The Purpose of the Art of Riot Games
Riot Games has carefully curated over the past decade a specific artstyle and presentation to promote their games. Whether for events, in game content, or marketing, they make sure that every piece has a purpose.
Unique Marketing
Riot Games has done some unique and interesting marketing using art pieces for League of Legends over the years. One of the best examples I can think of for this was prior to the release of the champion Seraphine and her release skinline, which was a special kind of ultimate skinline with three skins in one. You did in game missions to unlock each stage of Seraphines journey as an independant music artist. From Indie, to Rising Star, to KDA All Out, which coincided with the release of a music single with the character on it.
She had a twitter, and the posts on it were recreated as if they were instagram posts, but Seraphine was painted over them!
The style of these marketing images were easily detectable as Riot Game style. They were an incredible marketing tool for both the champion and the music single and album. Even now it’s a very memorable moment in Riot Games history.
The images they’ve created have a distinct identity. Even without the Riot Games logo, you know which game the art is for, especially with League of Legends as it’s so well known.
Seasonal Promotion
With the pre season key art, you can see a few champions from the game. Due to the creativeness and uniqueness, players can immediately tell which champions these are. Key art for seasons is always incredibly dynamic and action focused, it draws players in by making them want to fight with their favourite champions. It has the iconic League of Legends style, painted exaggerated realism.
As it’s seasonal, people look forward to a new one for each new season and preseason. It’s something that brings back old players, draws in new, and inspires current ones!
Champion Splash Arts
The most important use of art in my opinion is for champion splash art and skinlines. The art for these is iconic. Everyone that plays the game or has heard of it at least knows what a few champions look like and their names. To have created over 100 entirely unique pieces of character art for a game that are easily recognisable and don’t all mesh together is an incredible achievement.
The art for the base champions is important because these are free. In order to draw in a new player to pick up and play this champion they have to be engaging in game but also aesthetically solid and attractive to each demographic of player.
The purpose of my art
Other than for enjoyment, or for a final piece, my art will exist to showcase the character I’m creating in his usual environment. If it was a game it would be to draw players in, to try him out and experience his story!
Because of this I need to include a lot of visual elements that really tie the character together.
Although there are a lot of purposes to art, sometimes, enjoyment and pleasure should be top of the list!
References
Chengwei Pan (2022) Spirit Blossom Syndra [Digital Art]. Available Online: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/AreDA5
Riot Den (2020) Seraphine Twitter [Digital Art and Blog] Available Online: https://twitter.com/seradotwav
Victor Maury (2018) Aatrox, the Darkin Blade [Digital Art] Available Online: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/vL1PO
Chengwei Pan (2022) Nilah Champion Splash [Digital Art] Available Online: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/vJ59dO
Suke (2015) Preseason key art-League of legends [Digital Art] Available Online: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/41r2k
Riot Games (2009) League of Legends [Video Game] Available Online: https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-gb/