Akaisha
SPLASH ART | CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
2021
THE SWEETEST CURSE
Akaisha
SUGARY | POWERFUL | SWEET
The Moba Character Design is a concept character pitch for the League of Legends PC game. It was conducted in the unit Digital Painting whilst I was at university. This project was extensive in terms of it being created in two parts, the first part being the creating and ideation process of a character, and the second part, creating a splash art piece of the character that reflects the appeal of the art done by League of Legends. A lot of designs were needed for this project, from skill attack sets, in-game designs, weapon exploration, thumbnails, a turnaround sheet, and final splash art.
AKAISHA TURN-AROUND SHEET
Appearance
The development theme for the character Akaisha was inspired by the League of Legends’ Sugar Rush event that ran from the 26th of August to the 2nd of September 2014. Which consists of a series of alternate future/universe skins for the champions, with a candy-inspired theme within League of Legends. The champions are candy people who are set within the Candy Kingdom that consists of Root Beer Sea, Gingerbread Castle, the Licorice Mountains, and the Gumdrop Forest.
The hinted at Japanese outfit, history and Yōkai creatures all represent a past that Akaisha is slowly losing but still trying to hold on to after all these years. From the gingerbread clothes, waffle cone sleeves, gumdrop buttons, chocolate, and cream accents, to the strawberry Laffy Taffy hair, these aspects mix the Japanese culture into the Sugar Rush theme for a deliciously sweet visual.
Akaisha’s origin story ties into her appearance by hinting at her living in Japan long ago, which is why the top half of her outfit resembles aspects of a Japanese kimono garb. Presenting a slight Japanese theme to the character. The placing of the chocolate waffle sticks in Akaisha’s hair also alludes to resembling the chopstick accessories traditional Japanese women wore in their hair. The icing details on Akaisha’s back and shoulders hints towards Japanese tattoo art that usually takes up the majority of these areas.
The chocolate-covered balls are depicted as Yōkai, which are strange and supernatural creatures that come from Japanese folklore. Yōkai can be referred to as being monsters, demons, spirits, gods (kami), and other strange phenomena. For Akaisha her Yōkai are mysterious, bewitching, calamity ensuring Yōkai spirits that are bound to her soul for eternity. Helping her to transform souls into candy people. Akaisha is a top-heavy design with more detail kept in the top half of her character.
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AKAISHA SPLASH ART
The process
AKAISHA
The outcome
Akaisha, a splash art piece in reference to the League of Legends splash art style. A cursed patisserie baker transformed into a doughnut-wielding warrior of alluring mischief.
This large-scale illustration of 3840px x 2160px is one of if not my best illustrations yet. Taken hours of work and a lot of image references of all sorts of candy with an abundance of material studies, I constantly got sugar cravings. The environment was based on buildings from ancient Japanese houses, appearing to be made from chocolate. On the right-hand side sits a Pagoda temple in the same material. With a Torii archway placed in the center of the lake behind Akaisha, and a chocolate pudding mountain with a delicious berry from the symbolic reference image of Mt. Fuji.
I truly wanted to transform ancient Japan into a sweet-covered world for this design, and I believe I have achieved that goal.
