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[Riot Art Contest] - Arcade Syndra

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I know that matching LoL's art style is a challenge itself, but in my opinion there is no creativity at all doing an existing skin so I'm going to do a new skin mixing my favourite champ, Syndra, and my favourite skins, the arcade ones.

Syndra_0.jpg

Here is a quick sketch with some ideas that I'll probably end up changing while modeling...

SyndraProjectComp.jpg

Replies

  • Hekutor
    Here is some work on the head, the hair is a placeholder and I might refine some shapes or scales when seeing it with the body.

    SyndraHeadWIP.jpg
  • Boontje
    I've always loved the arcade skins in LoL, and I'm totally digging this!
  • SaferDan
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    SaferDan polycounter lvl 14
    How is this not getting more love?! The arcade skins are fantastic and that WIP is gorgeous! Good job so far man!
  • AnthonyAnimation
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    AnthonyAnimation greentooth
    I'm liking it. Even though you've already started I thought it would be cool to incorporate more arcadey-ness to her headdress since that is such a focal point. Something in the line of Galaxian -

    Dig_Dug_PM_Galaxian3d_100.jpg


    Just a thought. Can't wait to see more!
  • Sfalkon
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    Sfalkon polycounter lvl 8
    I like it, I will be following the process.
  • Hekutor
    I think you are completely right Anthony, your point was actually bothering me out since the beginning, but I didn't know what to do to make her headdress look more arcade and still look good and recognizable.
    I'm going to substitute the star to put some pixelated stuff like your image. Thank you for the idea, I'll post this tweak and the new hair soon.
  • Neer
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    Neer polycounter lvl 4
    Love this concept.
  • Hekutor
    I changed the star for a space invader, there's nothing more arcade! I also did some work on the hair, I'll bend it down and pose it once I've finished the model.

    SyndraHeadWIP2.jpg
  • Vanja
    This is such a great design! I love it! Especially her headphones. I can't wait to see more.
  • disanski
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    disanski polycounter lvl 14
    Beautiful :) Good luck man!
  • Lazar
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    Lazar polycounter lvl 3
    O_______________________O So cool O_O
  • Chantel-sky
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    Chantel-sky polycounter lvl 3
    I love it so much!
  • Rnz
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    Rnz polycounter lvl 8
  • mrnunez
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    mrnunez polycounter lvl 2
    Must say I really like your concept, and including pixel art on it. Very original!
  • expricornis
  • ambitious_nomad
    This is looking great. Solid concept and modeling thus far. Can't wait to see more.
  • Dartist
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    Dartist polycounter lvl 3
    really nice! I love the concept!
  • drogyn
    I really like the idea so far, looks great. Newish to polycount but if the green smiley logo has a name, a pixel version of that would be like #polycount pride
  • Sukotto
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    Sukotto polycounter lvl 8
    Yay another Arcade skin! I'm doing Vi and had a similar idea of using Space Invaders ;)
  • Polyglider
  • Hekutor
    I've done the body based on actual ingame Syndra models so the proportions should be ok. I'll probably see some volumes that I can tweak while working on the clothing, which will cover most parts of the problematic zones. Oh and don't think I need to say this but I've not invested time modelling the feet because she'll wear boots.

    Last but not least, thank you all for the comments, they help to keep me motivated!

    SyndraBodyWIP.jpg
  • Hekutor
    Ok I worked a bit in the clothing. I'm still playing around with some ideas but I think this is quite definitive. I've tried to do the things matching LoL's art style, not creating excessive detail to not loose it at a distance and putting some extra width on to things to read them well and create volume variations.

    As you can see I've changed some things over the original design, not too many though. The cloth stripes on the shoulders were to noisy so I've decided to change it for arm bracelets with a pixel art heart on them. I've thought that I can make the pixel art pieces (space invader, heart and pacman) glow in the final model, I'll see if it looks good or not.

    And I finally realized that the Syndra balls are too iconic to change them for something else, so I'm going to maintain the spherical form but pixelating it so it matches the style of the skin. I'm going to make them colorful too, may be with a gradation of color line per line from bottom to top. If even doing this the pixels are not noticeable at a distance I'll try to make the ball with less and bigger pixels, till you can see from far that it's a sphere made with cubes.

    SyndraClothingWIP.jpg
  • slosh
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    slosh hero character
    Coming along nicely....pixelated balls are amazeballs!
  • Hekutor
    Ok I just did a ZBrush polypaint color pass never to delay what's probably the most fun and creative part of making a game model, retopo and UVs! Just kidding, actually this time is gonna be especially interesting because we have to pay attention to push texture efficiency to the maximum.

    As I said this is just a polypaint color pass with its own limitations, so it has no baked ambient oclusion, levels, color correction or any photoshop magic at all. It's more of a base color study to see what works and what doesn't. I wish ZBrush had a hue, saturation adjustment for the polypaint but it hasn't so I'll have to play around with that once I've done the UVs and texture.

    Everything in this render is polypaint and self illuminated. It only has a very very light casted shadow over it but this is pretty much how you see it with no lighting. I also did a greyscale test to see if the values are ok, I might change some things in the final texture but I see it right by now.

    By now, I think it kinda matches LoL's art style and I still have to push those textures with photoshop and do some visibility tests over Summoner's rift to make it match perfectly. Also posing the model is gona give it a nice touch.

    SyndraPolypaint2.jpg

    Grayscale.jpg
  • slosh
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    slosh hero character
    Nice color blockout! You're definitely on the right track...
  • D_Wall
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    D_Wall polygon
    I'm not sure if personally i like the design, but i definitely feel the LoL aesthetic is there, and the quality is definitely good too, so keep at it! :D
  • Hekutor
    Hey D_Wall, thank you for commenting. Could you please tell me what part you don't like about the design? I've not started with the low poly version so I can still improve the design. I'd love to hear your ideas ;)
  • mrnunez
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    mrnunez polycounter lvl 2
    Hi Hekutor,

    I like the initial concept, but kinda feel the body is not reflecting the initial draw properly, not sure if is final sculpt but seems to me is missing detail on clothes and a body silhouette pass. Must admit this concept is one of my favorites, would be great if the final 3D chap is awesome as the initial idea
  • blakeo
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    blakeo polycounter lvl 7
    the balls look awesome! (giggidy)
  • D_Wall
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    D_Wall polygon
    hey Hekutor,

    if you ask my opinion I'd say that I'm unsure as to how much i like the vest and straps crossing her chest. I say that because there's a lot visually going on with the helmet, but not so much with the vest, and the square form it creates sort of harshly connects with the head/headpiece, especially with the parallel shapes in the horizontal visor and the horizontal vest trim; makes everything in-between feel very blocky....which now that i think about it, is pretty characteristic of retro gaming hahaha, but personally i just don't like that geometric look all that much, but again that's just my opinion. Quality wise still is rockin! ^_^
  • Hekutor
    Thank you for your comment mrnunez, I think you are quite right. I followed the body proportions of Syndra's ingame model, so the body should not the problem. Also, I think that every time I show her side view the arm blocks the back line and it seems straight but it's not.

    Back.jpg

    Also, the posing really affects at giving a natural feel to the character. When posing, I'll do things like push her chest and head back, rise up the bust, cross her legs and tilt her shoulders and hips, and I hope that's going to give her more similarity to the initial concept.

    So I think the main problem is pretty much in the clothing right now. I tried to keep it simple to match LoL's art style but it's true that I can give a bit more detail to it, but not too much more. I can see a few things that I can change to make her look better and closer to the original concept. I can see that I should open the skirt a bit more, to create a stronger silhouette. And I think I should make the back part of the headdress bigger, to make it visible from the front. I also want to say that the cloth stripes over the skirt are a place holder, the final ones are going to be more similar to the concept but Im not going to put straight planes in this renders, which is what I'm going to use to make that part, so I made that quick stripes in zbrush.

    Here is a silhouette study of where I think I should go to.

    SihlouetteStudy.jpg
  • Hekutor
    I've done a quick paint over, adding more detail on the clothes and using less colors and details on the headdress and I think it looks more balanced now. It will obviously get a lot better when being able to treat the texture with photoshop.

    I want to add something on those shoulders like in the picture but I'm still not sure. When I tried to put the original concept cloth veils they looked too noisy but they might work now that the model is more finished. I'm going to make some tests with those shoulders and see what I can do. I still have to tweak some volumes though.

    SyndraColoredPaintOver.jpg

    SyndraColoredPaintOverB%26W.jpg
  • Hekutor
    Still indecisive with those shoulders. I kinda like the veils now...

    SyndraShoulderTests.jpg
  • Abrvpt
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    Abrvpt polycounter lvl 4
    Nice progress so far ! But I think the legs needs a bit more love. ( ^^ ) I'll give more flesh to the upper thighs, more volume on the calves muscles while keeping the area just above the ankle thin. Also the feet seems a bit small.
    The ball looks very nice also, love the pixels ! But I wonder if they'll read well in game distance, maybe they need to be bigger.
    Keep up ! ;)
  • Khronos
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    Khronos polycounter lvl 9
  • mrnunez
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    mrnunez polycounter lvl 2
    Nice progress, regarding shoulders I like the 2 option, it kinda' fits with the hair style of the character. Just one small comment about colours, I rather previous saturated colours, they look really nice on this chap, but ofc is just personal taste.
  • Caelum17
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    Caelum17 null
    nice color candy style !
  • Byren
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    Byren polycounter lvl 8
    Nice! She reads really well from the isometric view
  • Hekutor
    Thanks everybody for the comments.

    Abrvpt- You are not wrong at all, but in this case this thin legs are quite caracteristic of Syndra from what I've seen in the ingame models. She is floating so she doesn't need a noticable base on the ground so this decreasing volume from top to bottom looks ok. Nonetheless, I think I should make that feet a little bit bigger, yes. And about the ball, I'll try to make pixels noticeable by working with the texture, but if it does not work I'll have to make thos pixels bigger, yes.

    mrnunez- Thank for the help, if I win something I'll have to give you half of the prize haha. I'll stick with the 2nd option too. And I'll choose the final saturation once I have the model over the game map, to make it fit perfectly, so all this stuff is provisional at this stage.

    I'm going to tweak some minor volumes and go for that retopology. Thanks everybody for helping again.
  • Dan!
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    Dan! polycounter lvl 6
    looks awesome- super clean! Regarding the ball, maybe a cube like a rubix cube would work better?
  • PhaseVariant
    So much goodness, love it!
  • Thrivius
    You need to try and transition your tones from darker with less contrast at the bottom to lighter with high contrast at the top. This is a fundamental style adopted by many games in the league genre such as dota 2. However fantastic work and i'm sure you've put a few people off entering lol.
  • Hekutor
    I perfectly know that Thrivius but thanks ;). I actually have a 3dsMax script that automatically bakes a map with those caracteristics but I must have UVs to bake it. What you see in the pictures is just a polypaint base color pass with no detail, AO bakes or anything, over the high poly model so I hope the texture is gonna get a lot better when working with photoshop ^^.
  • JessyB
    wow this idea is amazing *0* you are so talentuous! Keep it up! =D
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    what a fun entry!

    :D
  • Hekutor
    I've been working on the texture and retopology this last couple of days. I didn't wanted to post anything during this process because it's not very interesting to watch so I waited till having something more finished. There are still some things I want to tweak in the texture and the low poly model itself, but the next step will be matching the texture with the ingame scenario and then the pose, which is going to make her feel alive!

    I'm uploading the images to google+ to post them here because I don't know how to upload them from my pc, but the point is, I don't know why but the quality is horrible, I'm sorry for that :P

    LPSyndraTextured.jpg

    Texture%26WF.jpg
  • Khronos
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    Khronos polycounter lvl 9
  • Heat3d
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    Heat3d polycounter lvl 4
  • Sukotto
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    Sukotto polycounter lvl 8
    Since its a fan art contest and none of this is going into the game, I'm not sure if that matters, Nerf.

    Looks amazing Hekutor! The pixel sphere came out great! Care to share how you modeled that?
  • ethwaites
    I'm pretty sure Arcade Miss Fortune uses the Nintendo Bird Hunt gun but like Sukotto said these won't be used in game so it probably wont matter in the end. It's looking awesome though. As a new Syndra player I'd totally buy this skin if I could.
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