Pool Party 
- I get why he's getting the skin.
Pool Party 
- I get why she's getting the skin.
Pool Party 
- Is a bit of a surprise to me when you could see others as better candidates.
How are champions chosen for the pool party theme?
RiotKindlejack15 votesThere's been a few threads lately asking how champions are chosen for skins, and this is a good question for me because I helped worked on this patch.
It's generally difficult to answer in a satisfying way without giving away information about future releases. For example; last year, for pretty much the entire year leading up to the event, we already had the skins for PROJECT locked in and were working hard on them. This meant for all that time when players asked 'Why no Pool Party Lucian!?' and 'Why are you ignoring Zed?' we had to stay quiet, when I would love to have said "Don't worry, they're coming and they are awesome!". I've talked in the past about why we choose not to talk about future plans or make promises when our work and goals changes so often - so keep in mind that at all times we are choosing champions in a very in-depth way and have a lot of information to drive our decisions we can't share at that time.
We ask questions like;
Then we choose a short list and do some exploration sketches to see which ideas are working best in a visual medium, from there we choose the final champions and get to work!
The Yetii Rider1 votesHey Kindlejack, now that the skins are getting put up into big 'theme' patches, is there a chance that some of the older skin types might get their own theme?
I happen to be a fan of Spellthief Lux and would like to see other Spellthief skins on some other mages.
Corporate Mundo is really amusing and after seeing the Academy skin line, I was hoping we might get like some 'office worker' themed skins that would show these champions ditching the daily grind to go throw down on the Rift!
I have no doubt Riot has gotten many many requests for a Sinful Succulence Pantheon skin at this point.
I have heard MANY people asking for more Star Guardian skins (I think Star Guardian makes a nice parallel to the Super Galaxy skins, each appealing to their own audience).
We have a lot of water and ice themed skins with Snowdown and Pool Party, but not too many Infernal or Fire-themed skins.
I know you can't give specifics, but is there any chance that some of the older skins are being expanded into new categories, like at all?
Spitemaster6 votesSpellthief Lux is actually a reference to her lore - she's a magical prodigy who steals spells; for instance, her light binding was reverse-engineered from Morgana's dark binding after only seeing once.
GreatAlina1 votes[deleted]
RiotKindlejack3 votesSpitemaster is right about Lux's Spellthief skin - it's special to her because it's part of her lore. If there was a more specific thematic hook or trope to lean into though it could inspire future skins.
As a long time player who still feels relatively new to Riot I really love looking back at old skins and finding ways to develop skin lines from them. This was where the 'House of Cards', 'Academy' and 'RPG' skins came from - Jack of Hearts Twisted Fate, Professor Ryze/Headmistress Fiora and Rugged Garen. One-off skins that are popular also inspire us to build out skins lines - Pool Party Ziggs, PROJECT: Yasuo, Arcade Sona. I'll always push for this kind of expansion because I really enjoy fleshing out existing thematics or coming back to them to do a modern take - and I'm not alone; Deep Sea Nami comes to mind as another 2.0 of an old thematic.
The Yetii Rider2 votesWell okay. As someone who is an avid D&D fan, the term 'spellthief' has a different connotation for me than others, I guess.
I'm glad that we can see expect to see more new skins from old ideas in the future. I really do think that the skins team is on point with the notion that players enjoy pairing up skins.
What can you say about the 'Newscaster' line though? This is one that I'm sure many people want to see a complete team for (it's nice that we have the bot lane so far but we need more!)
We have Forecast Janna and Primetime Draven, which are two very different concepts that seem to mesh so well together. And I've heard Anchorman Nautilus mentioned more than once in the past.
I know it's a bit of an undertaking since all of these skins would need to be 1820 tier by nature, but can't we have just one 1820 line of thematic skins?
Your thoughts?
Suggestions for the line:
Anchorman Nautilus Political Pundit Talon - (Seriously, he doesn't have ONE political skin?! He's a 'diplomat'!) 'Eyes in the Sky' Corki - (With a focus on traffic stuff to avoid crossover with Forecast Janna) Crime Analyst Caitlyn Legal Expert Ezreal
RiotKindlejack2 votesAs I understand it 'Prime Time Draven' is sort of an eSports skin that represent Draven as a Shoutcaster. Forecast Janna is a stand-alone that works great for her, but I'm not sure the idea of a newsteam has legs. At most I could see an Anchorman, reporting on the events of the game, as a legendary but I don't think many people want to play as a Legal Expert >:P
Hammerpriest2 votesLegal Expert Jinx
The Yetii Rider2 votesOkay. Thanks for the quick response!
RiotKindlejack2 votesThanks for asking a great question! I love it when I find questions I can properly answer. My friend iZac is a VFX artist and is always hoping someone will post a VFX question.
RottedApples1 votesspeaking of zac, is he hard to make skins for? He's just a big blob of goo so what can you really do besides change his color and stick a few things into his body and see what happens?
that said he could easily get a full rainbow chroma pack that has literally every color of the rainbow and more in it because he is just a big blob of goo.
Tortferngatr1 votesAFAIK his model is basically 100% deforming stuff (don't think he has any actual bones). That means he kind of needs more work to make stuff for than average.
RottedApples1 votesi mean more from a thematic side of things. You can make a lot of trolly/food skins easily, like bubblegum or cookie dough but how do you actually manage to make something serious of him.
DeathBurst2 votesFor what it's worth, I dig a Talon in a classy suit, like Xin for instance, and I like the idea of the champs living a "common life", with skin lines like Primetime/Forecast/Academy/Succulense/etc. I could totally get behind a "Political Pundit Talon", or any other theme that could give him lots of sarcastic/cynical remarks about the deplorable state of the world today, all the while slaying people for their very irresponsible investments. ^^
RiotKindlejack4 votesI want a real-world LoL anime, where Jax has a pizzaria, Singed works at an apiary and Talon is a high profile defence attourney.
Dessem1 votes"Diplomat Talon," espousing the glory of Noxian Diplomacy all around the world.
nosafterburn2 votesso does this mean Scuba Gragas is related to the Deep Sea skins line now?
RiotKindlejack3 votesOh... Holy crap maybe >:0
Linna Excel1 votesThank you for answering.
- does this theme have global appeal? (I discovered Pool Noodles are not well known in China, so we did some follow up on Fiora before committing to it)
How much does this come into play? For example, people at the swimming pool or beach seems like a no brainer even if a pool noodle is an unknown.
- does this theme provide a strong alternate fantasy?
Okay I get the feeling this is why Fiora got a pool party skin. She didn't have anything playful or fun.
RiotKindlejack2 votesHow much does this come into play?
It's actually really important! LoL is a global game and NA isn't the majority of our audience any more so it's vital we are aware of what's trending or appealing all over the world. Having said that, it's also ok to make skins that resonate more with a specific region here and there when we are really confident in the theme.
Your thinking is spot-on with Fiora, if a character already has a fun/trolly skin they are less likely to get another, particularly back-to-back. Gragas comes to mind as having almost entirely troll skins, which is why I thought Caskbreaker would be a solid addition to his catalog (although in the splash he ended up still pretty goofy).
Brutusness1 votesThat makes me think, if Gragas were to get a truly non-comedic skin, what ideas would you have? I think it may need to be a Legendary so he could have new lines that fit a serious skin better than his base ones.
RiotKindlejack3 votesPROJECT: Gragas That's what I would do. But it's not up to me >:)
Sahn Uzal1 votesMarauder Gragas sounds pretty badass tbh
RiotKindlejack2 votesIt does!
Voidrey1 votesI hope that one day Infernal Teemo will cross your minds. one day. one day...
RiotKindlejack2 votesI feel like it's only a matter of time before we make a skin reflecting his true nature...
Particularly because we think not only about the personality of the champion, but also the way that champion feels to play and the players perceptions.
EROTIC RAID BOSS1 votesWhats a good way to suggest skin ideas? I had an idea for lava themed karthus and kogmaw skins.
like karthus q would be a lava bubble popping, w would be a zone around him he heats up, r would be eruptions under people etc
RiotKindlejack2 votesI browse the Art/Concept section of the boards daily as well as checking in on reddit. You can also tweet at some of the more active Skins team Rioters (such as KateyKhaos and NurseFlan). Solid ideas tend to rise to the top and get seen by Rioters.
Having said that it mainly helps us be aware of what some of our players are excited by - rarely are there any ideas we haven't already thought of internally. For example; taking any existing skin thematic and applying it to another champion? You can be pretty sure we've considered it. Also for me I can only read forums in English, a language which only a small fraction of our players speak, so I try not to give too much weight to how popular an idea is - just how well it meets the aforementioned goals.
Ralanr1 votesI know it's kinda rude to just ask you after telling us about the concepts forum, but I just want to ask you something.
Pool Party Sion. Thoughts?
RiotKindlejack2 votesMy first question is always "What are the thematic hooks?" for example: Pool Party Fiora - her sword is a pool noodle, her decals have an art nouveau style, her ult is water balloons that pop as she triggers them and in her recall she fights a crab with a wooden sword.
Raxistaicho2 votesI have to ask, why not Pool Party Ahri?
This isn't some "I want Ahri in a bikini, hurr durr" post, mind you, and I remember reading from a Rioter that her tails would be an issue, so likely she'd have to have a waist wrap like Leona and Miss Fortune. I'm just thinking there's a lot of fun you could pull off:
Q becomes a volleyball and it makes funny bouncing ball noises when it hits enemies. Tying into her passive, when her passive is ready a foxy grin graphic could overlay the beach ball. W becomes clods of sand. E becomes something tasty people eat at the beach, like shaved ice. R's trickier, maybe it could be a wave kicking up around her out of nowhere and she rides or surfs on it.
Tortferngatr2 votesAhri throwing a volleyball for Q, a snow cone for E, and surfing for her ult? Sign me up.
macromite1 votesSpeaking about the crab. Crab lives matter. https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSsCRUL0Etv-sT0wr7QznPSL3STgYVQSYV8tsNdYpM66VqAbRXwCNSsXNg
Sweet Katarina1 votesOn the background of Pool party Taric there are Fiora, MF and Braum. Does Braum was planned initially but was cancelled? There are many chars on backgrounds on other skins. Like Vaine, Katarina, Ahri, Oriana, Gragas, Khazix, Lux, Ez. Can we expect them somewhen (At least Kat, screw the others)?
RiotKindlejack2 votesThe other characters in the pool party splashes were just drawn in by the splash artist for fun. Many of our illustrators also do concept art here and there and dreaming up what they might look like gives them a nice break from rendering. In general we try not to do this (or keep it vague like Academy) because it sets up expectations for future skins we may never make, but for Pool Party it's become something of a tradition.
The illustrator for PP Fiora even requested I bang out a rough concept for a certain champion so he could feature more prominently in her splash art, but if we made him an actual Pool Party skin we'd take a lot more time nailing the design.
patmax171 votesThe illustrator for PP Fiora even requested I bang out a rough concept for a certain champion so he could feature more prominently in her splash art
It's Tryndamere, isn't it? :D
RiotKindlejack2 votes'tis
patmax171 votesI love the tattoo :D
Decrit1 votes... is that diana under the umbrella? Or is it Ashe? the motif on the bra suggests me the latter.
YepThatsMahogany1 votes... is that diana under the umbrella? Or is it Ashe? the motif on the bra suggests me the latter.
It's Ashe c:
RiotKindlejack1 votes'tis Ashe! She's looking a little perturbed because her husband just had his noodle snapped by Demacia's premier duelist. And those things are like $5
Mysticman891 votesAshe has a husband?
I was not informed.
Jeddy0172 votesYeah, it's a lore thing. Ashe & Tryndamere got married to combined their tribes & increase their strengths. So it's pretty much a political marriage & whether or not they have feelings for each other has yet to be seen in lore.
RogueWill1 votesThere's been a few threads lately asking how champions are chosen for skins, and this is a good question for me because I helped worked on this patch.
It's generally difficult to answer in a satisfying way without giving away information about future releases. For example; last year, for pretty much the entire year leading up to the event, we already had the skins for PROJECT locked in and were working hard on them. This meant for all that time when players asked 'Why no Pool Party Lucian!?' and 'Why are you ignoring Zed?' we had to stay quiet, when I would love to have said "Don't worry, they're coming and they are awesome!". I've talked in the past about why we choose not to talk about future plans or make promises when our work and goals changes so often - so keep in mind that at all times we are choosing champions in a very in-depth way and have a lot of information to drive our decisions we can't share at that time.
We ask questions like;
- are they scheduled for rework or roster changes?
- are we already working on a skin for that champion?
- has that champion recently had a skin? (not counting World Champion skins)
- does that champion have a skin that is similar? (I'd say it's unlikely we'll do PROJECT: Lissandra after Program)
- does this theme play up the things we love most about this champion?
- does this theme have global appeal? (I discovered Pool Noodles are not well known in China, so we did some follow up on Fiora before committing to it)
- do we have the bandwidth to complete a skin for that champion before the event?
- do their champion pillars have overlap with the theme? (eg. 'Pop Star Gnar' would be a hard sell, not impossible though!)
- does this theme provide a strong alternate fantasy? (eg. 'Soulstealer Thresh' would just be his base)
Then we choose a short list and do some exploration sketches to see which ideas are working best in a visual medium, from there we choose the final champions and get to work!
Are we getting 5 pool party skin this year or just 3? We are still missing a mage and a jungler, previous tear we have gotten one for each role
RiotKindlejack1 votes3 skins for pool party this year. The nature of the thematic requires that all the skins be mid tier, and there are other sets this year we also want to hit!
DeathBurst1 votesThe nature of the thematic requires that all the skins be mid tier
hmm? Why?
RiotKindlejack3 votesWell Pool Party costuming is generally pretty minimal and so a lot of the value comes from the vfx and "Wet and wild sfx" as our audio engineer would say. However a couple of years back I did suggest that possibly Nami would be the only candidate for a 750 pool party skin as her effects are already water - but as you know she just got a Deep Sea skin.
DeathBurst1 votesAh, mid-tiers by opposition to low-tiers? But he's a legendary/ultimate pool party skin in the realm of possibilities?
