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1) Digitally drawn fan art of a video game.
2) Create a minimalist design for a movie/book cover.

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I feel that this would be the most enjoyable project to do, as I tend to enjoy drawing art of the characters in these games. In addition to this, I also like the artwork that is featured in these games and feel that it is something that I would eventually like to do professionally and for a living.

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medal:
these ideas are good ideas as you are doing what you enjoy and you can do loads of concepts of the characters of the game.
mission:
experiment more with your mood board

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Sunnykoda - Concept artist at Riot Games.

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Sunnykoda - Concept artist at Riot Games.

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Prior to working at Riot Games, Sunnykoda worked at a small company in his home country of Australia as a freelance artist. After submitting some of his work for a fan art competition held by Riot, he was offered the chance to do some work on the skins team at the company during his visit in California that was originally supposed to be a holiday trip so that he could attend the PAX east event, which was going to be hosting the LCS (League championship series) tournament, All of which Sunnykoda volunteered to work for after being offered.

Shortly after returning from California, the company that he had originally been working for was losing business. This allowed Sunnykoda more time to work on his projects for Riot, however the lack of a job was becoming more of an issue for him. This pushed Sunny to apply for a real job at Riot Games, specifically on the art team. It had always been a dream for him to work with Riot, so having this opportunity had an important impact on him in terms of reaching his goals as an artist.

Sunnykoda has been working for Riot since 2013 and is still producing amazing skin concepts for the company to implement into the game 'League of Legends.'

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Designed by Sunnykoda, this skin is currently being worked on and will be released into League of Legends later this month. This particular skin is quite an important one, as it will be an addition to the 'Ultimate' tier skins, which are the most expensive skins as these will have had a lot of effort and time invested in their creation by their developers, and currently before release, only feature 4 skins. Therefore it is important that the work on this skin is all of high quality and unique to the other hundreds of skins that are currently in the game.

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Official splash art for Pulsefire Caitlyn.

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Official splash art for Pulsefire Caitlyn.

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Done by Jason Chan, Senior Concept Artist at Riot Games, this is the splash art for Caitlyn's Classic skin. Since it is a sort of 'window' into the
untold story of the character that you wouldn't be able to see from just playing he, a lot of effort and care had to be put into it so that it represents Caitlyn's personality and lore in an interesting way that would make players want to play her.

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since skin design is one of Sunnykoda's specialities, the basic concept for what the skin would look like in-game was also done by Sunny. Based on the player model for the classic Caitlyn skin, His rendition of what the in-game model would look like gives the 3D artists a good starting point to creating the actual model.

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One of the skins most defining features, is the addition of multiple transformations for the rifle. Using existing skin varients for Caitlyn's rifle, as well as the other 'Ultimate' tier Pulsefire weapon, Sunnykoda was able to create the weapon's various forms and transitions to suit the theme of the skin.

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As the skin is very complex in design, The transformations of the weapon feature a lot of parts that are near constantly moving. By designing a plan of all the parts separate from the weapon as well as the different forms, it allows a much easier understanding of how the final gun will look.

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PROJECT: Ashe In-game model concept art.

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PROJECT: Ashe In-game model concept art.

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This is another skin designed by Sunnykoda which is currently in the game, placed in the 'Legendary' tier of skins, which is the next tier down from 'Ultimate'.

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Another one of Sunnykoda's skins that has made its way into the game. This one took much less time to create than the others and has therefore been placed at 'Epic' tier, which is the next one down from 'Legendary'.

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As someone who plays a lot of League of Legends, it is hard to play the game without noticing the stunning artwork that is featured throughout it. Therefore, more often than not I will inevitably find myself in a trance, admiring the amazing works that many artists have created, which usually ends with me buying a skin purely because of how stunning the splash art is.

That being said, I think that I can safely say that a lot of the passion I have for the game comes purely from the incredible artwork that the game features, and I feel that this is where my passion for art also comes from, and ultimately, I feel I have a lot in common with Sunnykoda. From being deeply interested in League of legends, to having a dream goal of working in the art department for the game, seeing Sunny have similar goals as me and then eventually reaching them, as he has been working for Riot for quite a while now, is really inspiring to see, especially since he had a pretty rough start with finding a stable job.

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Sunnykoda's website displaying his other works outside of Riot Games.

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Sunnykoda's website displaying his other works outside of Riot Games.

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Sunnykoda's DeviantArt page, displaying many other concept works he did for Riot Games.

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Sunnykoda's DeviantArt page, displaying many other concept works he did for Riot Games.

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DeviantArt is the world's largest online social community for artists and art enthusiasts, allowing people to connect through the creation and sharing of art.

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In-depth presentation of how what a splash art is and how they are developed at Riot Games. (5:18-18:38)

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In-depth presentation of how what a splash art is and how they are developed at Riot Games. (5:18-18:38)

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Art Demonstration by League of Legends Artists

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The League of Legends art team aspires to portray powerful and uniquely designed champions. The visual identity of these characters is established through an amalgamation of various content, including splash art, in-game 3D models, and visual effects.

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Example of the splash art design process.

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Example of the splash art design process.

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As the game is constantly updated, Riot Games will sometimes feel it's necessary to rework and redesign outdated 'champions' so that both their gameplay and art fits the games' ongoing improvements.

With almost every splash art, the artist start out with basic thumbnails which are used to experiment with different compositions, poses and settings before consulting the design team about which one is the most suitable to proceed with for the final splash design. These are very rough and quick drawings as shown below which features the design process for the splash art of the champion, Warwick, by the talented artist, Victor Maury, who has done multiple previous splash art designs for Riot Games.

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This is a really effective way of showing how Victor progressively changes and alters his piece before the final outcome is made. Although very slight, it is clear to see that a lot of trial and error was had with both the background scenery, colour scheme as well as the body posture. We can even see that Victor used a life image of himself posing for the drawing so that he had a clearer reference for the hand position, making it easier to draw.

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Released with the Reworked champion on the 25th January, 2017, this is Victor's 7th splash art that he has done for riot since joining the company, and it shows that he is exceptionally talented when it comes to capturing the character's story and personality in his work. He has even won awards and had work published in magazines due to his skills with illustrations.

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Victor Maury's ArtStation page displaying more of his work with Riot as well as other projects.

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Victor Maury's ArtStation page displaying more of his work with Riot as well as other projects.

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Fantasy Goober // Splash Artist at Riot Games

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Example of the history of splash art history (Ezreal).

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Example of the history of splash art history (Ezreal).

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March 16, 2010 [Earliest]

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August 1, 2012

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November 5, 2014 [Latest]

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Kienan Lafferty - Former Splash Artist at Riot Games.

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Kienan Lafferty - Former Splash Artist at Riot Games.

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Previously on the Splash art team, Kienan Lafferty used to work for Riot Games and did various works for the company. His personal favourite is for the character known as 'Ahri', where he designed her classic skin as well as many others.

Kienan then went on to do independent work as a commission artist as well as making tutorial videos and art tips on YouTube. In addition to this, he also provides many rewards on Patreon, one of which, includes a service of reviewing and evaluating people's art so that they can improve as he gives tips to develop their skills.

He is also responsible for making my absolute favourite artwork, as shown below the original splash work he did for Riot. He has uploaded the whole process of making the fan art to YouTube, where he describes how and why he does certain things while creating it so that others can learn and improve from his teachings, which I honestly feel is really helpful as I have also learned quite a lot from watching a few of his videos.

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Original Ahri splash art by Kienan Lafferty.

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Original Ahri splash art by Kienan Lafferty.

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Implemented into the game with Ahri's release on the 14th December 2011, this was one of Kienan's first pieces that he did for Riot Games. This splash art was then updated on 15th January 2015.

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In response to the updated Ahri splash art, Kienan thought it would be cool to do an updated version himself. Since Ahri was his favourite champion to do art for, this ended up having a lot of work and care put into it.

The aspects that I personally like about this work is how it takes on the darker side of Ahri's personality, displaying the dangerous and deadly side of her rather than the more lustful and charming aura that is usually shown. With the ominous bright eyes and facial expression combined with the darker colour scheme create a threatening vibe, making Ahri feel and look very powerful. This paired with the low camera angle, backlight and body pose, really solidifies the 'belittling' attitude that this art is going for.

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Containing some of the development sketches and designs that went into designing League of Legends characters, maps and monsters. This art book goes in depth of how they were able to create a character to fit a certain personality and generally be visually appealing with interesting aspects that would make them unique to the game.

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This book tells the story of how our art-and with it, League itself-has evolved over the years. It's a thoughtful and honest look at where we've been, how we've changed, and what we ultimately aspire to create.

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Once a former Splash Artist at Riot Games, Michelle Hoefener made this vibrant piece using Adobe Photoshop. What makes this fan art so appealing to me, is how the bright colours match the tone of the character and reflects Ahri's personality.

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What I particularly like about this one is how the lighting is effectively used to give different tonal values, amplifying the fierce expression while shadowing one side of the face. The art style and brush strokes also give the piece a very bold texture, making it more like a painting and using the imperfections to its advantage.

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Being the most detailed and realistic one so far, this piece of fan art is the most dynamic out of the three. With the back-lighting from explosions alongside the excess amounts of bullets scattered in the air, all giving an easy understanding of what kind of person Jinx is; that being a trigger-happy, destructive psycho who gets a thrill out of explosions. The wide-eyed, intense facial expression also solidifying this in some manner while still showing a hint of enjoyment.

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Since I have decided to draw the new Caitlyn skin for my FMP, I found some other fan art of the skin that I thought I could use for inspiration. However since it is relatively new, there isn't a lot to look at.

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Starting with a few rough lines, I managed to come up with a basic foundation that would help shape the final piece. In addition to this, I also experimented with a variety of different facial expressions, albeit very crudely drawn, these simple markings would later help form the face, mostly regarding scale and positioning.

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Being the longest stage of the drawing process, this part took several hours to complete as it took some time to get certain aspects right such as the hair and chest piece. When trying to get the hair to look right, it took many attempts to get the hair to look like it is naturally being pulled back into a ponytail. As for the center chest piece, getting it to match the camera angle and look naturally 3D, as well as the details that are on the piece itself proved to be quite challenging to get right.

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When laying down the base colours, i decided to use this as a sort of test to see which method of shading i preferred; Shading from dark to light or shading from light to dark. Using most of the main body to test the 'dark to light' method in areas such as the jacket, chest armour and hair, and then the rest of the piece for the 'Light to dark' I was able to fully experiment with both techniques.

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After having tested both methods of shading, I was able to conclude that using the 'dark to light' method gave the best results and was the least difficult way to shade. As the areas that needed to be darker were already the correct value, it saved a lot of effort and time when it came to lightening that particular area, as it was almost as if it were just a matter of 'erasing' the darker values from the areas that needed to be lightened.

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To make the piece look more naturally shaded, I Blended the line art into the rest of the piece. Taking away the boldness of the black lines was a good decision as well as a pretty strong learning experience. Seeing how much a piece can improve visually by simply blending line art was very eye-opening for me and will definitely influence my future works.

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When creating the background I was conscious of two things; Pulsefire Caitlyn's lore as well as the colour scheme of the final piece. This being said, I attempted to create a sort of 'alienated-arctic' environment in order to keep the main focus of the piece (Caitlyn herself) not looking out of place. While I was quite limited on time, I felt that the best thing to do was to blur the brush strokes of the background to try and give it depth while also making it look like an icy landscape.

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This last process involved minor changes such as cleaning up rough edges and colour adjustments. To make Caitlyn's skin look more realistic, I decided that it would be best to brighten the skin colour to make it resemble the natural glow that skin gives off when sunlight is present. I also softened the overall texture of the piece so that the different values blended in a smoother manner while also making them stand out more.

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Since I partly decided upon this particular project so that I would be able to visually see any improvement in my skills since doing an older piece from the start of college, I feel it is necessary to compare, side-by-side, my newer piece to my old one, allowing for an easier showcase of how my skills have progressed from the start of this college year to the end. From this, I really feel that I have made a huge improvement as to how I work and how the outcome looks. While the disappointment of my old piece has become even more apparent, I still like how the old one serves as a vital reminder that my skills can always improve and how quickly this improvement can happen, therefore I feel that whenever I am lacking in terms of motivation I will look at this single image and remind myself of how much progress can be made with just a bit of effort and determination.