... Respect. We gotta keep this one." I don't know??? Or maybe some, or one in particular, took pity on him and took him under his wing.

I'd like to think it was Ermes- the only one in Arvale Short Tales Tabys actually has a friendly relationship with (aside from his younger brother Roki of course, the one who got kidnapped).

And on top of that, they know eachother from the past due to a certain Konija background they both share.

Tabys has the ability to turn invisible with the help of these magic circles called Shoushitsuten vanishing points.

Shoushitsuten I'm sure means SOMETHING because I'm pretty sure that's straight up a word. The translator cannot seem to decode what is probably a Japanese word written in the Latin alphabet for me. (Sigh).

I copied their design as closely to the original in the game as I could.

In-game, the invisibility looks like this: Tabys has no more colour and is completely transparent and only his outline/ the linework of his character sprite remain.

That's what I did here too! Kinda... He still retains the shading, making him look like a transparent shadow. But his colours appear later.

Also, at the end of the game he uses shurikens. And flings one at the viewer here (rude!)

01:26 Scene 12 : Lotus the Mage with Mistress Lankha

This one is a bit different cause we got a 2 in 1 deal babyyyy. But why? Well, when you take a look at my original scribble drafts, you can see that I originally 2 scenes planned with Lotus.

Honestly, I had a lot more planned with the Arvale Short Tales main cast, but had to scrap a bunch because because it couldn't timely fit anymore into the music.

Originally there was a scene of Lotus doing magic: First fire, water, then earth. In the same order she unlocks her powers in Arvale Short Tales. And with each new power she looks a litttle more crazed.

And the other one was depicting Lankha, the powerful mage mistress Lankha, talking whole Lotus eagerly listens.

I ended up combining these two scenes into one.

Now, Lotus is a sweet woman. Initially. At the end of her tale howeverrrrr she does go kinda sinisterly crazy with her new magic abilities.

As the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely...

And I distinctly remember during my second playthrough of Lotus' tale, when she first unlocks fire magic, Lankha comments on her wide grin and massive enthusiasm.

During my first playthrough, this reaction from Lotus first felt innocent. Knowing how her tale ends...... Yeeeeaaaah I feel like 🤖Jaybot7 was trying to drop a hint here.

So here, I wanted to reflect that. Going from innocent curiosity to sinister/slightly crazed enthusiasm. And I wanted to reflect it quite literally.

Her eyes.

The glow of her fire reflects in her eyes. First it's just an innocent glint, as the flame (her power) grows brighter, it reflects directly on her pupil, giving her this intense crazed stare. Her grin does not help, hehe. =]

And of course Lankha's attitude here is based on the feel I could get form her dialogue in-game.

Lankha feels like an important sidecharacter so I wanted to briefly include her in this film as well.

It's implied she makes an appearance through 2 other Arvale games as well... At least that's my theory.

Cause my ongoing theory is that she's the same »occult« woman from Arvale 2 Ocean of Time and the fortune teller from Arvale Treasure of Memories in Kytar.

If you want to see me go a little crazy on theorizing you can watch part 13 of my Arvale Treasure of Memories gameplay.

So not only does she, possibly, appear in multiple games, she also has a an influence on playable character's Tales sooooo that's why she's here!

Also. Another bonus wallpaper I dug up:

(When I zoom in on his face, is Tabys looking... at the viewer?)

01:31 Scene 13: Beylord The Vampire through the Ocean of Time

[Sharp inhale]

I belong in a mental asylum with the way these two are driving me INSANE!

INSANE I TELL YOU!!!

BRO these two have entered my mind for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time and they are NOT leaving.

I can't believe I got this obsessed with an i m p l i e d narrative out of all things, but here we are…

Uuugh my plan was to originally give each character as much screentime and treat them with the same importance as they do in-game(s), but I don't think I succeeded 100% due to personal bias.

At the same time, a character appears only for a moment but their actions have such such heavy consequences on the story and their presence still haunts the narrative. So I wasn't sure how to treat them, how much attention I should have given them. You know, Blynt. You don't even ever SEE him in Arvale Journey of Illusion, he's been dead for 2000 years and yet the story can fundamentally not work without him. And he appears twice in this video.

But here it's definitely personal bias LMAO.

The story in Arvale Journey of Illusion blew my MIND as a kid. I grew up with lots of really old and classic (european) fairytales.

I always loved the ones with the dragons, because dragons are awesome, but was never a fan of how they were always the villains in the story. And my father to this day remembers my vehement protest against all dragons being bad in these stories haha. There's a reason I like Tsilon so much.

And then came Arvale Journey of Illusion, took those classic fairy tale tropes that even child me could see coming from a mile away now, and took a massive spin on them 3 times over and then chucked it all into a raging carousel for good measure on top of that.

That. Is sick as hell.

One of those spins on classic tropes, not as ballistic as the main plot of Arvale Journey of Illusion, but still, was the concept of a vampire... But he wasn't evil.

Okay, yes, I know. Today this isn't anything new. There's lots of stories like this now. But this was 2004, bear with me.

And so Beylord, this optional boss from Arvale Journey of Illusion, and his backstory, stuck with me. Even though he had so little screentime, he was a beloved and interesting sidecharacter to me.

I don't think this version of Beylord exists anymore though. Or at least I don't think it's canon anymore.

Lots of the things we learn and see about Maestyl and Beylord in Arvale Journey of Illusion don't add up anymore, and I think that's because they got retconned. Replaced with an altered, newer and much more detailed story.

When I played Arvale 2 Ocean of Time for the first time, and this time I was a teen instead of a child, and started growing fond of my player character John DeMenchev, I was ready to face the upcoming boss.

At this point I already kinda knew how this would go. Or so I thought. I made my way exploring through the temple, solving puzzles, defeating monsters, and I was about to enter the final room.

Usually, when you enter the final room of the dungeon/temple, the final boss only appears after you take the artefact within that very room.

Not here.

The very moment DeMenchev sets foot into the room, I suddenly had no longer control over him. This never happened before and never happens again when you enter other final dungeon rooms. Only here.

And text appeared on the screen.

A name. That I immediately recognised.

A character I never thought 🤖Jaybot7 would ever make use of ever again.

It was BEYLORD, WHAT!!! WHAT

And as if things couldn't get crazier, after Beylord's short introductory speech, DeMenchev just completely ignored what this creature before him said and just goes:

[DeMenchev] »Beylord?«

ARE YOU SERIOUS??? My favourite main character in Arvale and my favourite side character from Arvale HAVE HISTORY WITH EACHOTHER?? THERE'S A STORY?? Dude, you got me hooked now.

When DeMenchev said that, I vividly remember, saying this out loud, to myself, in my room, alone:

»You know him?!?!?«

And they DO have history with eachother.

Turns out they used to be close FRIENDS.

Research Partners it seems! They went on expeditions, adventures together!!! Back when Beylord was still human!

Back when they were younger...

Until Beylord had some terrible accident.

Then they parted ways.

Aaaaaaaand then Sorcynth proceeds to fuck up everything again, because of course.

And in some freak potion testing experiment, I think, Beylord turns into a damn vampire.

And not the nice kind of vampire this time. Like, at all.

Not at all.

Okay so, the thing is, I got lots of thoughts about Beylord, right?

I'm not gonna share it all here because

1). We'd be here forever

2). I already did that. 21 pages.

And you can read it all in a giant post I tried to format in a really fun and interesting way.

At least, it looks cool on desktop. Mobile? Ehhh...

When you start Arvale Short Tales, you are able to choose 4 out of 5 characters to play anytime.

The 5th with a bat drawing, was locked. It was teasing me. It was nagging me. It was driving me insane because I knew who this bat was representative of. I knew. And I needed to know so so so bad what would happen in his tale.

I SCOURGED every nook and cranny of Arvale Short Tales for additional clues and information.

I wanted all the information. And Beylord's presence could very much be felt throughout the game before even unlocking him. Before even seeing him. There's an entire LAKE named after him!!

Actually, I wasn't quite honest.

Because I did see him.

In pieces.

Literally. You have to collect his bodyparts in order to unlock him as a playable character.

And so I did. Clawing and scrubbing together every one of the pieces, reassembling this corpse into a moving thing like a crazy dr. Frankenstein to summon this horror in order to finally get answers. And to finally experience Beylord the Vampire as a playable character!

Now that I think about it, this could be applied to what I'm doing here to Arvale as a whole.

Call me a necromancer the way I'm clawing and scrubbing and scratching together every piece to re-animate this thing- GET IT? Anyway.

I did get answers.

Not all of them though.

Because we see the aftermath, but not what came before.

And some new questions.

And I kept looking if I could gather more information. Even in the other Arvale games, even outside the games, digging up long defunct webpages and blogposts.

I kept searching, and if I couldn't find any new information anymore I started theorising, and if I couldn't make new connections I started speculating. Thinking of answers that could be possible to. Plausible. That theoretically could have happened.

And that lead to- It started evolving into- I was beginning to-

O h F u c k

Uhm, okay, so, what we DO know:

Once upon a time...

A little less than a millennia after the great calamity of year 0, when dragons had been gone for so long people started to question their existence...

There were two close friends.

Young adventurers.

But not the ones we see so often, who seek out riches and brave dangers through strength.

No, they were adventurers of a different kind.

Thet sought out knowledge instead.

They were adventurers of the mind.

This is what is depicted here in the beginning. A younger DeMenchev. Notice how his outfit lacks holes. Notice how the teeth of time have not gnawed and chipped at him yet. A softer face. But he has that curiosity and enthusiasm for his studies we already know far too well.

Once I finished this scene I showed it to one of my friends and when young DeMenchev looks at the camera he literally said »That is just a boy. He looks so boyish.« and I'm like YESSSSSSSSS exactly the kinda feel I wanted to convey! Okay but just to clear things up, he's not, like, supposed to be a young teenager here. But rather a young adult.

We don't know how old DeMenchev is in Arvale 2 Ocean of Time, but I remember 2 NPC conversations in that game that can give use a rough guess.

One happens in front of Dividion's castle, and, I can't get believe I played the game so much that I can quote random NPC dialogue now, I believe it went something like this:

[Dividion guard] »Get lost, kid!« [DeMenchev] »Kid?! I'm twice your age!« [Dividion guard] »Oh, sorry, standard evil guard line. In that case: Beat it, old man!«

And another NPC dialogue between DeMenchev and an elder, it was somewhere more... Woodsy?

A little town, maybe Nikal? I don't think it was Thimpote since that town didn't exist half of the time yet.

(Insert dialogue I can't remember)

[Old man] »You're just an old man like me!« [DeMenchev] »Old?! I'm half your age, geezer!«

My best guess? Somewhere around 40. Something between 35-45 I think...

So not only did he have to look younger than around 40 here, from the way he talks to Beylord in the Arvale 2 Ocean of Time encounter, (and Arvale Short Tales) they way he speaks about their shared past, it feels like Beylord leaving after his accident happened a long time ago, years ago.

Anyway, this is just a really long way of me saying and and explaining that he's supposed to be in his 20s here.

And then... There's Beylord. When he was still human.

And this is where we are getting into the » O h F u c k « territory for me.

I feel like I'm on really thin ice here.

Because while yes, this DID happen canonically, they were going on expeditions together and were close friends. BUT. We never actually see it happening!

When I depicted the destruction of Arhaeldem earlier in the video, when Tsilon practically turbo nuclear firebombed his entire city- Yes, that too was never actually shown in-game.

So I feel like I'm... Almost falsely representing the game('s story) ?

But at least we know what Blynt looked like back then! At least I had the ruins of Arhaeldem as a reference! And even see part of Arhaeldem before it was destroyed! We know what it kinda looked like and what exactly happened thanks to the survivor's entries!

But here ... This isn't a canon design for young DeMenchev, he could have looked totally different. It's still very obviously him though so it's not thaaat bad I thiiiink?

But then there's... Human Beylord. I have a design for his human self. With lots of thought behind it. I never posted it. I'm not sure if it's wise if I do... To stray too far from canon. I feel like I already did that too much.

Soooo he holds a map because

1). It fits thematically with them going on expeditions

2). It covers up most of his design and things are kept more vague and unknown.

I don't have the... ' privilege ' for the thing I make art of here to be well known enough that people would be able to tell when I'm drifting away from the source material. Someone sees my art and could assume it's 100% true.

It's really difficult to even look up any information about Arvale if you're not using the WayBackMachine to access a bunch of defunct websites.

I am the only one on planet earth right now who is making art for these games, which in return makes it more likely for me to be able to missrepresent the games and their stories... Aaaaaa.

WORSE, because I am this massively DeMenchev and Beylord brainrotted, if I couldn't find answers, I started creating them instead. I started getting ideas. O h n o.

And they wouldn't stop coming.

I was practically hitting my own brain with a rolled up newspapers like:

stopitstoptitstopit 🧠🗞💢 we are gonna focus illustrating things we know for a fact happened, okay?? We gotta focus on the hard facts here, work with me baby pleeaaasee

So everytime I got ideas for a Beylord & DeMenchev (back)story / fan-game, simple doodles, illustrations, comics, animations- I was like. No. I shouldn't draw that. And so I didn't.

But it didn't get out of my damn head!!!

These ideas just as stayed there in my head, with only more pilling up for MONTHS.

And eventually I was like Okay Fuck It. I'm just gonna write it all down. So then it's at least out of my head.

I wrote it all down, and any new ideas that appeared, into my notes app on my phone.

I made it crash.

I, I didn't know that was possible. Whatever. It could mean nothing.

Eventually I transferred it all to an actual computer, into a proper document.

[Even sharper inhale]

The mere first rough draft for the first chapter of this hypothetical fan-game is

Pages

Long

dude I'm so FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED

What do I do with this?!?! WHO do I think I am?? 🤖 JAYBOT7?! NOOO! I'M NOT

Oh BTW in case you were wondering why there's an Arvale 1 (Journey of Illusion) and Arvale 2 (Ocean of Time) but none of the games that came after are called Arvale 3? It's because 🤖Jaybot7 said on his old defunct blog he'd only call an Arvale game Arvale 3 when it's actually 3D. I respect it.

Sidenote, I've been studying how to do 3D art in uni-

OKAY ANYWAY back to the animation.

So we got a young DeMenchev and Beylord, one of the many expeditions they went through together, and see that journal DeMenchev is holding?

DeMenchev is always carrying around a journal. Here, we actually physically see it.

I didn't come up with the design for it! It's straight up the design from the Melonchi Minecarts trailer where we briefly see the cover!

And when DeMenchev turns around we can see that the journal is open now and for a few frames, very briefly, you can look inside and see what's written.

That's right. I'm such a detail freak that I did not just put random scribbles there to only make it look like writing, there's actual writing in there too.

It's 3 words and one sketch.

»Serpent Compass« ; »Pike«. And one sketch that looks just like the in-game compass sprite from Arvale Journey of Illusion.

Why? Because apparently I'm still not done talking about things I SHOULDN'T RRRRRAAAHHH WHAT AM I DOING???

You see, in Arvale 2 Ocean of Time there's this bit, and 🤖Jaybot7 could have very well just placed that in there for the laughs, where DeMenchev enters the mining town of Pike and he just demonstrates an irrational insane dislike for anything mining related. And when the player tries to force DeMenchev to enter The Pike Mines, he vehemently refuses and says he's never going back in there, »I honestly don't want to go in there... not... again! Not what happened after LAST time!« He even shudders one time.

He can't be talking about exploding minecart tracks from Melonchi Minecarts because the events of that game (when you play DeMenchev at least) happen after the events of Arvale 2 Ocean of Time.

But what other event could have possibly occured in there then to scar him this bad?

Well. What if a certain old friend of his got horrifically injured in there. What if there was some. Accident. While they were looking for something in there. A legendary compass maybe. What if.

Let me stress there's NO PROOF of this whatsoever. It's possible, but there's nothing indicating ever that it was Beylord's accident that occurred in there, it's just once again- my own idea! An idea I shouldn't have had that I had that! I'm coming up with lore explanations for something that was probably just supposed to be a funny joke- Aaaaaaaa

Also just to clear things up. The Serpent Compass is an item Duncan finds in the Pike mines in Arvale Journey of Illusion. Which from DeMenchev's perspective, takes place in the future. (And also tells you that this hypothetical not canon expedition they went on wasn't successful…)

Anyway, young DeMenchev and Beylord are having a great time being research partners and DeMenchev is just... Happy. Look at him. He's so happy to have his dear friend accompanying him.

DeMenchev will go through tragic lengths to try, and ultimately fail, to save his friend in the future from vampirism. So it must have been someone he deeply cared about.

Then the camera turns to Beylord and he takes the hood off to look back at DeMenchev too aaaaaaand it all goes to shit.

You thought I was just gonna show you human Beylord's face and eyes?? Nu uh! I'm still trying to cover up that design from you.

By the time Beylord opens his red vampire eyes his face already pretty much morphed to his vampire visage.

Remember those messed up timelines I talked about before? The Beylord encounter in Arvale 2 Ocean of Time takes place in one.

In this timeline, Beylord never met DeMenchev before, but he still ended up turning into a vampire.

That's right.

Beylord turning into a vampire even happens in the right, less horrible timeline.

I find it funny how, even though Beylord is the boss here, it is DeMenchev that's kinda freaking him out here in the game. Beylord even falls silent for a moment... When DeMenchev starts talking about their past, from Beylord's perspective, he is met with this really weird stranger who knows personal things about him this stranger very much shouldn't be able to know, but at the same time is talking about things that couldn't be.

[DeMenchev] »Beylord?« [Beylord] »I'm sorry, do I know you?« [DeMenchev] »Beylord! It is you. Of course you know me... We used to travel together and go on expeditions...« [Beylord] »...« [DeMenchev] »That is, until your accident.«

In the end he does try to get his Hey I'm Supposed To Be The Threat Here act back. It happens right before we switch to Arvale Short Tales.

And you can hopefully make all of this out in their expressions and body language here.

DeMenchev looks sad here because this isn't exactly a happy moment as you can imagine.

The fact his old friend doesn't seem to remember/ know him probably stings a lot.

Also, I want to once again applaud whoever did the combat sprite work for Beylord, because whenever he attacks DeMenchev in Arvale 2 Ocean of Time, not only do their sprites fit together like puzzle pieces- Beylord plunging his fangs into his neck, digging his claws into his shoulders while DeMenchev winces in pain- it also just looks like... DeMenchev is just taking it.

Even after Beylord tries to kill him, DeMenchev shows not even a hint of anger towards him.

Just pity.

And on top of that, DeMenchev spares him when he defeats Beylord. He doesn't kill him, he let's him go. This is the only time in the entirety of Arvale 2 Ocean of Time where DeMenchev spares someone after they try to kill him.

Beylord in Arvale 2 Ocean of Time is a unique boss, because he's the only one with no weaknesses. DeMenchev is always »barely scratching for damage.« Everything he attacks with is ineffective. Beylord says he's supposed to be invincible, so it's probably because of his powers. Or perhaps... DeMenchev can't bring himself to hit him harder. Maybe both?

And this is just Arvale 2 Ocean of Time where we get so many hints, from the dialogue, the characters' actions, visual art, that Beylord is/was someone incredibly dear to him. That there's a story between them.

There's an heavily implied narrative here that's driving me fucking CRAZY.

And we haven't even gotten to the Arvale Short Tales bit yet!

Well, we do now!

When you finally unlock Beylord in Arvale Short Tales, you're playing the villain this time babyyyyy the only time it happens in Arvale.

And oh my god. I finally got Beylord, but now the game was teasing me with DeMenchev instead, his presence constantly foreshadowed. And at the end of the game, within Beylord's terribly beautiful manor, the final confrontation in Arvale Short Tales occurs.

The tides of time have turned and now the player, you, controlling Beylord, are fighting The Great DeMenchev.

The DeMenchev I was facing looked different. His face even more unkept than before, decorated with an eye patch and ANGER. Beylord is pissing DeMenchev off so much here he even growls in-game haaaaahhaha.

And in return, DeMenchev is pissing off Beylord. Because Guess Who is responsible for literally taking him apart.

I'm not gonna say too much what occured for this situation between them to happen, because you can read aaaallllll the information in that blogpost I made.

The reason Beylord’s eyes do this thing where the red pupils widen across the entire eyeball is because:

1). Beylord is sometimes portrayed with red glowing irises/pupils or straight up entirely red eyeballs and here I tried to do both.

2). … You know how a cat’s eyes widen when they are concentrating on a target and are right about to pounce? Yeahg. If you don’t know what I am talking about, just type »cat attack eyes« into Youtube.

Also, did you notice? Beylord doesn't have a shadow. Because vampires don't have shadows.

Heeheehee.

I find it fun how 🤖Jaybot7 gave all the Arvale villains just as straight up issues, but made them EXPONENTIALLY worse.

For Kryphen, it's envy. The Cedar is a massive control freak. And vampire Beylord? He has Arvale's biggest anger issues ever. At least Taby's fury is cold and calculated, but Beylord?

Beylord fucking explodes. Out of his coffin. When you unlock him. A Wants to see the world burrrrn type of guy. Burn just like Maestyl…

And DeMenchev is not a big fan of his warcrimes. I mean, just look how this bastard decorates his room. This is a beast's den littered with remains of his prey, covered in fancy chintz. The vampire is a fancy instead of a wild monster, but a monster nonetheless. And 🤖Jaybot7 conveyed this not just through his writing but the leveldesign too.

Beylord's red eyes seem to glow both in the in-game painting, but it's much more obvious in an altered/edited version of the painting I found on the old defunct PDAmill website.

So I made it glow =) His fancy diamond also glows, but making it glow in the same intensity kinda took away focus from his eyes which seem to hold much more significance. Especially since that's one of the body parts you need to collect to unlock him...

So for the diamond, I just copied the original red colour, pasted it over the shading, and turned down the opacity, so it still looks like it's shaded, but still feels significantly brighter.

And the clawssss those talonssss. They are Beylord's primary weapon in Arvale Short Tales.

Slashing through flesh like butter.

Speaking of combat, you remember how I talked about getting the Arvale Short Tales colours from the character's battle sprites? Not here, I actually just tried to pick the most accurate colours from Beylord's character selection painting. Because... Beylord's battle sprites are differently shaded. He's painted too. Instead of one or two simple shades of light and dark, he's got detailed shading like in a painting. It's especially noticeable on the coat, a gradient of shade and light. He stands out in a subtle Something Feels Off Way because of this and I love iiit.

But it also means that accurate base colour picking is gonna be more difficult + his skin tone is noticeably a lot more cyan instead of a pale blue like in his character selection painting and talking/ dialogue sprite. I stuck with the pale blue since that fitted more with his dark blue coat + the dark blue environment of his manor + it's more pale, fitting for a vampire.

Beylord attacks FAST, he practically becomes a blur when he dashes towards his enemy before giving them Arvale's nastiest and sharpest uppercut. That's what I tried to reference when at the every end of the scene, he dashes towards DeMenchev, turning into a fast blur.

In his stationary battle sprite, it looks like his coat is flowing in the wind. And so I made it flowy here too when we see them both on screen.

Also, I had fun with the teeth. Can you tell?

01:57 Scene 14 : Lagomorph in Light

It's Sakyra!!! I like her a lot, especially during the part in Treasure of Memories when you're controlling DeMenchev in Stygia, the dialogue there is really funny.

I remember back in highschool, there was one class/day we were dissecting a specific scene from our current lecture and discussing the term grotesque.

The scene described a super fancily dressed woman, highheels and everything, traversing a muddy, dirty, forest through tick undergrowth. These two things clashed and we used it to define/discuss the word grotesque.

To be fair, I think that book scene the way I described it lacks a certain spooky or freaky or tragic-ness to be called grotesque, but I'm probably forgetting something.

ANYWAY I hope this scene from Arvale Treasure of Memories has that grotesque feeling. When I first played Arvale Treasure of Memories, I was reminded of that class because this scene in the game feels similar.

Except here it certainly has more of that tragic, dramatic effect, considering, you know. The destruction.

Sakyra's outfit here and the destroyed town of Thimpote clash a lot. It just doesn't fit together at all, but in a way that makes you ask questions, primarily: What the fuck happened??

Or simply just: ???????huh???

And also, it's a part of the game where she's the focus of the story during that time.

And you know, I wanted to shine the light on her here. Quite literally considering all the fire.

Imagine trying to spend you honeymoon with your new spouse and trying to enjoy this special time in your life and then suddenly the entire town you're visiting just💥🔥💥☢☣🔥💥💥💥🔥🔥💥💥🔥☣💥💥🔥🔥💥💥💥🔥☣🔥💥☣

Sakyra, out for blood, is now on a quest to eviscerate what or whoever is responsible.

... Whom we see in the next shot actually!

That's right. It was DUNCAN.

Who FORGOR That he DID. THAT.

Why did he forget? Well that's an answer you'll find out in that Arvale Treasure of Memories gameplay of mine, but let's just say that he went a '''''''little''""" cuckoo after getting exposed to a certain ore.

Why did he do it/ What exactly happened?

... Good question! WeDon'tTalkAboutTheGreatWheelbarrowIncidient

And then Sakyra and Duncan team up to figure this mystery out. That's HILARIOUS.

Arright, so, regarding the animation.

Her hair... Oooouuuuuuggghhhhhh it was luckily not THAT bad because I found really good references but wow you better appreciate it.

There's so much flowy stuff in this entire animation ...

Sakyra in the first shot is actually spread into multiple parts that overlap. Especially when it comes to the hair.

If you were to open my animation program and take a look at all the layers containing the frames for the hair, you'd see that there's 3 sets. BG, MG, FG. Background, Middelground, Foreground.

The hair that's coming out of her forehead more or less, is part of the FG, and always overlaps all the other character/ Sakyra layers.

The small part that at the back of her head is BG and is always underneath all the characters/ Sakyra layers.

So far so simple.

And then there's MD, which was little tricky. Because it never entirely overlaps the layers that hold the rest of Sakyra like FG because otherwise you wouldn't see her head (and neck) at all because it would all just be hair. But sometimes the hair also in front of her chest and if it all was in the BG layer her body would be covering it all and it would just look... Incorrect.

So I separated her head from her body, which sounds absolutely terrible.

Because her head always overlaps FG hair so I put it above the FG layers.

And the rest of her body I cut into pieces- Okay. That sounds even worse.

What I did is I cut away those parts of her chest that shouldn't overlap the hair according to each frame of the animation. So her neck and shoulders would still be covering the FG hair but the rest isn't. Do I make sense? Probably not. Do I sound like deranged nutcase?

Probably yes.

Why did I seperate her and her hair in the first place?

1). So I had an easier time giving her hair more unique shading because it looks cool

2). To save time and work actually. Because now I could first animate the rest of her without worrying about her fancy hair which is all over the place.

My first scribble draft of this scene first just had her walking through the burning rubbles of Thimpote with crossed arms, almost like hugging herself for comfort while she has a frustrated and sad look on her face. But after giving it some thought, it just didn't fit ... Enough.

Like, yes, she's distraught about the entire situation. But in-game when we meet her here she is determined to figure this out and you know. She wants revenge.

So I scratched that draft and came up with something more epic that showcases both her distraught and determination.

Also, she is FAST. She's got the highest speed stat out of everyone in the party.

Verrryyy often she will act before everyone else in the party AND the enemy.

She's a mage, and my favourite combat move is letting her bestow every curse known to man on the enemy team before they can even act.

She's agile, you know, like a rabbit. So I made her jump across the destroyed buildings of Thimpote.

Speaking of Thimpote... I opened Arvale Journey of Illusion, and took screenshots of Thimpote before it was destroyed in order to have the best possible reference. If you were to open the game and explore Thimpote in Arvale Journey of Illusion, you'd be able to tell which house is which!

Arvale Treasure of Memories relies a lot on art that wasn't specifically made for the game.

From what I can guess (meaning I don't know for certain) 🤖Jaybot7 pretty much made this game completely on his own this time, save for a handful of specific illustrations. He's not a visual artist like yours truly, so he had to rely on assets that weren't specifically made for Arvale Treasure of Memories. The assets from the previous games didn't seem to be an option.

My best guess is that it's because those games were made for a pocket PC resolution, which just isn't ideal when you're playing the game on a normal computer.

It's also the reason why when you're playing the first two games on your computer, you're looking at such a tiny window.

So in order to get the most accurate reference for Thimpote, I took a look at the town in the first game.

And then I burned it down. Just like 🤖Jaybot7.

For the fire, it's actually just one fire animation!

I took it, and created a bunch of different versions where the cycle starts at a different frame (it's a looping animation after all) stretched or shrinked it according to the perspective and changed the exposure time of the individual frames for each version.

Meaning: making frames last longer or shorter.

When a fire is in the foreground, I gave the frames less exposure. Which is a fancy way of saying that I made each frame last less time so that the animation plays faster. The result is the fire is faster in the foreground.

When the fire is further in the background, I did the opposite. I made the animation slower.

Why? Originally they all had the same speed but it felt... Off? Somehow? There was too much going on in the background. The faster the fire, the more erratic it seems, and the more attention you pay to it. And if everything is fast and erratic on screen you don't know where to pay attention.

And I want the attention to be on Duncan first and then Sakyra when she jumps across the rooftops! Blurring things not in focus also helps.

I had a lot of fun with Duncan's expressions here, hehe. There's no smear or quick in-between frames, so every frame of his animation here doesn't look awkward when paused. So go ahead and pause and take a look at his faces.

Actually, go ahead and pause anytime in the video because damn, I put a lot of work into this. If you're gonna pause to look at details you are very welcome to do so!

02:04 ; 02:09 Scene 15 & 16 : Brodyn and Highwatch / Silk and Invyl

This is a very simple scene. And yet.

For SOME UNEXPLAINED REASON and I don't know why, I double checked everything, I tried to look up what the issue was in vain, my animation program had a heartattack everytime I tried to colour Brodyn during the nighttime part of this scene. I have lost count how often colouring him caused insufferable lag, made my program freeze and then crash when I tried attempt the single task of trying to fill in the colours.

Eventually though I painfully and slowly managed to colour everything.

But to my horror, because I idiotically used the elf talking sprite from the game's files as a reference instead of just looking at one of my many game screenshots, I forgot his scar + short beard. The scar wasn't an issue, I could just add that to the linework. But the beard would require colouring and I'm just. Not doing that again, brother. No. Sorry.

But aside from my colouring issue, everything else was smooth sailing.

So! Regarding the scene.

This scene was originally supposed to be muchhhh longer. Because this is based off on the part of the game where Duncan stays one night at Highwatch.

Originally this scene was supposed to start with Duncan having The Ancestral Nightmare. It plagues him and robs him of sleep every night since the beginning of his Journey (of Illusion). In

the nightmare he's in Blynt's shoes and has the deeply uncomfortable confrontation with Tsilon.

Honestly, props to Duncan for not turning into a cranky bitch over the course of his Journey (of Illusion).

Also reminder to myself to give him eyebags next time I draw his self from Journey of Illusion...

Oh, LMAO, I just realized something:

Duncan 🤝 DeMenchev -> Both are forced to battle their besties after they turn into bloodthirsty monsters (both thanks to Sorcynth, no less).

Anyway, that was too long, so we skip straight ahead to the part where Duncan walks away pitifully after his conversation with Brodyn on top of the castle in Arvale Journey of Illusion.

Brodyn (and Silk) are two very important side characters in both Arvale Journey of Illusion and Arvale Treasure of Memories!

And here, I tried to combine both games into one scene.

When it's night, it's supposed to show part of their respective cutscenes from Arvale Journey of Illusion, where we get to learn more about their backstory. Which uh, for both of them, is pretty sad.

The one that takes place in Highwatch with Brodyn, and the one that takes place in Invyl with Silk. Both cutscenes happen during the night.

Then, we switch to the same places, but during a different time. When it's night, we are in Arvale Journey of Illusion. When it's day, we are in Arvale Treasure of Memories.

... Kinda.

Brodyn and Silk look a lot different in Arvale Treasure of Memories.

There's no actual scene in Arvale Treasure Memories that depicts them alone in those exact places. My goal was to merely

1). Show off their new looks

2). That time has passed.

Arvale Treasure of Memorie's Brodyn is determinently trying to be a good prince,

And Arvale Treasure of Memories Silk is ... conflicted/ unhappy. But she is gonna try not to let it get to her too much, she has duties she can't neglect. *Gesturing to the building behind her*

Noooot until Duncan shows up in Invyl again anyway.

When Duncan went a """little""" cuckoo it strained their relationship quite a lot.

Backgrounds, again of course, are based on the ones we see in Arvale Journey of Illusion.

For the Highwatch one, shields and a dragon door can be seen in-game. The shields seem to depict something in red and yellow, but it's too pixelated to make out what it is. So. I went a little creative. Again.

I put Kytar's local dragon, Malzubed the Dragon of Fire, on there. While the rest of the world aside from Entoque don't believe in dragons anymore, Malzubed might still serve as some sort of ancient symbol or myth. I mean, he's got an entire forest named after him in Kytar *Gesturing to Arvale Short Tales*.

For Invyl... Well, there's not much to say other than that the statues in front of the smithing guild (very important building in Invyl) now look like elves instead of generic human knights.

02:12 Scene 17 : Conspiracy beneath the Colosseum

It's Cyper!!! Beloved badass older gentleman. His entire lone story in Garga at night in Arvale Treasure of Memories is just so. Badass. Don't let his looks trick you into thinking an eloquent vocabulary is the only trick up his sleeve. This guy can pummel you to the ground with his cane and is more stealthy and cunning than you'd expect.

Also, he was a former chancellor. Or at least the Arvale equivalent of one. And turns out his home country has turned into a puppet state in his absence...

This secret he'll uncover within an underground library full of records of past and current happenings, hidden beneath Garga's colloseum.

Remember Sorcynth? Even after its fall in Arvale Journey of Illusion, the aftermath of it's/ Kryphen's influence over the world does not simply cease after a 2 millennia reign. A third party is involved...

(It's the Cedar. Yes, he returns. Because what is death to the deathless? A mere nuisance. Don't worry, this time DeMenchev figured out a way to get rid of this weed for good.)

»SOIJ« Was Cyper's clean up project for Sorcynth basically, but he was only there during the very beginning before stepping down from his position in Garga. Leaving the rest up to his committee he thought he could trust. You can read the project's name on the book he's holding!

He's certainly not happy about any of this!

02:14 Scene 18 : Witchdoctor Bin.

Had to keep this one short because I was running out of time. Originally, I wanted to illustrate Bin's confrontation with the fire demon that has been terrorising his village since ages. And as epic as that would have been... No time.

So instead I depicted where we first meet him, his house in Aphote.

Bin's fun, because his character concept is once again I'm Going To Take A Cliché And Take A Massive Spin On It. I like that a lot in 🤖Jaybot7's writing.

Oh, you think he's a superstitious witchdoctor who wants to sacrifice himself to a volcano in order to appease some god that doesn't exist? SIKE!

Not only does he probably know more about the world than you (honestly sad that he and DeMenchev never got to properly talk because I'm pretty sure they'd have lots of fun talking to eachother, nerds.)

Not only does the 'god' for real actually exist, it's not a god at all but a fire demon pretending to be one (again) and Bin is sick of her terrorising his village.

His main weapon is a sling, and you can see him holding it here ! =] The village is in a tropical place, so I put a palm tree outside of the window and tried my best to make the entire room/light feel warm.

02:17 Scene 19 : Tricking Traitor

Noko... Not everyone in your party is your friend. Demons device. And Noko is one of them. An agent of the Cedar who has infiltrated the group.

In the disguise of a poor little girl trying to seemingly find her missing father, who has been all on her own for so long, how tragic. Don't you pity her?

I do like how from all the non Arvale specific art assets 🤖Jaybot7 could find, he chose a monster that has no face. Just a hole. And the thighs are connected through a fleshy membrane, like a macabre dress.

I took the monster image from the game, and made it more unique for Noko.

The macabre flesh dress gave me an idea, and I proceeded to moprh parts of her clothing further into the true form as actual parts of the body.

Made sure to give her an unnerving look, that something feels wrong, before she even starts transforming. Tilted her head in such a way that you can see her bow in her hair, which is part of her in-game 'armour'.

02:20 Scene 20 : The Outro

I'm going to explain the poem here, since if you aren't 🤖Jaybot7, it's probably very confusing.

I'm also aware it's skipping through the pages way too fast but I wanted it to go along with the music.

Speaking of the pages, that page you see is one you see in-game, taken straight out of theg ame's files. And the font of course is similar to one in-game.

»A device in my little hands from back then.

Reached for the stylus, then to the pen.«

The »device« is referring of course to a pocket PC, the devices the Arvale games were initially made for.

»little hands« refers to me being little, a child, when I first played Arvale.

So it's about me being a child, holding that pocket PC in my little child hands, and playing the game.

A »Stylus« is basically a pen you use to operate the touchscreen with instead of your finger.

They were more common back then and gave you more precision than your finger could. Every pocket PC had one. As far as I can remember.

»Reached for the stylus, then to the pen.« Is about me becoming an artist as I grew older.

Reaching for the stylus to play the game, and then the pen to create something.

» These MEMORIES I'll TREASURE close to my heart.

So on a JOURNEY to create ILLUSIONS I'll embark. «

Everytime a word is in white, I'm making a references to one of the game's names.

Here of course it's Arvale Treasure of Memories and Arvale Journey of Illusion.

» These MEMORIES I'll TREASURE close to my heart. « I made lots of happy memories playing these games and I'll, you know, treasure them. Keep them close to my heart.

» So on a JOURNEY to create ILLUSIONS I'll embark. « This is again about me

becoming/being an artist. My life journey about being an artist, so to speak.

The »ILLUSIONS« refers to both art and animation. And animation is the Illusion of movement after all. My life journey to create art and animation.

I put both the Arvale Treasure of Memories and Arvale Journey of Illusion reference on the same page.

Why? Because Arvale Treasure of Memories is a direct sequel to Arvale Journey of Illusion.

»Despite OCEANS OF TIME your world resurfaced,

because creating art is my sincere, inspired purpose.«

Again, of course, Arvale 2 Ocean of Time reference.

» OCEANS OF TIME « have passed. Meaning, a really really really long time has passed. The first Arvale game came out... 20 years ago? 2004 I believe. And the last Arvale game came out 12 years ago, 2012, I think.

Try to looking up information about Arvale, and you will find yourself having to use archived

versions of long defunct webpages to get anything. Your normal serach won't get you very far.

And even then, some things are truly no longer there.

The saying goes that nothing can be truly erased from the internet. I discovered for this to be untrue.

This perfect permanence does not exist. So many things hosted on the web have been lost forever, because no one took care of them. The only thing left being remnants of memories of a very few that they can choose to treasure, before they will cease along with them.

But I do know one thing, and that is no matter how forgotten this world is, as long as I'm alive I'll remember. And I'll make art of it, I'll talk about it, I'll try to bring it back to the surface, make it »resurface«, from the depths of the »OCEANS OF TIME«.

The only one who can stop me is 🤖Jaybot7 himself. 🤖Jaybot7 is also the person I'm talking too, is the You in this poem, the one I'm addressing.

If he's going to tell me to stop creating for Arvale, then I will. Because in the end, these are his characters, his world, his work. And if his will for it is to cease to exist now, then no matter how I or anyone feels about it, so be it.

The first line begs a question: Why did his work resurface?

Which is then answered in the next to come:

»because creating art is my sincere, inspired purpose.« It resurfaced because I'm making art of it. Why am I making art of it? Because Arvale sincerely inspires me. And was one of the reasons I became an artist, and specifically this type of artist I am right now, in the first place.

And on top of that, making art is my purpose, a purpose I have defined for myself. Call me deranged, but I consider myself an artist first and human second. I guess what artist isn't at least a little bit insane? Maybe that's part of being one.

» Hope it's alright, hope I do not bring any ails,

when I continue illustrating your long and SHORT TALES «

Arvale Short Tales reference at the end there.

This is me telling 🤖Jaybot7 that I am acknowledging that I never asked permission to do this. I never had his permission to do any of this. I never got his permission to »illustrate« and animate his world, his »long and SHORT TALES«.

Most people probably wouldn't mind, in fact, most people would probably be very happy if someone came along and made a bunch of art of their art simply out of appreciation. But I cannot be sure.

I do not know 🤖Jaybot7 after all.

So I hope, I hope I'm not somehow hurting him by doing this. That this is » alright «, that I do not cause him any » ails «.

» I don't want to leave it in the dark,

for ARVALE is a beautiful work of art. «

I keep making the beginning A in Arvale red because as a reference to the first two game's icon, which in return is a reference to Duncan. The rest is golden, because that's the colour the A is the icons mentioned before is surrounded by + it's the same colour the word Arvale was displayed in on the old PDAmill website.

This part is basically what I already said in the Ocean of Time part of the poem before, but emphasizing it.

I made it abundantly clear an uncountable amount of time before, but I genuinely, genuinely, adore Arvale. I don't want it to be forgotten, I don't want it to succumb to internet decay, I don't want to » leave it in the dark « because I genuinely think it's a » beautiful work of art. «

I want 🤖Jaybot7 to know that there's someone out there who unapologetically loves his world.

What I'm about to tell you is my own observation and conclusion. It can be untrue.

I remember, back when 🤖Jaybot7's blog was still up, he called Arvale Treasure of Memories a »labour of love «.

Arvale Treasure of Memories was the last Arvale game and also the one 🤖Jaybot7 made almost completely on his own, no longer having the PDAmill team to help him.

Arvale Treasure of Memories was not recieved that well, it seems?

Yes, I know the people who bought it have valid reasons to be displeased.

But some of these reviews just feel so nasty, dude. Reading them made me uncomfortable, because I had to keep thinking about how 🤖Jaybot7 must have felt. And for that to be the last reaction he witnessed people having to his » labour of love « that took years to complete...

No. If there has to be a goodbye, then not like this.

» No nasty scheme, no ulterior motives, no devious plot. Just an artist trying to make another one happy, Jaybot. «

This is self explanatory, I think.

I have no ill intentions.

I'm not going to try to... I dunno, make money with Arvale? (Unless I get commissioned to create Arvale art I guess?) Claim the world as my own? Some other nefarious idea I can't think of at the moment?

But what are my intentions then? Simple:

1). Make Arvale art because it's fun for me

2). Make 🤖Jaybot7 happy, or anyone from PDAmill for that matter, if they see my work. Letting them know after all these years, someone still remembers and interacts with these games.

3). Make strangers aware of it's existence, make them possibly indulge in this world too.

I suppose sometimes great acts can be boiled down to very simple reasons.

Now. You might have noticed that one Arvale game is missing in the poem, and that's Melonchi Minecarts. Why? Because it's the one game I never got to play. So it didn't feel right to include it in there, it's difficult to properly speak of something you do not know.

But I'm not gonna cast it aside completely.

So I put it into the background.

1). The minecart with the weapons and rabbit is a reference to it.

2). The title screen music of Melonchi Minecarts is playing in the outro.

Now, regarding the contents within the Melonchi Minecart in the outro...

In the intro, I tried to represent every major playable character.

However, there are some characters that I left out. They're not major playable characters, but still playable.

And that's the rest of the party of Arvale Treasure of Memories.

Brodyn's golden spear, Cyper's fancy cane, Silk's magical bow and Krygnk's mighty axe stick out.

Sakyra's weapon isn't as important to her character as the rabbit parts of her outfit, so I creates a rabbit to represent her instead. It's supposed to look a bit like her! Plus, she's there since the beginning of Arvale Treasure of Memories so she gets a bit of a special treatment.

And if you look closely, the Sakyra rabbit is holding Bin's sling. Bin is actually her spouse, so it felt fitting for the Sakyra rabbit to be holding his weapon.

Something to represent Noko here I purposefully left out, because she’s not actually part of the group, being a traitor and all.

And that's it. The End. Except, it's not.

Ahem. Looking back at this, maybe I made the ending a bit too spooky. It's supposed to feel epic and invoke your curiosity, keeping you on edge, but not feel necessarily ominous.

» From the small to the big screen, from the stylus to the pen.

Perhaps if I keep creating... this world has not reached the end. «

The first line is my journey of becoming artist again.

The small screen is referring to the screen of the pocket PC, the big screen is that of the computer. The pocket PC along with the stylus is the one belonging to my father!! The device I played my first Arvale game on.

My computer, next to my pen, I use to create art also.

» Perhaps if I keep creating, this world has not reached the end. «

The last line, this last part, is about hope. Maybe this isn't the end of Arvale. Maybe it doesn't have to be.

As long as I make art of it, perhaps I am prolonging it's existence. Perhaps I am bringing it back into existence. I am uncertain myself, therefore » perhaps «.

No one, absolutely no one, expects some absolutely dereanged, crazy, downright insane, sick-in-the-head, lunatic nutcase freak of an artist to appear out of goddamn nowhere and attempt to resurrect a long forgotten and lost RPG series. And yet here I am. What are the odds of something like me happening? Probably almost 0. And yet I still happened. Who knows what could happen in the future. I don't plan for this video, as amazing as it is, to be my most remarkable creation for Arvale ever. I want to attempt even greater heights in the future.

Now.

If you're 🤖Jaybot7 reading this, I got one last thing to scream at you, if I may. Ahem.

In Arvale 2 Ocean of Time, in Ayotkul City, during the endgame, DeMenchev finds a peticular thing in one of the houses:

I APPRECIATE YOUR PIECE OF ART ❗❗

I APPRECIATE IT SO DAMN MUCH ❗❗

LOOK❗❗❗

LOOK AT ME APPRECIATING YOUR WORK ❗❗❗❗❗❗

DO YOU SEE 🤖JAYBOT7❗❗

DO YOU SEE MY ART FOR YOU WITH YOUR OWN EYBALLS DO YOU SEE IT 📢❗❗❗❗❗❗

AFTER SO MANY YEARS THERE'S SOMEONE STILL HERE ❗❗❗❗❗❗

A SINGULAR ARTIST

Man. Duncan, the same guy who talks to wheelbarrows, who in Arvale Treasure of Memories literally went insane, and yet. HE would be the one calling ME insane because of this placebook/flutter exchange in the game I remember:

[Duncan] » How many exclamationmarks did they use again?« [Sakyra] » Seven. « [Duncan] » Definitely insane. «

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