Masks and champion design

Blood Magicks · 2016-03-21T14:46:28.795Z

Earlier in League history, these two charts appeared to point at boring champion design: The male and female body type charts. I've recently been noticing a similar trend with the way humanoid champions of each gender are presented. We already know that the male monster champions heavily outnumber the female monsters. So let's consider the humanoids only. Male human (humanoid) champs (counting yordles because there are about as many female ones): Female humanoid champs: (Wolf is just a glorified particle effect imo) Now, which of these are masked? Masked men: (it's sort of his face, we're not certain?) Headgear or things obscuring most of their faces: Masked women: Covering headgear: Which of the masked men have skins that unmask them? , two of those do not count completely. Which of the masked women have skins which unmask them? . If I were very much into social issues, I would say that this is because male champs are for self-insertion and female champs are for waifu. But I'm not. I'm just really into Jhin and Azir and am dying for an unmasked Jhin and a pre-ascension Azir. I wish Malz, Zed and Shen would drop the hijab too tbh. EDIT: Feel free to correct me by the way, this all is off the top of my head.

Sahn UzalMar 22, 201610 votes

(as well as male beauty!)

Uhng Taric Male beauty intensifies summoner 31

MarbelaraMar 22, 20164 votes

Would be cool to see more champs with Talon/Malz/TF's body type. Athletic but not quite bodybuilder. Also with a visible face pls? I know men love the bulky, square champs, but I'm honestly surprised how little of the 'parkour' males are there in league. Skinny, yes, but athletic like that? Not really :( C'mon.

Also, smaller breasted females, but not for the usual reasons; just more body variety. Smol boob still good boob ;__; It allows for a very graceful, lithe, innocent appearance. You can kinda see that approach in Lamb, though she isn't human.

Sahn UzalMar 22, 20162 votes

If you count Captain Gangplank as a default skin (GP has 2 default skins :P)... but he might be a little bit old Graves is a pretty sexy bastar I guess. Kassadin may be purple & masked, but he has a sixpack without being Darius :p Gragas is sexy as shit pls don't tell him, I don't wanna hurt his feelings ;-; summoner 31

MarbelaraMar 22, 20162 votes

Yes, Graves is a sexy bastard. Hnnngh. But all the champions you described still count as the bulky ones. Very pretty. But bulky. Look at the size of their biceps!

Jack ºMar 23, 20162 votes

You my friend, understand me perfectly <3

RiotKindlejackMar 23, 20165 votes

I agree. In conversations I often find people prefer Soccer player's physiques to more muscular builds. I'd say Lucian and Yasuo fit into this category, and they are two of the most recent men we've done (along with Braum and Jhin).

RiotKindlejackMar 23, 20165 votes

Just you wait >:P

Blood MagicksMar 23, 20162 votes

This makes me so excited. Basically a confirmation he IS going to be the Jack Harkness of League?

what you deserveMar 23, 20165 votes

Ezreal Draven Ekko Draven Garen Draven Braum

RiotBioluminescenceMar 23, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Thank you! It seems that so few in this thread remember Ekko's release. He is a non-beefcake, parkour/footballer figured, human male released in the last year. Attitude for days.

http://i.imgur.com/Ug8WHf7.jpg

Also - have you considered adding Draven to your list, Regaline?

DesideriumMar 23, 20167 votes

Actually, I think most of the reason people don't mention Ekko is because he's so young. He's not an adult, so his body type isn't developed enough to be worth arguing for or against. I think that's why people don't mention him.

Also, Draven is on her list.

ReposerMar 23, 20162 votes

Ekko's pretty. Desirderium brought up a good point though - age. Though at the same time, I'm wondering just how old Ezreal is. If I remember, Ekko's supposed to be 16? (From the Q&A at release if I'm recalling properly). I think of Ezreal as pretty young though too, at 16-17, so I wonder why he may seem to be older to others, whilst Ekko doesn't. Is it because of their attitudes? Ekko seems less confident, but more mature, than Ezreal, in my opinion. Iunno, just thinking stuff outloud, I think Ekko's good looking tho, along with the others.

DesideriumMar 24, 20164 votes

Ezreal is an anime boy. They can have very misleading physical appearances. IMO he's definitely older than 16 but not older than 20.

what you deserveMar 25, 20162 votes

Oh yeah, Draven too.

HowPlayGAEMMar 22, 20162 votes

[deleted]

RiotKindlejackMar 23, 20163 votes

Yes in a traditionally patriarchal society the assumption is that fictional characters are male unless explicitly indicated. It kind of sucks but it's the world as we find it, and I think it's largely the reason for boob-plates, exposed female faces and feminised monsters.

I think we have sexy champions in LoL that are great for sexy skins. My issue would be if we started sexualising all female champs, or like you say not sexualising any male champs. That is something we will not do.

HellioningMar 23, 20162 votes

Well, it's something you did. Now you just have to make up for it. Which, to be fair, you kinda are; nothing like the Officer skins or Battle Bunny Riven came out recently.

what you deserveMar 23, 20163 votes

Rek'Sai isn't really all that feminized imo. Same with Illaoi.

Blood MagicksMar 22, 20163 votes

Thanks! While I generally don't shy away from social topics, I am aware that starting this discussion without need can get quite messy so it's generally a good idea to avoid it. But if we go down that route, I recently conducted a poll in a female-dominated League community regarding which male champion they found the most attractive. Almost all of the unmasked human ones were mentioned, with Talon (different skins reveal different portions of his face so people get the full picture I guess), Xin and Jayce being the top three. No masked ones were voted for. So I guess that unmasking increases the chance of a champion being perceived romantically. This is why a user further down was outraged about Kayle becoming waifu-fied through her skins and some people find the overly sexual, but masked Jhin confusing.

EDIT: So I have been quite shy about asking this, but is it a conscious design choice? "I made this shadow-assassin-ninja (and the 20 like him) so don't you dare get a crush on him" despite the strong waifu factor going on with the female champions?

RiotKindlejackMar 23, 20164 votes

Not everything that Riot has done or will do will turn out the way we want it to, but you can be sure that behind every decision was a huge amount of thought and consideration. As an artist I would say that every design choice is conscious and deliberate, because guaranteed you're going to have a heap of Rioters coming to you asking you why you made the decisions you did and you'll need to have a good reason.

Speaking specifically for the skins team, we are aware that our audience is predominantly male and we are aware that our female champions are by and large more beloved than the males. For example small things like Fiora's hairstyle becomes hugely contentious. When we were working on PROJECT Fiora Riot Zeronis really impressed upon us the importance of revealing Fiora's face on the recall insisting that it is very important for our Fiora players. We trusted him and I feel like he was correct. When I was still doing fan art I designed a skin for 'Eclipse Leona' that garnered some traction within the community but overwhelmingly responses I got were 'It looks good except I can't see her beautiful face!'. How much we serve this preference and when is something we always discuss because we believe it is an important issue. My instinct is to embrace it and instead ensure that there's plenty of attractive male characters too, because when you create beautiful characters it's not surprising that people want to enjoy their beauty.

In regards to design in general I think masks are super-in right now as a cool way of creating mystery and menace. And in LoL we have really been launching a lot of mysterious champions recently and menacing characters regularly. Zed? makes him nightmarish. Jhin? makes him impossible to empathise with. Bard? total mystery don't even know what's under there. It's not because of a 'waifu' factor, just a useful narrative tool to reinforce a desired feel for a champion.

I also make a habit of asking players who they think the most attractive male champions are and I've found that the top champs are Darius, Jayce, TF and Ezreal and when I ask why it's always to do with the face and the expression, so I agree that when it comes to romantic association it is definitely all about the face!

DesideriumMar 23, 20161 votes

{quoted}

In regards to design in general I think masks are super-in right now as a cool way of creating mystery and menace. And in LoL we have really been launching a lot of mysterious champions recently and menacing characters regularly. Zed? makes him nightmarish. Jhin? makes him impossible to empathise with. Bard? total mystery don't even know what's under there. It's not because of a 'waifu' factor, just a useful narrative tool to reinforce a desired feel for a champion.

"A desired feel for a champion"

Does this imply that Zed will never have an Unmasked skin (or, a skin where he is coincidentally without a mask, like a Pentakill skin for example, or Arclight) because it would take away from the "desired feel?" Even though skins are generally regarded as fun alternate realities that should be allowed to occasionally break the "desired feel" of a champion? Even though a Pentakill/Rockstar Zed wouldn't actually detract very much from his dark nature, even if he had no mask.

I think a case can be made for romantic association being POSSIBLE for characters like Zed, but the lack of Unmasked skins (or skins that coincidentally have them unmasked while having another theme) prevent that from being possible. Don't you agree it's kind of unfair to Zed, Talon, Jhin, and Shen to say that, when the champions you mentioned (Darius, Jayce, TF, Ez) are unmasked to begin with?

Sorry if I come across as crass. I've always dreamt of a Pentakill skin for Zed where he's unmasked and has an awesome emo rocker look to him, and you kind of dashed my hopes of there ever being any kind of skin where he is even just unmasked.

RiotKindlejackMar 24, 20162 votes

Oh yeah for sure. I was talking specifically about Champion design. On skins we are given a lot of liberty to push champions in whatever ways we feel will heighten a thematic. Even when designing Jhin we asked the question of what is underneath the mask because there was hypothetical talk of revealing his face in a future skin. But then again how much of those champion's identity becomes tied to the mask? When you see Bards mask you recognise Bard, but would you have the same recognition and association if you saw what was behind it? And what if Zed/Jhin/Kassadin don't look how you imagined? Is that disappointing for players?

I think there would need to be a compelling reason to do it for a skin, and then we would need to talk to Champion team and Foundations to get the okay to show the champion's face and the information about what that champion looks like. The other teams have a lot of plans for the future and we need to make sure skins aren't treading on those plans - co-operation is super important! But if we have all that then we could show a champion's face in a skin and totally would.

Mysticman89Mar 24, 20161 votes

Aren't skins for alternate fantasies and not necessarily canon?

As such, couldn't you have an unmasked skin with whatever floats your boat, and just declare it non-canon (or even just not say it is canon) if it doesn't jive with champion/foundations vision of the 'true' face of the champion?

I don't feel like theres any huge issue with having one facial style in one skin and a somewhat different style in another (vlad has a variety of faces amongst his skins off the top of my head), so people could still have their visions of the unmasked champion be potentially true even with some unmasked skins.

RiotKindlejackMar 24, 20162 votes

Well, Unmasked Kayle very much is Kayle and if there was just one skin where we showed Zed's face it's not unrealistic to imagine that this will become the assumed face of Zed. Also while we think of skins as Alternate Fantasies for our champions they are more often than not worlds in which that champion has a different role, profession or history but their personality and physiognomy remain intact. Not always the case but more often than not because we've learned that that is very important to many players.

Blood MagicksMar 23, 20166 votes

I am absolutely okay with Riot's recent portrayal of female champions. I think you guys managed to strike the balance between sexy and respectable and include a variety of designs as well.

What bugs me is the attitude towards male champions has changed not at all or very little. As I see it, a mask offers a tradeoff and a choice:

No mask: The character is relatable, feels more believable and complete, may be perceived romantically.

Mask: One aspect of the character is greatly accentuated and the complexity of their face and expressions is replaced by a simple set of shapes. This erases or decreases the "No mask" qualities. Adds mystery and ambiguity in their place.

Now while for some male champions this choice makes sense, others, especially the early designs, seem to lose rather than win from it. I find it strange that Riot tried to create characters with some psychological depth and a lot of story like Zed and Shen but never once showed their faces, not even in illustrations of their early lives to accompany the flavor text (whereas this happened with Lissandra). (Though I rather disagree with the red eyed white haired Zed fanarts, the hot albino bishounen role is already reserved Vladimir )

Further examples in my opinion are Kassadin Malzahar JarvanIV MasterYi

If we are to make yet more social comments, in general denying the male characters a face and relatability is yet another aspect of them being portrayed as emotionless automata rather than real people, which has its implications. Some people are already tired of the overuse of that, since plenty complained about the lack of personality in reworked Pantheon lore. Again this is all for Riot to decide.

If you would like my opinion in the attractiveness poll, my husbandos are Talon Malzahar and Vladimir (the number of people on these boards who are gay for the last one is uncanny, he seems to attract people regardless of orientation, probably because of the heavy scent of 90s nostalgia coming from him).

AuryielMar 23, 20166 votes

I don't really understand what you're trying to say here.

Female champions CAN'T have masks because you don't want them to be mysterious or menacing? That's only reserved for male champions and very few exceptions?

VekknaMar 22, 20168 votes

As someone who is "into social issues (tm)," I would personally love to see more champs like Jayce, Varus, Zyra, Katarina, Syndra, Janna, etc.

When it comes to real life issues, I'll fight to the death. In my video games, I just want to be sexy as fuck while kicking some ass. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Sadly, there hasn't been a single sexy champ released for, like, 2 seasons. And while the Illaois and Kindreds and Jhins are all artistically beautiful, I think it's time to bring sexy back, Rito. It's our turn!

RiotKindlejackMar 23, 20166 votes

I agree with you, and my wife is very much the same. She will always go for the most scantily clad voluptuous female avatar, despite being a strong proponent for equal treatment and women's rights. Sexy can be fun, and there's nothing wrong with it. However I think the reason you haven't seen a sexy female champ for a while is that in the earlier roster we made a whole pile of them, and they're still there, so when it comes to adding something new it's not often something we look at and think 'yes, this is what's missing from LoL'.

LankPantsMar 23, 20162 votes

I think it's just a matter of finding a good balance in champion releases.

Recently champs have been overwhelmingly otherworldly and non-human. There's really not been any champions that people can actually relate to. There's been a lot of this with Kindred, Bard, Tahm and Sol. Even Illaoi feeds into this somewhat, while she is a human character she's still utilising power that feels otherworldly. Jhin is just an unrelatable character, he's not a character who you can really project yourself onto. That more or less leaves Ekko as the only recent champion who you could really relate or project onto. Before this you'd have to go all the way back to Braum, who's release was around 2 years ago.

However I think the reason you haven't seen a sexy female champ for a while is that in the earlier roster we made a whole pile of them, and they're still there, so when it comes to adding something new it's not often something we look at and think 'yes, this is what's missing from LoL'.

I'd argue that really doesn't mean you should stop making them entirely. Make less, sure but to stop making them entirely seems too far in the other direction.

Recently I've been disinterested in new champions because none of them are at all interesting to me. I like the idea of powerful people, rather than powerful deities, which feels like what recent champs have been gravitating towards. I miss champs like Syndra and Zyra, it feels like champ design has started to shun the idea of exceptional people recently though.

RiotKindlejackMar 23, 20162 votes

I totally agree and I hope that soon we see the pendulum swing back the other way. As quirky and unique as some of the characters have been they aren't as easy to relate to as Ekko. Personally I really dig Jhin, but we know that he's sort of a niche character type. It probably has something to do with the people on champ team and what fascinates them, and as Rioters move between teams this is naturally reflected in the products.

EROTIC RAID BOSSMar 23, 201611 votes

As someone who does care about diversity a bit id say do more human characters... but not more characters that look like Katarina. There's a lot of unexplored territory, in terms of race body type and age especially among girl champs

I'll prob not be popular for saying that

RiotKindlejackMar 24, 20166 votes

I agree 100% and I feel like Kalista and Illaoi were big wins for Riot moving forward.

I also wouldn't worry about being unpopular for saying so, it really is a vocal minority that would have a problem with your attitude.

patmax17Mar 24, 20162 votes

I think with Illaoi you did a very good job :D

For Kalista I'm not 100% sure - body shape is good, there's something about her outfit I'm not completely happy about. Otoh, i think Blood Moon Kalista is one of the best skins in the game :D

patmax17Mar 24, 20162 votes

Hi!

Just wanted to say I support you, i too wish more diversity in female champs! ^_^

nosafterburnMar 23, 20161 votes

guess that means i would never want to run into Jhin's creators in a dark alley.

RiotKindlejackMar 24, 20163 votes

naw WAAARGHbobo is super a cool guy! The Bravo Ray though probs not he has a certain madness in his eyes...

VekknaMar 23, 20161 votes

All things considered, there really aren't that many sexy-looking champs. I mean, a lot of it has to do with taste, but my list would look like this:

Ahri Cassiopeia Elise Leblanc Syndra Zyra

Others, like Janna or Evelynn are too old to be sexy. That's part of the deal. Old doesn't really do the job when it's an aesthetic.

HellioningMar 23, 20162 votes

You think Janna and Eve are too old, but you think LB is sexy? Huh. That's weird.

VekknaMar 23, 20161 votes

Well, LB's two recent skins are, for sure. I think Ravenborn is prolly tied with secret agent MF for grandest game cleavage.

Janna, on the other hand, has like a million ancient skins on an ancient skeleton that managed to look even worse after they were "updated." Morgana has same issue.

HellioningMar 23, 20162 votes

Oh, you're referring to in-game age.

That makes significantly more sense!

I thought you meant lore age.