Season 11 has witnessed many of our failures and growths.
I think, during the entire tournament,
no one really expected us to win the Championship.
Our team spirit (Chivalry),
step by step, carried us to the top.
So when talking about the design concept of our skin,
the elements around knights are essential.
As a team of indomitable warriors, I hope our champions
could be as well armored as we are.
I hope that the symbolic dragon
in Worlds 2021
would appear in our champion skin.
I would like to see our champion skins take on a dark tone.
I hope that our story can be incorporated into the skins in some way.
It will be really cool
if our champions look like villains.
It excites us to bring EDG, and you the players,
these awesome champion skins this year.
We, the Skins team, met with the EDG
and we all aligned on these skins looking dark, edgy,
and with a touch of villainous theme.
From there
we focused our attention on our initial spread of concepts.
The players gave us a lot of words
like "villainous, dark, edgy, the bad guys."
And it gave us this direction
that we wanted to move in
where we brought some dark clothing,
sharp shapes on everything,
moodier expressions on the characters.
We chose blue
because we the skin team and EDG felt
that blue best represented Worlds 2021
and commemorated EDG' s epic victory.
After some further discussions
with EDG players.
We learnt that
they were looking for
more Chinese armor design
in the skins.
So on the one hand
We came up with the idea of
introducing fine silver and dragon scale armor
to make that happen.
On the other hand,
motifs of abstract dragons were blended
into the designs of clothing, weapons,
and all other decorations.
We put some research into the armor scale
when transiting the concepts into the in-game models.
A special material is developed to sell that
badass and oriental aesthetic that EDG players suggested.
If you ask me the reason for picking Zoe,
I would say it's because she is one of my iconic champions,
and I also performed quite well with her in the Finals.
The visual effects of EDG skins revolved around three pillars:
battlefield, ocean of stars, and silver dragon.
The Championship trophy is what every player has been yearning for
and yet, extremely challenging for players to get their hands on.
In the design of Zoe's E spell,
we wanted to sell that idea that
every enemy champion who wants to get the trophy
will end up falling into a trap.
Zoe gives the impression of a badass girl
who is also chic and cool.
Scout's original idea
had the Worlds trophy floating around Zoe.
But in order to show more energy
and contrast in her attitude,
we tried to include something
that wasn't the trophy at first,
and then her happy-go-lucky attitude would be more prominent
when the trophy appeared.
I picked Aphelios for my winner skin because
I had so many clutch plays
and won the many battles
with him.
I'd like to commemorate that in the game.
Aphelios is a character rich in visual elements.
From the starry effects of Infernum, the dragon trajectory of Gravitum,
to the coiled dragon and EDG icon
in his Moonlight Vigil.
Every part was meticulously polished
Aphelios has 5 weapons.
It excites me to see
if we can transform these 5 weapons into the Championship trophy.
Hopefully we can do that.
Viper originally had a couple of ideas,
and we ended up going with the one
where we got to showcase all of Aphelios' weapons
being a main part of the character.
Overall,
we wanted Aphelios to feel epic,
sleek, and like the badass that he is.
I chose Graves
mainly because
he meant a lot to me.
To be frank, for a long period of time,
I remember that was in September,
I had been practicing this champion a lot.
I won the championship with Graves in the end
and that made me feel that
he deserves a new skin.
"One battle to rule the world."
This old Chinese saying
has been engraved in our minds
from the start when working on this skin.
The falling bullets in Graves's Q spell
was a great spot to introduce our idea.
Also, in both Yuumi and Graves VFXs,
we applied the same map elements
that you may find very familiar.
Flandre's idea had so many references in it.
He really wanted us to reference Lucian's guns
as well as a K-pop glow stick.
It was really difficult
for us to make such a light-hearted recall
for such a tough guy like Graves
within a non-comedic skinline.
And it's something
we had to iterate many times to get it to feel just right.
I chose Viego
because
in the Finals
Viego helped me secure
a very important victory.
I hoped that
the skin would somehow be connected to our previous games
and it could unfold our journey at Worlds.
It would be more commemorative.
For Viego,
in his ultimate,
we show the "silver dragon" and "battlefield" elements.
We took inspiration from champions
used by Jiejie in Worlds 2021
to give a nod to his overall performance.
We included weapons of base Viego,
Commando Jarvan IV,
and Marauder Xin Zhao into the champion skin design.
We also added silver dragon elements into Viego's W spell,
Spectral Maw.
Jiejie really wanted us to focus on making Viego's sword
feel powerful and flashy.
So we came up with some cool swordplay moments in the recall,
as well as adding more elements
such as the battlefield environment
and the checkmark to trophy effect.
I believe that those who watched the Championship game last year
will easily get this reference.
Well, first of all, I do like Yummi,
and she doesn't have many skins right now.
I'd like to give her a new “outfit”.
Moreover,
I myself actually have a Ragdoll at home,
so as you can see, the new Yummi is a Ragdoll.
A cute and lovely one.
Yuumi's ultimate
gives us a perfect chance
to show an ancient battlefield.
Every shock wave
represented EDG's endless attempts towards victory.
They fought together with resilience,
high morale,
and game-by-game to the Championship title.
This was how they ascend to the throne.
For recalling animation,
I thought Yummi is a champions that
constantly heals her teammates.
This can be exhausting for her after a while
so I wanted her to just lay down to take a rest.
In that case,
I wanted someone to pick up Yummi
and to gently place her into the trophy.
She would then have a good sleep.
Meiko really wanted to
push the cuteness factor in his recall idea.
Originally, he wanted a huge shadow cat behind Yuumi.
We tried to keep the intention of the idea,
changed the shadow into a hand to represent a cat's owner,
to still interact with Yuumi in a super cute way!
In our audio brainstorm
a lot of inspiration came from
the idea of legendary warriors on battlefields.
Our Shanghai audio team
then recorded sounds of nails, hammers, bells,
metal impacts,
and blended all the different textures into the audio.
Each champ had its own unique sound design story to it.
Zoe feels magical, yet quirky and mischievous.
She needs bright starry elements.
Yuumi sounds positive,
yet slippery and cunning.
Viego summons
battlefield spirits
and his sword needs to sound like it slices through everything.
Graves has magical textures to his ballistic weaponry
for extra sparkly punch.
Aphelios' weaponry
has a good blend of physicality
and starlight magic.
Working on these skins and chromas was a huge honor.
It was a pleasure to meet EDG and to translate their vision into reality.
Their victory at Worlds last year
in a 5 game series
was one of the most exciting esports moments
I’ve ever witnessed,
and I hope we’ve done justice to those moments with these skins.
I hope that these skins and their chromas delight players
just as much as it did for us making them,
and that they’ll honor the EDG players
and their amazing historical moment of victory!