FINAL FANTASY IV
TREASURE CHESTS CREATED: APRIL 2020 Cecil Harvey would frequently encounter treasure chests filled with coins, armor, weapons, or other prizes during the course of his adventures. Some of them were offered to him with intent and purpose—the ancient treasures of kings and queens, handed down through the generations. Others were discovered quite by accident, the fleeting remnants of demolished castles or equipment and gold abandoned by less intrepid adventurers who did not survive their journey. Still other treasure chests were intended as traps to lure Cecil with the promise of wealth, only for savage, powerful monsters to jump him and attempt to slay him. Treasure chests were not always filled with treasure; sometimes Cecil would encounter empty ones, their riches having been long since plundered. In addition to building action figures of the various playable characters from Final Fantasy IV as well as the monsters and villains they fought, I also enjoy constructing "set dressing" to inhabit my project shelves along with these characters. Treasure chests are a staple of RPG games and of Final Fantasy IV specifically, and it made sense to me to paint at least a handful of these important artifacts. The treasure boxes I chose were from the Animal Jam toy line based on the web game of the same name. They were the perfect size and shape. I painted each chest a different color, based on the ones we see in Final Fantasy IV: blue ones tended to appear in towns and shops; red ones often showed up in caves or mountains; gold ones appeared in the Sylvan Cave and Cave Eblana; and the teal-colored treasure chest was exclusive to the lair of the Antlion. There was also a wooden treasure box that tended to appear within the various castles in the game. For the wood version, I used a Fortnite "loot crate" that I weathered heavily with paints to create the appearance that it was old and dirty and a little tarnished at the hinges. Curiously, the original Super Famicom version of the game sold in Japan used different treasure chests, technological in appearance, on board the Giant of Bab-il and inside the Tower of Zot and Tower of Bab-il. They tend to blend in with the other technological architecture of the Giant and the Towers, which is why I think Nintendo of America changed it to more obvious-looking red treasure chests for their SNES release ("Final Fantasy II"). The Animal Jam treasure boxes did not have opening lids, so for the one whose lid I wanted to have sitting perpetually open, I had to cut it apart and glue the parts together in the open position. |
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