[WIP] Graduation Project; Tank, DPS, Support
polycounter lvl 3
While playing League of Legends I found out that new characters where way better designed compared to the old characters. Not all tanks were strong man with shields (like Braum), but still... There are a lot of stereotypical characters still present in games with character classes. Since my wish is to become a character artist/designer I wanted to take the step to learn what defines the tank, dps and support as an archetype, what the stereotypes are and how to make an unique character. In the end I want to make 3 zBrush sculpts of characters linked to the League of Legends Universe. So here I will put down my progression in this project 
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Replies
Support
Murell the Bilgwater Witch Doctor
Story
(Most of the story is directly translated from Dutch, so it may sound a bit weird sometimes.)Murell is from Bilgewater, a place where pirates and outlaws rule. He is one of the original beings that are from Bilgewater, and the pirates respect him for that. He has a hut in a high waterpillar where pirates visit with their sick and wounded. He puts on a mask when the pirates visit, because he doesn't want to show his face and wants to scare them into thinking he is a scary being. His main goal is protecting his pillar against the water and beings that live in the waters around him. Indirectly he also cares for Bilgewater this way, getting respect from the pirates. To protect his home he collects and trades items from the pirates and puts it in the water around him. He breeds fish there that are morphed with his potions. They recieve random powers and protect his home this way. He also sells his fish to the pirates to protect them on their journeys, for a lot of gold.
There are three base shapes, the circle, the triangle and the square. The circle is the shape for the support. Thing is, that the support is supposed to be kind. They are not the ones supposed to do, or get damage. This is the same for Murell. While he wants to be scary for the pirates, he is kind on the inside. This should be made clear through his round patterns. While he thinks he can be scary, he can't it on the battlefield.
His clothing is mostly a lot of scraps that he found on the bottom of the sea. A lot of rope, linnen and cloth. Sometimes a ring to hold it together. His mask is a combination of random monsters that he found around his pillar and mainly covers his head and back. On his frontside are a lot of small bags with seaweed, potions, oils and morphed fish. He has a staff that he uses to support him, and he uses it to walk or hit people.
Below one of the inspirational moodboards I made for him
Tank
Chepri the Scarab Queen
Story
Chepri was one of the scarab-queens in the desert of Shurima. She was known for her strong armor and her loyalty to protect her people. She still got buried with sand and was forgotten over time, because of unknown reasons. Until her armor was unearthed by a descendant of her, that randomly (or not?!) found the armor while treasure hunting the environment. Impressed bu the armor, the descendant put on the armor and Chepri became alive again through the girl. Now she is two persons in one body. Chepri the Scavenger and Chepri the Scarab Queen. Sometimes the queen uses her astral powers when to defend, but the Scavenger is better in fight.Strong in defence, but also strong in hiding her wealth is Chepri someone who makes sure she is protected from all sides. She lives in a small tent between the ruins of Shurime, while in the evening she tries to rebuild the ruins in her shape as a Queen. Meanwhile during the day she plunders old ruins and sells the items on the black market as the Scavenger. This makes is looks like she is always busy, but one sleeps, while the other is awake. Her biggest fear are other gangs that wander Shurima. She is alone and needs to be able to hide and protect herself.
She has a lot of square shapes, with round coves as seen in a lot of the old cities of Shurima. Around that a lot of cloth in raw shapes, for hiding when the robbers are near. She also has a large linen bag to hide her treasures. Because she is a tank she is supposed to be big, but I want her to show her femininity.
Below one of the inspirational moodboards I made for her
DPS
Euhir the Leech
Story
Euhir was made by mad scientists in Zaun. Now addicted to Hextech, the scientists did so many tests on him that Euhir himself doesn't reach the surface much anymore. Most of the time he searches for Hextech fluid to still his hunger. When he can't find any people he has to inject himself with Hextech fluids, it gives him a short boost. The people of Zaun see him coming from afar, with his luminous green eyes. But when he searches for the fluid, he uses a mysterious mist to surround him and make him invisible. He searches for people with strong power to drink their power. He leaves weak people alone, when you don't attack him, he won't attack you. Unless you are strong.He was created by a couple of scientists that wanted to be protected by the strong monsters that wander around Zaun. They wouldn't be a target, because they were weak, but their strong minds were able to steer him. Driven by his lust, Euhir is not able to stop until it is saturated. When he is able to still his hunger, his personality comes to the surface, an artist who can make art from any scrap he finds.
The triangle for the DPS. Fast but dangerous he needs this shape. His silhouette needs to be thin, he can't have a lot of armor. I want to make clear that tests have been done on his body, and that he uses Hextech, so he needs mechanical parts. I also want to make the "leech" part clear.
Below one of the inspirational moodboards I made for him
Support
Passive: Near enemies he wears his mask, which makes him regenerate health faster. When no enemies are near he takes off his mask and gets a speedboost an higher speed in general. His health regen becomes normal again.
Murell switches abilities when in or out range of enemies.
In range ability: Throw a fish to an ally, giving a positive effect like armor, regen, attack, attack speed, magic resist, health or speed. He earns 5 gold with this
In range ability: Throw a fish to an enemy with a random negative effect. He spends 2 gold with this.
In range ability: Throw a potion on an enemy, he gets a slow that moves to other enemies that come too close. The slow gets stronger when more enemies are affected.
Out of range ability: Throw a fish from far on the ground. Every enemy that steps on it becomes visible for a short while. The fish lies there for a short while.
Out of range ability: Cook a potion that regenerates health fast for a short while and throw this on all friendly objects and characters. Very far range.
Out of range ability: Put down potions that give a small speedboost when a teamplayer walks over it.
Ultimate: The fish on his head becomes alive and jumps to an ally of your choice. They get a shield. The shield regenerates health when no damage is done after some time, but when enough damage is done, the fish disappears and returns to Murell
Keywords:
Male, ugly, friendly, healing, witchdoctor, fish, potions
Tank
Passive: Every few seconds Chepri gets a new scarab. A higher level means more scarabs.
Passive ability: Rotate her shield around her, on that side she gets less damage
Ability: 4 scarabs appear on the ground, everyone on the scarabs coming towards her get damage and slow, getting away from her get a short speedboost.
Ability: Scarabs come around her staff and make her range longer. The number of scarabs that are left get one her staff.
Ultimate: In a large circle around her scarabs will appear and walk around randomly. Collision with enemies give the enemies a stun. When the enemies do enough damage against the scarab, it will disappear. Collision with an ally will give them a shield.
Keywords:
Female, square and round, staff, high, scarab, queen, armor
DPS
Passive: Auto-attack give lifesteal, auto-attacks on enemy champions also give mana.
Ability: When enemy monsters have 5% health left, he can throw an Hextech arrow, the effects and gold get copied to the closest ally champion in range.
Ability: Euhir goes in stalker mode. He is vaguely visible and gets a high speedboost in river an bushes. The longer he is in stealth, the more lifesteal and manasteal he will get when he is out of it. When an enemy attacks him he gets a very high slow.
Ability: He does a couple of fast short range attack, they give faster health-regen, but disable his passive for a while.
Ultimate: The Hextech magic in his blood creates a second copy of him that jumps on the closest nearby enemy champion in range. It will leech itself full with health and mana and will try to return to Euhir. Enemies can shoot this copy and they will earn health and mana from that. When the copy returns Euhir gets all the health and mana that is left in that. Higher levels mean that the copy will be able to leach more.
Keywords:
Weak mind, leech, symbiote, hextech
Day 6 on the support model. Mostly small random items like belts and glasses. And a bit of hair. Trying to find a way to connect the fins with his hands. Tomorrow I'm going to pose him.
Day 01 on the tank model. I already started on the tank model, because I don't want to get behind scedule. The support model will have to be finished in my free time.
great progress so far,
Have you thought about maybe shrinking the eyes a bit? I feel like the tank model's face is falling a bit in the uncanny valley with those huge "kinda puppet" eyes. Maybe it is just me, but I took the liberty of doing a quit liquify test to see how it would look.
You are welcome. Keep at it! These character are coming along nicely!
Yes, although you have some exaggerations in your style, I feel facial features need to be either close to realistic or full on caricaturist. Everything in between might feel a bit weird.
Good luck and keep us updated!
Good luck on the project and thanks for showing your progress
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Day 06 on the tank model. Finished the weapon. Tomorrow I will go on to posing and slowly finishing this character
I do however feel that the tank isn't coming across very Tank like... besides the two shields/thigh guards/floating shoulder pads there isn't much in the design of this character that comes off as well prepared to take heavy impact... I actually feel that 2 shields comes off a little dull... but that may be down to personal preference, I get a stronger sensation of a sustainable tank to fall behind when they have one shield but the shield they wield is one beastly looking cover to stand behind... it also gives off much nicer silhouettes/poses when a character holds one shield when blocking as I can't imagine how this tank would defend itself other than placing shields in front and behind... Unless you approached it differently where maybe the character keeps a second shield on her as a back up and she mounts it onto her back where it naturally acts like protection for attacks that sneak out behind her? either way it falls back to her wielding one shield with both hands at one time. Other than the shield the rest of her doesn't have much protection and she seems to be wrapped in thin cloth and such that actually make her look more like a type of thief or assassin character...
This is still good progress
Hope this helped!
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https://www.artstation.com/artwork/PZ9g3
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GWwEB
Finally finished and uploaded! I want to conclude this project with one last picture of the renders and the links to the Artstation projects, you can see some more progress GIFs there. Tomorrow is my Endterm, so after that I will probably be graduated. Which is honestly pretty scary, but after my bachelor I'll go and do the master Games Art and Design at Hertfordshire University and I'm really stoked for that!
I really learned a lot this project and I hope the people reading this will also learn a bit from it. I still got a lot of research that might be interesting. It is about the archetypes and stereotypes in MOBAs and how to make your own characters that are different, but still recognizable for the players. Unfortunately the research is in Dutch. If there are any people interested I will be willing to translate it though, just send a message