representation of the different types of human skin tones are pretty important, especially when a game is this big and has such a wide array of players/fans who come from all sorts of places with all sorts of backgrounds and ethnicities themselves. (emphasis on HUMAN champions here)
for those of us who are not paler skinned, it can be very frustrating to see characters with skin tones that are closer to ours be brought out only to have their following skins/art suddenly become more and more light. when i started playing league, i fell in love right away with riven in particular because my first thought upon seeing her was, "wow, she looks like me and she's badass!" it made me feel more welcome in a small way - this was when her art was the one used before the current updated one with the vague background and very clear tan-coloured skin. i am half black and half white so my skin colour is similar to hers. in my head she shared a similar background to me and wasn't just some pale-skinned person who'd gotten a tan during all her wanderings in her exile.
eventually i did start to notice the lack of variety in human champions's skin tones as well as the inconsistency in riven's arts in particular. there are so many ethnicities in our real world that this game could take from but we keep seeing the same type of paler skinned champions time after time or it seems that updates and other skins have this lightening of the skin tone to them, which honestly is hurtful to people like me even if it's not consciously intentional.
another one that comes to mind is miss fortune - in her previous classic splash art, she had a clear tan and that made sense for someone like her who travels so frequently and is no doubt in the sunshine often. but her current one is incredibly pale for a character of her type... it really makes me wonder why this trend of lightening skin tones seems to happen so often but all i have to do is look at one of these comments from a couple of days ago and i find my answer:
"If Riot had to make a few edits, I'd say lighten the face and a little around the neck to make it look a little more pleasing."
whether or not the depth of this sentence is apparent to the person who said it and anyone who reads it and agrees, there is still no question that the idea of lighter/paler skin being what is most appealing is still there, which means darker skin is seen as less appealing... which is very, very problematic.
and is why this topic even matters, especially to those of us who are not pale skinned and have to see changes like this and wonder if the artists realize just how deep a statement is made when it does happen.
