Short bio
Very early explorations. My focus was on trying out different approaches for a witch character, mainly inspired by the idea of her living in a Ghibli inspired world.
References. Mostly from outside League to invent something new and fresh, but also some from the game like Ivern (connection to nature) and Vastayan characters (because that's where Elma is from).
Iterations, this time focusing on the head, as there are many different witch/grandma faces, but I wanted to find the right one. Also the idea of her resembling an owl was explored, which I felt fit her possible character really well.
Explorative iterations. What if she has a flower on her head instead of hair? Or her cauldron/tool is a big leaf? These helped a lot shaping the character.
Shiluette / Costume / Gear exploration. Bottom right felt like a friendly, geared up wanderer, so I went for that direction.
Developing the 3 pillars that define her character. This happened all the way through the process until about this point.
Head iterations, mostly focusing on how her haircut and eyes change her character.
At this point it was really important for me to go from more abstract, neutral sketches to something that has a character. So I took the work in progress design and worked on some facial expressions, asking myself questions about her personality.
What tools does she use? I felt like a staff for wandering and fighting as well as a cauldron for herbalism fit pretty well.
What if the staff is a character on its own? Exploration based on that, inspired by the Sorcerer's Apprentice (Disney) and Zenibas lamp (Ghibli).
Color explorations based on the almost final designs.
The final design and colors. I picked the combination of using a lot of white, blue/red with some gold to show her wisdom, agility and composure, as well as green elements (connection to nature).
Orthographics
Movement studies. How does she move, behave, interact?
Although she might seem like an old grandma while standing around I always imagined her to be super agile. This is her in full action mode.
Ideas for her skillset.
Elma, the Wandering Witch is a Fan champion concept for League of Legends. I worked on her for the past 4-5 months (most of it during the last 1,5 months). The basic idea was that League, the game I love, is missing a grandma-type character, and after learning a lot from my last project I wanted to apply this.
I'm so happy that I can finally show her, this project means the world to me and I just want to keep working on it forever. But all things must come to an end, so here she is! :)
Huge thanks to everyone involved, I couldn't have done this on my own. Thank you for the ideas, motivation and pushing me beyond my limits. You are awesome <3
And for those who will be at THU: There is something next to all this digital stuff I can't wait to show!
The game, world, backgrounds and some graphic elements belong to Riot Games. This is a fan art after all!
