Hi everyone! I would like to say that I'm madly excited about this competition!
Being a League of Legends player since 2010 (wow, Miss Fortune was being released!) I can easily say that this game was one of the biggest things that motivated me to enter in this realm of art. The character Xin Zhao, like I said before, was the first champion that I ever purchased within the game, and also the first one that I managed to perform a PentaKill with (Madreds Bloodrazor Xin was the stuff back in the day). Xin Zhao, the Seneschal of Demacia, will always have a special place in my heart even considering that I don't play his role nowadays (I kinda suck at jungle and top).
That being said, my goal is not to reinvent Xin Zhao entirely, but to give him a visual update that is more accurate to the current state of league. I will do my best to give this champion a renewed soul and spirit.
"It shall be done!"
1 - The Legend of Xin Zhao
(The following paragraphs were about the research I've done about the character, and my interpretations of his lore. If you're interested in reading and obtaining full comprehension of the thought process behind this, it might be interesting to know a little bit about "Demacia", "Noxus", "Runeterra" and "Ionia". If you do not, no problem, you'll understand the general idea either way. Also english is not my mother language, so you might run into some writing mistakes)
To truly know a character, I believe is necessary to look deep in his history and the challenges that he faced during the course of his life. The events that took place in his path did not only define his psychological characteristics, but will also help me in the process of molding his physical appearance. Unfortunately, in this case, almost nothing is known before the events that culminated in Xin's rescue from a noxian arena by an operation led by the king of Demacia at the time, Jarvan II. Still, one or two things can be deduced.
Lets begin with the beginning. Xin Zhao is not a demacian name. In the realm of Runeterra, the land that is the representation of our eastern culture is Ionia. There, you will find characters such as Yi, Wukong, Lee Sin, Shen, among other who reflect the asian culture of our world. Seeking that pattern, we can conclude that if Xin Zhao isn't Ionian, his parents were. This is also observable looking into his physical characteristics at the time in the game. Xin not only have asian anatomical traits, but he also dresses differently from his kinsmen. His armor of choice, despite the colors being the same, does not follow the same pattern as other demacian Champion like Jarvan IV or Garen. His vestments are made in Ionian style, with demacian inspiration.
As said before, not much is known about Xin Zhao's past. I like to think (and let me make perfectly clear that I am inventing this part) that he was a young orphan ionian, raised in philosophy and trained in martial arts hardly by an old master in a little village until his home was attacked and destroyed by noxian troups. That behavior by the noxian army can also be found in other champions lore. Since the noxians praise the strong, they took the young warrior to fight for his life as a gladiator and killed the other people. The master was nowhere to be found. Again, I invented this.
The first thing known officially is that he ends up in a noxian arena, a spectacle called The Fleshing. In this stage, every time a gladiator defeated his opponent, he would face even more foes on the next round, and that process did not had an end: gladiators would fight an increasingly number of opponents until they eventually died. But god, that man knew how to fight! Known there as Viscero, Xin Zhao defeated more than 300 other enemies. This feat made king Jarvan II so impressed that he made a war effort to rescue Xin and recruit him to demacian ranks. When the day came the gladiator could not believe that a king would put his own life to risk to save his. But fate still had its tricks. Before the rescue was finished, a poison dart was shot at the king, but unexpectedly, it was Xin Zhao that put himself in the line of fire and took the dart meant for Jarvan II. That act of honor and bravery would culminate in a bound between Xin, the king and Demacia.
Next source. Back in the day, when Riot released a champion, they used to include the trial that such champion had to pass through to be accepted in the fields of justice. Other few bits and pieces of information can be obtained in this little piece of lore. The first things we can acquire in Xin's Judgment are physical characteristics. He uses a bladed battering ram as a spear, and despite the fact that he seem to be carrying it with difficulty, it's actually just a trick to elude opponents that aren't clever enough to figure out his real abilities. Nevertheless, one got to be pretty strong to actually use a battering ram as a hand weapon. Next, he was hit in the middle of his face with a shield by a guy named the Bone Grinder. The text doesn't elaborate on how big the blow was, but the thing is: despite the fact that Xin Zhao was the best gladiator ever seen in The Fleshing, none can become such a warrior without scars. Moving on, he's proves that he have great power of will by defeating the illusion posed by the institute of war even when defeat seemed inevitable, and after that, it is made clear that his life goal is to defend the best interests of Demacia, proving his loyalty to king Jarvan II and his descendents.
From all that history, it's possible to extract some vital traits that defines Xin Zhao.
- His descendants were Ionian;
- He brings hell to whoever fights with him. A truly unique and skilled fighter;
- He holds uttermost admiration for king Jarvan II and adopted Demacia as his home and land;
- He's honored and virtuous, almost sacrificing himself to defend Jarvan II life;
- He was a gladiator, and no matter how good he was, he had scars from those dreadful days;
- After joining Demacian ranks, Xin Fought for Demacia, and he is now the Steward of the Lightshield Dynasty (Jarvan lineage). This is a really high ranking position in a monarchy, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward_(office)) and requires a great amount of responsibility;
- He is not the youngest guy around. He was rescued by king Jarvan II and stood by the kings side until the moment of the mans death just to, from that moment on, serve under his son command, king Jarvan III. The Jarvan that fights besides him in the fields of justice is Jarvan IV. It's unclear how old Xin was the day he left The Fleshing, but I believe it is safe to say he doesn't have less than 40 years. His rank also points to this fact.
- Xin Zhao is strong. He uses something that is supposed to be a siege weapon as melee weapon. Also fast: That can be perceived by his history and in game abilities.
- Even not being that young, he still wrecks face like always, after all, he is a champion of the League of Legends.
With all this information in mind, I came up with some sketches.
(Please keep in mind that I'm really really far from being a 2D prodigy. I'm good enought just to organize my ideas!)
Despite the fact that time has taken its tools on him, the man is still a stronghold, both physicaly and mentaly. A part of his hair has become white, and the marks of his gladiators days are stamped right on his face.
As you may see, now he has 3 thinner ponytails instead of a bulky one, the lower one being white instead of black. His armor has a clear Ionian influence, but still, a good amount of demacian influence is found. The shoulder that faces the opponent when he fights is covered in a larger piece of shoulder guard, which is actually the demacian crest.
This general idea may change its details as the project is being executed, but I believe that this is a good place to start.
So, here's what we got so far. The following work was done using ZBrush 4R6.
First thing was to get a base mesh and start with the face, which was the part that Ive began with in the concept
Next went for the soft stuff, the parts of his clothing that arent hard, and that most of will be hidden under his actual armor. Began with DynaMesh, then after getting a good shape, a ZRemesher.
After the cloth, Ive made the hard edge stuff. In most parts I began with DynaMesh for the overall shape, then used ZBrush retopology tools to get the hard edges exactly the way I wanted. Although for parts like the belt buckle, I began with a base mesh created outside Zbrush.
The tricky part was the hair. Since Ive decided to give Xin 3 long braids instead of a single fat ponytail, I would be quite messy and time consuming to sculpt the hair the same way I did for the cloth. That being said, Ive created an insert mesh brush with the pattern already detailed, then converted this brush into a curve brush. After getting a good shape, ZRemeshed and projected back the details to the highest subdivision.
With all the features done, it was time to apply some details. Thank god for my kitchen wall tiles, they made a very cool texture for the armor.
The tricky part was the hair. Since Ive decided to give Xin 3 long braids instead of a single fat ponytail, I would be quite messy and time consuming to sculpt the hair the same way I did for the cloth. That being said, Ive created an insert mesh brush with the pattern already detailed, then converted this brush into a curve brush. After getting a good shape, ZRemeshed and projected back the details to the highest subdivision.
Once tip. I realised that things like hair tail and such are straightened in t-posed. So it's diagonal to the character and will be animated with the rest of the character.
The ponytails looks better in a more natural position. Better for presentation for sure. Maybe good to consider when you are preparing the low end mesh.
Once tip. I realised that things like hair tail and such are straightened in t-posed. So it's diagonal to the character and will be animated with the rest of the character.
The ponytails looks better in a more natural position. Better for presentation for sure. Maybe good to consider when you are preparing the low end mesh.
Hey, thanks for the tip man! For the final piece I will definitely consider this!
Next step: low poly mesh. I did both the character and the spear this time. Together the have something between 8-9k polys.
Character:
Weapon:
I was going to give the high poly version a base texture before making the low poly, but since I've ended up having more time than expected because of some personal stuff, went for that part that requires more patience from me.
Next on, putting some base collors to the high polly mesh to begin the texture baking: colors and ambient occlusion.
So, I had to remake a couple things in the base mesh since I was having a little bit of troubles baking the textures. Separated a couple pieces, and finally got it right.
After The textures were ready, I realizes that the armor pattern was really bad in his shoulders, arms and that waist guard thingy. The spaces were all messes up and the plates were uneven and weird. Since the pattern is a perfect rectangle, I made another one in another completly separated file, baked it into a rectangle and simply pasted it into the difuse map. Worked wonders.
All baked up and readdy to go, it was time to open photoshop to give the texture that League of Legends look. After a couple days of work, the final resul was at hand.
edit: Added
Edit: Texture Map
I've done some shots of the map with my LoL account and added my Xin Zhao model with a stance to see how it merged with the general atmosphere.
Thats it for me. If anyone have any doubts about any part of the process, feel free to ask how it was done. Due to many factors, I can say that this contest was really an awesome challenge for me, in the best way possible. Thank you all!
Replies
Being a League of Legends player since 2010 (wow, Miss Fortune was being released!) I can easily say that this game was one of the biggest things that motivated me to enter in this realm of art. The character Xin Zhao, like I said before, was the first champion that I ever purchased within the game, and also the first one that I managed to perform a PentaKill with (Madreds Bloodrazor Xin was the stuff back in the day). Xin Zhao, the Seneschal of Demacia, will always have a special place in my heart even considering that I don't play his role nowadays (I kinda suck at jungle and top).
That being said, my goal is not to reinvent Xin Zhao entirely, but to give him a visual update that is more accurate to the current state of league. I will do my best to give this champion a renewed soul and spirit.
"It shall be done!"
1 - The Legend of Xin Zhao
(The following paragraphs were about the research I've done about the character, and my interpretations of his lore. If you're interested in reading and obtaining full comprehension of the thought process behind this, it might be interesting to know a little bit about "Demacia", "Noxus", "Runeterra" and "Ionia". If you do not, no problem, you'll understand the general idea either way. Also english is not my mother language, so you might run into some writing mistakes)
To truly know a character, I believe is necessary to look deep in his history and the challenges that he faced during the course of his life. The events that took place in his path did not only define his psychological characteristics, but will also help me in the process of molding his physical appearance. Unfortunately, in this case, almost nothing is known before the events that culminated in Xin's rescue from a noxian arena by an operation led by the king of Demacia at the time, Jarvan II. Still, one or two things can be deduced.
Lets begin with the beginning. Xin Zhao is not a demacian name. In the realm of Runeterra, the land that is the representation of our eastern culture is Ionia. There, you will find characters such as Yi, Wukong, Lee Sin, Shen, among other who reflect the asian culture of our world. Seeking that pattern, we can conclude that if Xin Zhao isn't Ionian, his parents were. This is also observable looking into his physical characteristics at the time in the game. Xin not only have asian anatomical traits, but he also dresses differently from his kinsmen. His armor of choice, despite the colors being the same, does not follow the same pattern as other demacian Champion like Jarvan IV or Garen. His vestments are made in Ionian style, with demacian inspiration.
As said before, not much is known about Xin Zhao's past. I like to think (and let me make perfectly clear that I am inventing this part) that he was a young orphan ionian, raised in philosophy and trained in martial arts hardly by an old master in a little village until his home was attacked and destroyed by noxian troups. That behavior by the noxian army can also be found in other champions lore. Since the noxians praise the strong, they took the young warrior to fight for his life as a gladiator and killed the other people. The master was nowhere to be found. Again, I invented this.
The first thing known officially is that he ends up in a noxian arena, a spectacle called The Fleshing. In this stage, every time a gladiator defeated his opponent, he would face even more foes on the next round, and that process did not had an end: gladiators would fight an increasingly number of opponents until they eventually died. But god, that man knew how to fight! Known there as Viscero, Xin Zhao defeated more than 300 other enemies. This feat made king Jarvan II so impressed that he made a war effort to rescue Xin and recruit him to demacian ranks. When the day came the gladiator could not believe that a king would put his own life to risk to save his. But fate still had its tricks. Before the rescue was finished, a poison dart was shot at the king, but unexpectedly, it was Xin Zhao that put himself in the line of fire and took the dart meant for Jarvan II. That act of honor and bravery would culminate in a bound between Xin, the king and Demacia.
http://gameinfo.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/champions/xinzhao/#champion-lore
Next source. Back in the day, when Riot released a champion, they used to include the trial that such champion had to pass through to be accepted in the fields of justice. Other few bits and pieces of information can be obtained in this little piece of lore. The first things we can acquire in Xin's Judgment are physical characteristics. He uses a bladed battering ram as a spear, and despite the fact that he seem to be carrying it with difficulty, it's actually just a trick to elude opponents that aren't clever enough to figure out his real abilities. Nevertheless, one got to be pretty strong to actually use a battering ram as a hand weapon. Next, he was hit in the middle of his face with a shield by a guy named the Bone Grinder. The text doesn't elaborate on how big the blow was, but the thing is: despite the fact that Xin Zhao was the best gladiator ever seen in The Fleshing, none can become such a warrior without scars. Moving on, he's proves that he have great power of will by defeating the illusion posed by the institute of war even when defeat seemed inevitable, and after that, it is made clear that his life goal is to defend the best interests of Demacia, proving his loyalty to king Jarvan II and his descendents.
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Xin_Zhao/Background
2 Creating an idea
From all that history, it's possible to extract some vital traits that defines Xin Zhao.
- His descendants were Ionian;
- He brings hell to whoever fights with him. A truly unique and skilled fighter;
- He holds uttermost admiration for king Jarvan II and adopted Demacia as his home and land;
- He's honored and virtuous, almost sacrificing himself to defend Jarvan II life;
- He was a gladiator, and no matter how good he was, he had scars from those dreadful days;
- After joining Demacian ranks, Xin Fought for Demacia, and he is now the Steward of the Lightshield Dynasty (Jarvan lineage). This is a really high ranking position in a monarchy, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward_(office)) and requires a great amount of responsibility;
- He is not the youngest guy around. He was rescued by king Jarvan II and stood by the kings side until the moment of the mans death just to, from that moment on, serve under his son command, king Jarvan III. The Jarvan that fights besides him in the fields of justice is Jarvan IV. It's unclear how old Xin was the day he left The Fleshing, but I believe it is safe to say he doesn't have less than 40 years. His rank also points to this fact.
- Xin Zhao is strong. He uses something that is supposed to be a siege weapon as melee weapon. Also fast: That can be perceived by his history and in game abilities.
- Even not being that young, he still wrecks face like always, after all, he is a champion of the League of Legends.
With all this information in mind, I came up with some sketches.
(Please keep in mind that I'm really really far from being a 2D prodigy. I'm good enought just to organize my ideas!)
Despite the fact that time has taken its tools on him, the man is still a stronghold, both physicaly and mentaly. A part of his hair has become white, and the marks of his gladiators days are stamped right on his face.
As you may see, now he has 3 thinner ponytails instead of a bulky one, the lower one being white instead of black. His armor has a clear Ionian influence, but still, a good amount of demacian influence is found. The shoulder that faces the opponent when he fights is covered in a larger piece of shoulder guard, which is actually the demacian crest.
This general idea may change its details as the project is being executed, but I believe that this is a good place to start.
So, here's what we got so far. The following work was done using ZBrush 4R6.
First thing was to get a base mesh and start with the face, which was the part that Ive began with in the concept
Next went for the soft stuff, the parts of his clothing that arent hard, and that most of will be hidden under his actual armor. Began with DynaMesh, then after getting a good shape, a ZRemesher.
After the cloth, Ive made the hard edge stuff. In most parts I began with DynaMesh for the overall shape, then used ZBrush retopology tools to get the hard edges exactly the way I wanted. Although for parts like the belt buckle, I began with a base mesh created outside Zbrush.
The tricky part was the hair. Since Ive decided to give Xin 3 long braids instead of a single fat ponytail, I would be quite messy and time consuming to sculpt the hair the same way I did for the cloth. That being said, Ive created an insert mesh brush with the pattern already detailed, then converted this brush into a curve brush. After getting a good shape, ZRemeshed and projected back the details to the highest subdivision.
With all the features done, it was time to apply some details. Thank god for my kitchen wall tiles, they made a very cool texture for the armor.
Thanks for sharing dude
No problem! If you have any question about any other part that you would like to know how it was done, fell free to ask!
Detailing and texturing will be my next move.
Once tip. I realised that things like hair tail and such are straightened in t-posed. So it's diagonal to the character and will be animated with the rest of the character.
The ponytails looks better in a more natural position. Better for presentation for sure. Maybe good to consider when you are preparing the low end mesh.
Hey, thanks for the tip man! For the final piece I will definitely consider this!
Character:
Weapon:
I was going to give the high poly version a base texture before making the low poly, but since I've ended up having more time than expected because of some personal stuff, went for that part that requires more patience from me.
So, I had to remake a couple things in the base mesh since I was having a little bit of troubles baking the textures. Separated a couple pieces, and finally got it right.
After The textures were ready, I realizes that the armor pattern was really bad in his shoulders, arms and that waist guard thingy. The spaces were all messes up and the plates were uneven and weird. Since the pattern is a perfect rectangle, I made another one in another completly separated file, baked it into a rectangle and simply pasted it into the difuse map. Worked wonders.
All baked up and readdy to go, it was time to open photoshop to give the texture that League of Legends look. After a couple days of work, the final resul was at hand.
Edit: Texture Map
I've done some shots of the map with my LoL account and added my Xin Zhao model with a stance to see how it merged with the general atmosphere.
Thats it for me. If anyone have any doubts about any part of the process, feel free to ask how it was done. Due to many factors, I can say that this contest was really an awesome challenge for me, in the best way possible. Thank you all!