Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Champion Concept: Danielle



Concept Lore
A support mage specializing in Fears and Terrors. Danielle was once a maiden who lived among beautiful isles. An event occurred, leaving Danielle broken and forever without rest. She is no longer part of Valoran, and can not transition into the beyond. The specter beside her is Lamore. He's a total jerk, but his heart (if he has one) is in the right place.

Concept Game-Play
I thought thematically that there needed to be a Shadow Isles support -- specifically a kill-lane support that relied heavily on Fears and Terrors, which few champions have (I think Hecarim is the only champ with Terror currently). Danielle's game-play concept originates from Support Fid. Max Fear first! Fear is great utility for a kill lane, and using this as the basis of concept, I thought of a Leona-type champion. But instead of being able to stunlock a target, you could fear/terror lock them.

Art Direction
Thematically, this champion type is completely absent. We don't have a true ghost, a champion that focuses on fears/terrors, or a Shadow Isles support champ. Using this, I crafted a champion I thought would sufficiently look in tune with these roles. Danielle is thin, pale, and female to dictate that she is fragile (being a support); she wears jewelry to show that she is elegant to enhance her eerie quality. Her dress and bare feet play off of ghost story tropes of specters that walk across certain roads, or that drift through the far end of a hallway. I used a lot of blues and turquoise to really push a cold feeling from her. I wanted her to be this sad broken character that longed to be part of our world or the next -- not her current state of limbo.

Revision 1
To up the undead aspect of Danielle, I made her dress consist of lost souls. Her jewelry is also more prominent. Danielle herself is more specter as opposed to "just a lady in a dress" and is torn in half art-wise by her image as an undead and her image of the living.