Aesthetic analysis of the original painting of the IG champion skin with the blown-up ink color and the use of Rembrandt light
It has been less than half a year since IG won the S8 championship. Players have been discussing the championship skin for half a year and it was finally announced on April 3, 2019. However, players around the world have somewhat different opinions on IG’s set of championship skins. Riot designers specifically explained this on Twitter, one of which was from an aesthetic point of view.
“It (iG champion skin) is intended to attract Chinese players (at least from my stupid Western perspective). Many previous champion skins have not been very attractive to Chinese players, but here, it can It is perfectly integrated with the aesthetics of the Chinese audience.”
Indeed, compared with the previous original paintings, this original painting is already very Chinese-style, but why do some friends still think it looks awkward? Fan believes that this is largely due to color and light and shadow. Let’s analyze the original S8 skin painting from these two perspectives.
Chinese painting attaches great importance to concepts in the use of color. Since ancient times, Chinese painting has formed a unity of form and content, with the virtual and the real complementing each other, and the pen and ink changing. This color style also forms another characteristic of Chinese painting, which is the composition of "scattered perspective". Chinese painting emphasizes the management of position. You can put different things at different times in the same painting to form an image space. One stroke after another, the weight and weight are slow, and the charm is all here.
IG’s championship skin is the first time among the previous LOL championship skins to use vertical composition, which is very common in Chinese landscape paintings. In addition, each hero has his own independent original painting, which is something that previous champion skins did not have. It is said that Pan Da, Riot Games’ senior League of Legends artist, is responsible for the IG champion skin this time. There is no one else with this amount of work. It can be said that Pan Da is really serious about it.
The background of the original painting of the S8 champion skin is very consistent with the style of landscape painting, whether it is mountains, trees, buildings, or the Summoner Colossus. This can be seen more clearly in the separate version of the original painting. Usually, landscape paintings emphasize changes in ink color when painting distant trees, and the alternation of dry, wet, thick, and light ink complement each other. The tree in the original painting of the IG skin is the tree in the standard landscape painting.
Black and white is the deepest impression that Chinese paintings leave on people in terms of color, although Chinese paintings are not only black and white. In the atmosphere of world culture, black and white is also a special symbol of Chinese culture. Ink painting, Go, Tai Chi, Yin and Yang theory, etc. are all displayed in black and white. Therefore, IG’s champion skin is mainly black and white. As Riot designers said, this looks very Chinese from a Western perspective.
Coincidentally, the color scheme of the IG club happens to be black and white, plus a gray, which perfectly fits the overall ink style. If you change IG's color matching to other colors, it will immediately feel inconsistent. Fortunately, we can see the FNC color version officially released by S8 runner-up FNC, which is a "negative teaching material" in terms of color.
Putting the mainly black and white League of Legends characters into a background like a landscape painting, there is nothing out of place at first glance. Why say at first glance? This is what we want to talk about next.
Chinese painting is mainly about drawing lines + filling and dyeing. The ancients said "three alums and nine dyes", which means that if you want to dye it several times, you need to apply alum once, and you need to dye it from morning to night. Therefore, Chinese painting There are no shadows on the figures, which is also the unique artistic style of Chinese painting that presents figures.
Of course, the New China Art Reform School represented by Zong Qixiang has brought new ideas to traditional Chinese painting from the perspective of light and shadow, but generally it is still a freehand technique. After all, the original skin painting should reflect the hero. Of course, the more similar it is to the in-game model, the better. When it comes to realism, Western paintings that focus on light and shadow are even more dominant. In the IG skin, every hero has the expression of light and shadow. Friends who are familiar with photography or painting will be familiar with this method of light and shadow expression. This is the Rembrandt light and shadow commonly used in portraits.
The main feature of Rembrandt light is that it relies on strong side light to make any side of the character's face present a triangular shadow, making both sides of the face look different. This technique allows the main body of the picture to express a very delicate visual experience in terms of volume, layering, atmosphere, etc. You can feel it from Rembrandt's masterpieces.
It is precisely because of the unique charm of Rembrandt light that many paintings and photography works now use Rembrandt light to express characters. For example, the photo below also uses Rembrandt’s light and shadow processing techniques.
This is not the first time that Rembrandt light has been used in the original skin painting. The original painting of the S7 champion skin uses standard Rembrandt light. Even the beast face of Gnar is based on Rembrandt’s design. The rules take care of it. In fact, there are already many oriental aesthetic elements in the S7 champion skin, but it is still very different from the S8 ink painting style. There is a large area of water in the original painting of S7, and the reflection in the water can be seen clearly, but Qi Baishi never painted water when painting shrimps.
Currently, the most acclaimed S6 champion skin wins in terms of composition and light and shadow. Side backlighting has a strong sense of space and rich layers in the picture. French Impressionist painter Monet often used this light and shadow technique.
The sense of "gods coming down to earth" in the original painting of the S6 skin is largely created by the large shadow area and the outline light on the left. The movements and demeanor of the heroes also add a lot to the overall look and feel of this original painting.
The original paintings of champion skins from S1 to S5 are mainly based on the playing field. In the original paintings of the first five generations of champion skins, all heroes wear headphones and stand on the stage, simulating the environment of the players' competition. Therefore, light and shadow processing are also processed by imitating ambient light. The light and shadow of S5 also have some artistic expression effects. Azir's back is turned to the audience, and most of his body is covered by shadows, which perfectly interprets the relationship between the two characters of Marquis and Brother Li.
The composition of S4 is a little special. The original skin painting is more like the composition of a movie poster. It may mean that the champion SSW is the protagonist in the S4 movie. If you look closely, you can find that Rembrandt light from different directions is also used to construct the characters in this picture.
Light and shadow have never left the original painting of the champion skin, even this year’s ink Chinese style skin original painting, because this is a necessary step to embody the game model in the original skin painting.
Compared with previous championship skins, the original painting of the S8 champion skin has made many breakthroughs, from the vertical composition, the original painting of a single hero skin, the Chinese style created by ink, etc., these are all The first of its kind in S8 champion skin. It's just that the heroes and the background look a little awkward, and there's nothing we can do about it. After all, we can't really draw every hero like the characters in the New Year pictures, so you don't have to worry too much. Once the skin is online, Just buy, buy, buy and that’s it!