(Yet another) Quick Thanks...
2017 was a year full of growth and challenges, but lots of fun work came out of it as well. While League and it's characters have continued to evolve, my thank you note to the team doesn't need to change much.
This is a collection of my work on animated splash art (Login Screens) for the PC game "League of Legends" at Riot Games in 2017. Each time players launch the game, the first thing they see is one of these animated digital paintings, which show players what's new in the game. This could mean new characters, events, or skins (cosmetic content for in-game characters), and more. The screens here show my work on new champions and their updates; there are many more awesome screens created by other squads as well.
As you take a look, keep in mind that everything seen below is the result of the great teams and people at Riot Games. The Splash Art team created the awesome illustrations for us to animate, the Motion Graphics team taught me a ton about how/why we animate these, and everyone else put in great feedback to keep making each iteration better. And countless more people helped create everything else about these characters. So yeah, they all rule, but I'll be trying to tag others who had the heavier hands in the creation of these screens.
Enjoy, and thanks for your support!
Warwick - The Uncaged Wrath of Zaun
To kick off the year, we updated Warwick into a part wolf, part machine monstrosity! Complete with the ability to become enraged after catching the scent of blood...
My Role: All Animation/FX
Splash Team - Victor Maury
Music Team - Edouard Brenneisen
My Role: All Animation/FX
Splash Team - Victor Maury
Music Team - Edouard Brenneisen
Xayah and Rakan
For the first time, two champions got a combined thematic / timed release, and League got it's first champion-couple! This was an extra-wide screen full of characters, so it was fun to create a moment where they play off each other. Greg kicked butt making the cool shield effect, so I could focus on animating the many people in the scene. This musical theme is also one of my favorites!
My Role: Animation/VFX
Motion Graphics Team - Greg Platt
Splash Team - Evan Monteiro, Jason Chan, Josh Smith
Music - Sebastien Nejand
Urgot, the Dreadnought
Next we see Urgot, the chem baron's worst nightmare, getting a bad ass tune-up in the shop. The challenge on this screen was getting all the characters animated, especially the tattoo artist hanging from the ceiling! I decided to name him Lenny in my layers for some reason, probably because we spent so much time together in this project, haha...
Extra props to Jason for creating the dirtiest track League has ever heard!
Extra props to Jason for creating the dirtiest track League has ever heard!
My Role: Main Animation/VFX
Splash Team - Victor Maury
Splash Team - Victor Maury
Music Team - Jason Willey
Ornn, the Fire Below the Mountain
The most fun and hard part of animating this blacksmith was definitely the fire-breath that kicks this piece off! Props to the sound team for making that part way more impactful too, and Greg for helping me figure out that chunky-salsa lava!
My Role: All Animation/VFX
Splash Team - Josh Smith
My Role: All Animation/VFX
Splash Team - Josh Smith
Music Team - Kole Hicks
Sound FX - Sean Balas
Evelynn - Agony's Embrace
Evelynn was a tricky screen due to her living clothing, lashers, and stabbing style pose...which made me glad Adam could handle the backgrounds and create the opportunity for clouds passing over the moon. This allowed me to addemore details to her character acting meanwhile. It was also crazy creating an alternate version for Korea on the last day, but it all worked out well!
My Role: Main Animation/VFX
Background Animation / FX - Adam Oliveira
Splash Team - Jessica Oyhenart, Josh Smith
Music Team - Jason Wiley
My Role: Main Animation/VFX
Background Animation / FX - Adam Oliveira
Splash Team - Jessica Oyhenart, Josh Smith
Music Team - Jason Wiley
Preseason 2018 - Runes Update
For the preseason update we see Ezreal activating the inspiration rune at the peak of the mountain, as we see it's power radiating out in slow motion! CJ did the bulk of the work for this screen creating the col inner magic and light seeping out; I worked on guiding him with the team, and did some work on the light rays and metal as we finished up just in time for the new runes system in-game!
My Role: Animation Direction, Some Lighting and Compositing
My Role: Animation Direction, Some Lighting and Compositing
Motion Team - CJ Xander (aka RefractArt)
Splash Art - Elena Bespalova
Music Team - Mike Patti
Splash Art - Elena Bespalova
Music Team - Mike Patti
Zoe - the Aspect of Twilight
We finished the year with Zoe, one of my favorite new champs in a while! She makes portals, makes people feel sleepy with butterfly dust, and throws out crazy comet trick shots, so what's not to like! I tried to capture her restlessness here despite her chillin on a portal high above the clouds. Making the butterfly rigs were pretty fun too!
My Role: All Animation/VFX
Splash Team - Josh Smith
Music Team - Kole Hicks
My Role: All Animation/VFX
Splash Team - Josh Smith
Music Team - Kole Hicks
Thanks for checking all this out, and for your support!
I know it's late but...Happy 2017!
