We don’t have a title for this new segment yet, but as Ozzie and I have been doing livestreams for a while now (thanks to everyone who chimes in, whether you’re active in chat or not!), we wanted to show our redesigns on the blog. I started out doing streams solo, so this and the next few posts will be just on my process.
One of the first redraws I did on stream was Caitlyn from League of Legends. I read her backstory blurb, and she’s apparently a sheriff, though she doesn’t have a badge or… wear a uniform? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Guess she’s too Strong and Independent™ for that. My redesign was basically to give her actual clothes an officer of the law in a technology-based steampunk city might wear (and a badge!). This was also the stream that started the Poofy Pants tradition of BABD streams.
Poofy Pants: For Any Occasion ~
For people interested in seeing more redraws, check out our redraw and redesign tags, which is mostly filled with fan submissions at the moment, and the Repair Her Armor blog, though it has been on hiatus for a while.
-Icy
Evelynn
EdwardGein submitted:
Evelynn from “League of Legends” just got reworked. And it is… horrendous.
Her attire was always awful, and her splash art as well. Reworking champions should give Riot the opportunity to fix some of the generic-babe-material they started with in 2010. But here we are. 7 years later and not a thing learned. Let’s open the history book on this one…
This was her original art:
It represented so much being wrong while retaining not an ounce of appeal, at least to most male humans I know. You should get a spooky vibe, but there was just nothing there. Just spikes and leather and… not even a weapon. And those heels. The character even jokes ingame about the fact that it is hard to move in those shoes. NO KIDDING.
Then, a while ago, they updated the art. To this:
I actually like this one a tad more. The outfit is the same (because only the splash art got changed, not the ingame model) but it conveys at least something. Still not much to characterise or read into and escher-esque. But at least stuff happens and you get an idea how the character is going to play ingame. And she seems kind of lethal or at least unhinged and dangerous, which is more than you can say of most bikini-clad-“no seriously she is dangerous and can fight”-girls in video game art.
But now, they remade the character. New abilities! New story! New background! A fresh new page to change things! Aaaaand… this happened:
No. Nope. I’m done. Why? Why succubus all of a sudden? Why ditch the spikes and go just down to lingerie? Does that make it better instead of even more generic? Why not add a tattoo that says “I am a metaphor for sex, you guys” and ditch the whole effort?
There obviously was reason to change things, and good thing that they noticed that. But why did they take it in the complete opposite direction to make it just plain stupid. I am not an artist, who can point out all the little signs where this went wrong, but the moment I saw this, I was even more done with the game than I already was.
Oh and one of her new abilities is named “Lust Dust”.
What’s really amusing about the promotional video is that the opening the sinister assassin would suggest that Evelynn is essentially defined by her power of seduction… but then it quickly becomes apparent she’s more defined by spikes:
Now, spikes honestly makes more sense since League of Legends is basically a video game that more resembles at fantasy tabletop war game than a roleplaying game, but apparently someone at Riot Games just really, really wanted to pay an voice actress to record a lot of innuendo lines and pay an artist to draw boobs.
– wincenworks
LeBlanc, another LoL female design made entirely of WHY…
~Ozzie
I challenge people not familiar with League to try to guess what her story/profession is. All I can think of is maybe she’s a model who does double-sided tape commercials and this is her TV persona outfit.
-Icy
For a character whose model literally has no legs (so she can’t score the ever popular High heels or Thigh-high boots squares), Morgana from League of Legends still covers a decent amount of the bingo.
Fun fact: when we were checking with Icy whether that bra should count as “How does it attach?”, we discovered that Morgana’s buttcrack isn’t all covered:
Guess she should score cleavage double.
~Ozzie
A fallen angel who got her hands on forgotten dark magic to become more powerful. Is that what you guys get from this design? Cause I sure don’t, even though that’s Morgana’s backstory. Definitely one of the more boring designs in LoL, even among the other swimsuit models.
-Icy
lightlunas submitted:
League of Legend’s newest champion, Taliyah, the Stoneweaver, is another step forward towards more diversity and non-sexualized female champions for them. As usual, this was accompanied by a big outcry of some players about Riot Games not making sexy lady champions anymore, as seen in a lot of comments on her reveal video. Interestingly, Taliyah’s lead designer addressed this on twitter.
I hope they continue to fill the huge gaps in diversity first and if they make a sexy champion eventually again, treat it as the exception that it should be.
Good news: League of Legends, released another female champion, after Illaoi, who is neither objectified nor looks like a repainted clone of all the other characters. People who love Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender or Terra from the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon will likely enjoy her a lot!
Bad news: Apparently inclusion of a unique female character caused enough vile reactions among the dudebro crowd to make one of her creators respond to it directly on his twitter account.
We’re very glad that Riot developed self-awareness and is openly addressing their design problems and willingness to fix them.
And while nastiness and paranoia among entitled gamers is quite worrying…
Maybe it’s a sign of some real cultural shift happening right before our eyes: The guards of sexist status quo throwing hissy fits whenever there is the smallest evidence they’re not being pandered to as they were before.
~Ozzie
h/t: @i-got-nose-for-2 & @mosenwraith