Fanmade Cho'Gath Update

This character model and set of animations was my Capstone project in Ferris State University's Digital Animation and Game Design program. I decided to try and emulate the work being done at Riot Games in their visual-gameplay update projects; These are comprehensive reworks of some of the older members of their League of Legends roster, where small teams are formed out of Riot Employees, each filling a role in developing a new look and gameplay experience for that character. 

For my part, I wanted to try and fill as many of these roles as I felt I the DAGD program had prepared me for and that I would like to fill in my career, and so focused on redesigning the character based on existing rework concepts and fan opinion to create a game-ready low-poly asset with animations and textures matching the style of the game.

Final Product:

Full credit is given to Riot Games for the environment I have overlain my character model onto, as well as for the music used in the above video.

My finished product was a completely redesigned version of the character based on the modern design conventions and technical parameters Riot uses in present-day league. This character model was built starting from a low-poly blockout, sculpted into a high poly detailed model in Z-Brush, then baked down to one with topology fit for animation. 

I rigged and animated the character myself, preparing an idle animation, walk cycle, attack animations to fill out its in-game kit, as well as a dancing emote. These animations were keyframed based on existing League frame data so that this character would be ready to fit in game.

Process:

Process video explaining my design process, iterations, and technical details.

The initial design I began my work from. As I entered the texturing phase, peer critique led to me to introduce the blues as a point of contrast.

Progress shots from an isometric angle.

Process slides of my texturing and rigging.

Conclusion:

As a capstone I feel that this project reflects well what I learned in my time Ferris State University, just as well it was itself quite the learning experience polishing my skill across all steps in my workflow.

My hope is that this asset will serve as a foothold towards an initial position in industry, and a benchmark for the growth of my portfolio when in the future I do apply for a position with Riot Games where I would like to work on similarly stylized and functional assets.

Thank you for your time in reviewing my project, and best of luck to you all in your own ventures.