Gwen The Hallowed Seamstress - Official Concept Art
My last project and champion I had the pleasure of designing for League of Legends. Special thanks to the team that poured their heart and passion into Gwen and making this all possible. I’ve learned so much over the 9.5 years at Riot Games, I’ll be sharing my new big adventure that I’m going to be part of soon!
Thank you for all the appreciations!
Special mentions to the team members that I worked closely with
Ryan Mireles - Product Manager
Michael Luo - Narrative Designer
Gem Lim - Art Lead
Daniel Emmons - Game Designer
Jason Namgung - 3D Character Artist
Luis Aguas - VFX Artist
Jason Heinrich and Tom Robbins - Animators
Very early pitch art based on Michael Luo’s narrative direction. I was inspired by the haunting yet beautiful approach to her narrative design.
super early iterations of the scissors champion idea. I liked the Marionette idea with the strings holding her up. I also liked the sheaths for her scissors blades on her back.
Very early iterations trying to capture the tone, vibe, and personality.
This is the direction we all felt good about! A doll that turns into a human form representing her fragmented memory
Vampire Lolita?
Possibility of her scissors breaking into two separate pieces then coming together as a whole.
A reanimated, cute zombie like take on her. Very early phase.
Preliminary studies for her move set and abilities
Selling one of the ideas of scissors that could phase in and out as well as scale up at will.
Playing with what her human form hair and outfit style could be. We ended up feeling strongly towards the 3rd option with the longer skirt.
Early set of options for her hair style and outfit direction.
Rough iterations of what the scissors could look like.
Designing the Scissors was a tough challenge for me as I wanted it to look authentic culturally but have that enough fantastical that felt gothic yet elegant. I also wanted to imbue the simplistic shapes that could modernize it a bit.
Working with Luis Aguas, trying to set a direction for what her Effects could look like. What the Hallowed Mist tailored to Gwen could look like and light the darkness of Shadow Isles
I did a lot of snipping and snapping with the scissors on my desk as well as watch some scissors ASMR videos. I worked with Daniel Emmons closely on her moves.
A doll, that Isolde could have made her self before the Hallowed Mist transformed the doll into a human like form.
Early portrait Study
Ortho for her tiny doll version.
Close up Portrait of Gwen. This I worked closely with Michael Luo to figure out the age range for the character. At the time we decided it would be poetic to have her represent a youthful reflection of Isolde. She may not be a 1 to 1 representation.
Final Concept Illustration of Gwen.