@Riot: Going to do anything about Yordles and their ingame models?

Athenes Lulu·Oct 10, 2014·4 votes·18,864 views

With the massive amounts of TU's many champs received in the recent patches, I gotta say, they look... nicer (meaning, more fitting to the new SR).

However, many Yordles were still left untouched. Gonna do anything about all that?

Not gonna list them all, since it's everyone else other than ...

Hmm?

(Cough cough cough. She and her hideous chipmunk face. And 's extremely small head compared to mines. Hey, is that a short joke?!)

30 Comments

RiotIronStylusOct 10, 201412 votes

A while back we stated the Yordle Unification Pass of 2014 (The Y.U.P.). This kicked off with Hiemerdinger. He followed some unintentional design decisions from Ziggs and Lulu. However, at the same time we sat down to do some comparisons of Yordles as a whole and are touching here and there upon a Yordle style guide of sorts. We haven't been able to yet to write in stone any hard and fast rules, but we have gotten general aspects decided upon. Such as Yordles needing actual ANATOMY, not just being potatoes with huge heads. Another touching on how we possibly want to explain the furry/non-furry aspects of some Yordles versus others. We're still scratching our heads on the finer points of that, but we've got the informal ideas settled.

Either way, as we crunch along, you'll see Yordles becoming more coherent as a race, at least from a visual side of things where the Champion Update team is concerned. There are also larger discussions about background and other narrative stuff, but we deal mostly with visuals obviously. As we crank through these characters you'll see some consistency emerge. We have a couple that are in our sites currently which will be touched on in due time!

Legacy of XionOct 10, 20144 votes

A while back we stated the Yordle Unification Pass of 2014 (The Y.U.P.). This kicked off with Hiemerdinger. He followed some unintentional design decisions from Ziggs and Lulu. However, at the same time we sat down to do some comparisons of Yordles as a whole and are touching here and there upon a Yordle style guide of sorts. We haven't been able to yet to write in stone any hard and fast rules, but we have gotten general aspects decided upon. Such as Yordles needing actual ANATOMY, not just being potatoes with huge heads. Another touching on how we possibly want to explain the furry/non-furry aspects of some Yordles versus others. We're still scratching our heads on the finer points of that, but we've got the informal ideas settled.

Either way, as we crunch along, you'll see Yordles becoming more coherent as a race, at least from a visual side of things where the Champion Update team is concerned. There are also larger discussions about background and other narrative stuff, but we deal mostly with visuals obviously. As we crank through these characters you'll see some consistency emerge. We have a couple that are in our sites currently which will be touched on in due time!

Just please tell me Poppy's duck face is gone. I don't play her but that face...I have nightmares.

Talon SilverwingOct 10, 20144 votes

Did you ever consider just giving them all fur even the females? Or giving Poppy and Trist fuzzy ears similar to Lulu?

SkirenOct 10, 20141 votes

Doesn't Lulu only have fuzzy ears in her winter skin splash?(unless one of her in game models of a different skin has fur?)

FlemmanOct 10, 20144 votes

I think the female yordle unification, debate last year, promote something like giving them some feline aspect (nose, tooth, ears).

For the men, it's a furry thing (veigar and corki need to show it more for me)

BTW, if you want a sneak peek at what female yordle look like, the new blue side shop keeper is one of them ;)

CupcakeTrapOct 10, 20145 votes

I found it a bit radical, but I've come to really like Summoner 333lom's take on yordles. Here are some examples.

http://leaguefactions.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/merricurry-portrait-complete3.png

http://leaguefactions.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/void-runes.png

http://leaguefactions.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/against-the-apocalypse-1.jpg

(There are some more in the Factions art gallery.)

SkirenOct 10, 20143 votes

I've always assumed that what decides if a Yordle is furry or not is just that they have different races, like humans do. That's the most logical reason imo, as currently there's both males and females with no fur(so it's not a gender thing), and it would explain the subtle differences between their physical appearances.

A Superb VillainOct 10, 20146 votes

Just give me a Veigar Visual Update. That is all I ask; the Tiny Master of Evil deserves to be elevated alongside the likes of Heimerdinger , Twitch , Karthus , and Sion .

Imagine the delicious evil of annihilating champions in a burst of cosmic destruction leaving only a smoldering crater and the lingering echoes of sadistic laughter in their ears (global laugh upon successfully killing a champion with Primordial Burst, please).

Also, Lulu interactions, please.

"I am saving you for last, and not because I like you!" "D-do not think I will hesitate to end your meager existence, Lulu!" "Pretty... I mean weak! Weak, pathetic, fool!"

EphidelOct 10, 20142 votes

I don't understand why you guys decided to give a fancy name to a project that has, in ten months, consisted solely of updating Heimerdinger. I understand that other things are being worked on too, it just feels like you were getting ahead of yourself because you liked the acronym "Y.U.P."

NatøbaOct 10, 20146 votes

I always figured the furry nature of Yordles was some form of Pea-Cock Effect. Or sexual selection effect by more scientific terms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection

Men who are in a mating period of their life are often seen to be more radically hairy and vibrant, for instance Rumble. Opposed to say Corki or Heimdinger which may have passed their mating periods and shed the hair. Though the new Heimerdinger puts that aside now.

As for Tristana and Poppy, while generally their models need some work I think it would be beneficial to model them after a retired Riot Artist KNKL. His artwork seen here, http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=1009290. The obvious things to note are the furry ears, more akin to the lulu model but generally still a plain form.

CupcakeTrapOct 10, 20146 votes

Please confirm that Veigar is an angry little fluffball underneath the hat. It's one of my favorite LoL elements.

Burn HazardOct 10, 20143 votes

That was already confirmed though dude

CupcakeTrapOct 11, 20141 votes

YES! BAHAHAHHAHAHA!

Athenes LuluOct 11, 20141 votes

Uh... how about no thanks.

Sometimes, things are better off mysterious. Whether Veigar has fur or not is a great example.

DotintheparadoxOct 10, 20143 votes

I thought it was just a form of sexual dimorphism, with the men being hamsters, and the females being smurfs.

The only really odd one would be Corki, but you could probably change that if he gets a VU, or you could say he burned off most of his fur in some freak accident involving an engine.

ThryaleOct 10, 20144 votes

I like the idea of males being furry and females being not furry. But I don't think females are completely absent of 'fur' rather I can see them having more of a soft peach fuzz that can't be easily seen at a distance.

Burn HazardOct 10, 20143 votes

I feel like this would be a good time to repost this, which was made a while back and I feel absolutely nails what I like about Poppy. I've shown it to a bunch of other people as well, and we all agree that we'd be super happy to see her VU go in this direction.

cshakesOct 10, 20141 votes

A note on Tristana: I really like her splash art. Her expression is exactly the right shade of "I wanna shoot something!". I like her blonde hair and blue skin. I'm probably overly attached to her hairstyle. Update her model, textures and animations all you want, but please keep Classic Tristana's splash. (This coming from someone who doesn't even play ADC...)

EDIT: This is a good example of what I think Tristana should look like.

RiviniOct 12, 20145 votes

With Lulu, the only thing she honestly needs is cheek reduction surgery (also Poppy), with a little polish here and there. As she is now, she looks like a squirrel hoarding acorns in her mouth.

All the yordles excluding Heimerdinger, Lulu, Ziggs, and Gnar (obviously) badly need a full VU.

Legacy of XionOct 10, 20143 votes

Poppy's splash art.

Battle Regalia is good but ingame the face.

THE. FACE. IT BURNS.

Burn HazardOct 10, 20142 votes

It's not even that bad in game, It's just the splash art that turns her frowny smirk into... that.

(that and the red lighting washes out her blue skin and make it look a sickly shade of grey)

IMTOOJUICYOct 10, 20143 votes

Been playing Corki in ranked lately when I need to play ADC... he needs something to distinguish his identity as a yordle. RIght now, someone new to the game would probably think Corki is just an old shriveled dude inside a plane.

21496640_DELOct 10, 20143 votes

Hi Sadistic Lulu,

I agree on everything but I do not think Lulu splashes need to be changed. It looks perfect, too cute already. I can be sure that many players prefer to keep that old Lulu portrait. I doubt any change on her will be just worse. however if the new one is really better, then yes.

Thanks for your attention!

Athenes LuluOct 12, 20141 votes

I'm referring to ingame models specifically.

But yes, I agree. I mean, I still look like myself in splash arts and all.

AzarianOct 10, 20142 votes

I really hope Kennen gets one soon, also one thing I really hope is I've always liked the thought of Kennen being one of the younger Yordle's I think it adds a really cute dynamic feel with him among the Kinkou being just a little kid in training along with Akali and Shen.

AzarianOct 11, 20141 votes

On the subject of Kennen, this was kind of my own take of how I'd love to see how he'd look now, just a cute little Kiddo yordle whose training to be the heart, I think making him a kid still learning would add a fun dynamic between the three.

BlahDSOct 13, 20141 votes

even though you say that, the new yordle splash arts have inconsistency among the number of fingers they have, for example, trist has 5 fingers, whereas most yordles have 4. HOWEVER, some skins of yordles have different numbers of fingers. i.e. lolipoppy and scarlet hammer poppy (not confirmed to have 5 fingers, but if scarlet hammer only has 4 then they are in a weird position)

Athenes LuluOct 13, 20141 votes

Even though I'm speaking of ingame models, but the new Tristy and Veigar splash arts...

And if you noticed, Tristy have furry ears too!

(On a side note, as a failed artist, I finally get a better picture of what she's wearing.)

Athenes LuluOct 13, 20141 votes

For those who are too lazy to check surrender @ 20, here's Veigar's. <333

Athenes LuluOct 13, 20142 votes

Also, the Rumble one.

Not a fan of him, but he looks... cute, like the adorable cute :)