Viktor Fullmachine

This is about a character design for League of Legends.  http://na.leagueoflegends.com/

I've decided to post some of the development work for both his concept and the illustration, to give people an idea of different options to show.


THE CONCEPT:  

Viktor is a villain type character.  This is a version of him (called a reskin, which is not a new texture but a whole new mesh based on the same rig).  Fullmachine is the "evolved" version of Viktor, in which he has finally replaced his entire body with machinery.

Here is some text from the brief:

After years of perfecting his augmentations, Viktor has succeeded in fusing his soul with an efficient magical humanoid machine. He is made entirely of various metals, and no organic materials. Magic is bursting from within him, and his design is a lot more refined, while retaining the fantasy grungy feel.
    Armour:   Refined, yet grungy. All metal. Keep it fantasy.
    Body: Made entirely of metal, with magic emanating from holes, gaps and generators (No Jacket).
    Cape: Segmented metal armour, like roman scale mail.
    Colour: All dark and desaturated, except for bright green magic.

So the challenge is to make it a scifi-theme, but with more of a fantasy aesthetic.  So... steampunk!  :D

Here are some of the first color studies for him.  It was supposed to be dark and desaturated with green magic coming from within, but the client decided that wasn't the direction they wanted.  Instead they wanted brighter colors and to get rid of the internal glow.  

Here are the next batch:  brighter options, no glow.  They picked C.

Here's color option C as the final concept!  

Here he is in 3D!  (Please note that I did not model/texture/rig him.  This was done at Brilliant Colors.)  Anyway, the colors ended up being changed later on.

Finally, here's an HD video someone made of the character!  It's a hoot to see him animated after staring at a static drawing for hours.





THE ILLUSTRATION:  

So, the next order of business was the splash.  Splash art is used to promote new characters and their skin variations on Riot's website.  It's also a big part of their store.  They're important because the game makes its money on these microtransactions.  The left side has to be low contrast and somewhat negative space since that's where the character's info box goes.

Anyway, here's the client's brief:

This skin shows the future of Victor, where he has replaced all of his humanity with machinery. He is "complete". He should be portrayed standing grand and majestically, Lord of the machines! In the background is something almost like a throne room made of hextechnological machinery. The technology in the background should follow a similar style to what you see in his costume design, kinda chunky and heavy and not too sleek or hightech.

So again, the challenge is to create a setting that is both science fiction and fantasy at the same time.

Here's the first round of thumbnails sent to the client.  We don't send 6 anymore, just 2 good ones.  I tried to make him look proud, or like "Bring it on!" type of attitude.  And, since he's villainous, we gotta go with the evil laugh (like in C).    

They chose Thumb B.

Here are a couple studies after I got the rough approved (it basically looked like a black and white version of  the top one).  I was learning towards A, but Randis Albion (our art director) suggested B.  That ended up being what Riot picked.

So I ran with rendering up B.

Here's  my result, and what I submitted to them.

After they got my layered PSD, they ended up changing the colors to match the newly-changed colors on the model.  I like the vibrancy and better contrast of lights and darks on their version, but wish I would've known about the new colors in advance. I think the colors ended up clashing with the piece as a whole (kind of every color of the rainbow in there).

So anyway, there you have it.

Bonus

Bonus:  Here's a rough of Viktor Prototype, another skin variation.  He's a whooole different story!  (The first stage of Viktor's mechanical evolution).  But I won't post since I didn't finish off that one.  But at least this gives an idea of what a black and white rough looks like (the step after the thumb and before the color variations).