#league of legends rakan

[llairin]

Star Guardian Rakan fan art

[league-of-skins]

Dragonmancer Rakan (+ Prestige), Kassadin, Fiora, and Vayne

hmm

[loonaink]

Slaying

[narcissisticrakan]

hey heyy everybody, long time no see ✨

[aurelion-solar]

"Ambessa's Type" is Ezreal, Rakan, Aphelios, Hwei, Akshan, Illaoi and Shyvana, aka twinks and buff women 🤭

[evil-cactus]

[greenirisart]

also Rakan with others ADCs

:^)

[odekoyma]

Xayah is taking on a revenge for anyone who hurts her baby

[parachuter]

Commission for @/sarabxth on twitter of Redeemed SG Xayah and Rakan ✨

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Beauty in Splash Art 3

League of Legends splash art is, on the face of it, perhaps an odd place to go looking for beauty. These are JPGs whose first and primary function is to hawk video game cosmetics for a free-to-play game, it's not exactly the sort of thing you expect artists to particularly flex their creativity for.

And true enough, a lot of splash art is fairly rote. Here's a character, wow look at their cool pose, don't you want to spend dollars to own this, and so on.

But sometimes, one of the artists working at Riot, or at their outsourcing studios, seems to get a bee in their bonnet, or maybe they just get excited about an opportunity to practise craft, and you get splash art that tries to do something more than simply sell the product, or artwork which displays a real flex of technical skill, often in ways which are functionally invisible at any of the common resolutions that the art will ever be displayed at.

There is genuine reward to be found in those pieces, in zooming in close and marveling at the level of effort spent. So let's spend about an hour doing that!

Splash arts covered:

Odyssey Sona - by Kelly Aleshire

Victorious Sejuani - by Francis Tneh

Aurora - by Jennifer Wuestling

Redeemed Star Guardian Xayah and Rakan - by Ina Wong

Empyrean Vex - by Horace "Hozure" Hsu

Winterblessed Diana - by Bo "chenbowow" Chen

Porcelain Irelia - by Alsie Lau

Toy Terror Cho'gath - by Fortune "Fortuneee" K

[cherrysphinx]

I haven’t drawn them redeemed yet…. (At least I don’t think so)

[league-of-skins]

Arcana Xayah and Rakan

One half of a perpetually incomplete whole, Xayah has found her love not in the world of the Higher Arcana, but the Lower. As she strains to meet the fated Rakan and pull him upwards towards herself, their tension frays and forms discordant knots—setting the stage for something new.

One half of a perpetually incomplete whole, Rakan's fated love was not in the Lower World, but among the Higher Arcana far above. As the two rush to meet betwixt the lands of their birth, fate bubbles and boils over—a roiling sea from which a new order may emerge.

It’s a double feature!

General Information:

Price: 1350 RP Tier: Epic Release Date: April 14, 2022 Skinline: Arcana

Credits (Xayah):

Concept: Yanie Yang Splash Art: Marie Magny Model: Siao Sia Animations: Awen Yu Tech Art/Rigging: Crane Wang VFX: Huanmo Ju SFX: [I wasn't able to find credits for this position] Artist Lead: Duy Khanh Nguyen

Credits (Rakan):

Concept: Yanie Yang Splash Art: Marie Magny Model: Sylph Pang Animations: Kuma Hu Tech Art: Rongcheng Sheng, Chen Lai Rigging: Jason Sun VFX: Jianqi Huo, Yingfeng Zhao (concept) SFX: James Shen Artist Lead: Duy Khanh Nguyen

Concept:

I honestly don’t really understand Arcana’s lore and I find it visually impossible to differentiate between the higher and lower arcana but I can forgive that because I find Broken Covenant to be stylistically worse. Visually, Arcana simply appears more cohesive.

Several of Rakan's and Xayah's skins are based on the star-crossed lovers trope. With that being said, Arcana is at least unique in it not being good vs. evil like Broken Covenant or Star Guardian, but more of a hierarchical difference. It is interesting that in all of these instances, Rakan seems to be the one getting the short end of the stick.

All in all, I haven't really liked any of Xayah's or Rakan's skins since Elderwood but, for Arcana, at least, it is not at the fault of its concept.

Design:

I love the colors. I also love how Xayah’s cape ends are a little sharper than Rakan’s and how whole her cape goes from red to black, Rakan’s is the opposite and goes from black to red. I honestly think Rakan’s design has too much going on, especially in the top half, but it’s much more obvious in his chromas. I do like the stripe on his pants though.

Splash Art:

Thematically, their posing makes sense with Xayah being above Rakan and I do enjoy the half wing imagery with their capes. The issue is that it doesn't look good on the loading screen. The concept arts look so much better and while A is my personal favorite, I do love C's heart frame as well as the implication that Xayah succeeds in ascending Rakan so that they can be together.

Model:

I think Xayah looks absolutely wonderful, mostly staying true to her concept design. I really like the subtle cape changes as well but I’m very happy they kept the gold, feather-like layer at the top. I also quite like how Rakan’s arms turned out but some of the arm bracings do contribute to the noise. And, of course, Rakan wants to be loud and contrasting to Xayah, but I think in the context of this skin it’s better to rely on more subtle differences like the capes. I think having them look so similar and striving for that cohesiveness is done away by having to make Rakan “flashier” simply because he’s Rakan. And I believe that thought extends to their chromas as Xayah utilizes more muted colors in her clothing with occasional brighter hair while Rakan’s chromas are all bright and bold.

Chromas:

I'm not sure how chromas are made, but it's a little disappointing how the colors don't match well to each other despite the base skin accomplishing it fairly well. Something I especially enjoy is their contrasting capes, but the uncoordinated colors don't accomplish the same effect in their chromas.

Catseye: I can excuse the hair colors but Xayah's clothes are much more orange while Rakan's are obviously yellow with purple accents for no reason. His hair also looks really bad.

Obsidian: They look good individually but lack the matching colors.

Pearl: Much more cohesive. Probably their best chroma together. The colors on both are gorgeous and Rakan's hair looks wonderful.

Rose Quartz: Both are nice but the pinks don't match.

Ruby: I really don't understand this one as the base skins are already very red. Xayah just doesn't look good with blonde hair and Rakan has barely changed. Again, their clothes don't match with Xayah's being orange again while Rakan's are almost a pinkish red.

Sapphire: I actually quite like Xayah's. Once again, Rakan's hair looks terrible.

Tanzanite: Once again, the colors don't match. Xayah's is more of a magenta while Rakan's is a much clearer purple. I dislike his hair.

Turquoise (Xayah): Pretty nice.

Emerald (Rakan): Emerald chromas aren't really supposed to look nice, but it's decent.

The biggest issue is that the colors simply don't match and that in giving Rakan the Emerald chroma, they each have a chroma that they cannot match with their partner. I think they did a really good job of contrasting Xayah's hair with her clothes and I appreciate how the colors are quite simple. Rakan, on the other hand, suffers a lot from the two-tone hair and it becomes difficult to make it look nice. Similarly, his much more decorated and complicated attire makes the many accents sort of overtake the chroma. I think the most obvious example of this is in their Sapphire chroma where while Xayah's yellow accents are more minimal, Rakan's are so prominent that they have to extend to his hair.

Animations:

No new animations aside from individual recalls. No new joint recall.

I really love Rakan's recall individually. Xayah's is extremely similar to Ahri's with her spreading out the tarot cards and picking one but their differences in personality are evident.

VFX:

I think Rakan's passive effects are beautiful with the red and yellow colors. My favorite ability is probably his W (Grand Entrance). I really enjoy the inclusion of the apple tree that's also present in their splash art, alluding to Xayah's efforts to ascend her lover as well as, of course, the first sin. I also love the charm effects from his R (The Quickness).

Xayah's particle effects are also beautiful. I really love her E (Bladecaller) root effects with the tarot cards floating around her opponent. Similarly, their inclusion in her R (Featherstorm) is also gorgeous.

Rakan's glowing effect on his cape is so well done and I really enjoy how the patterns on both of their capes appear to be moving down like stars falling from the sky with Rakan's being much more rapid than Xayah's. I think it's a wonderful detail. The visual effects are by far the highlight of these skins.

SFX:

Nothing too revolutionary, but they’re nice. You’ll most likely notice the visual effects more but I believe competent sound effects are the backbone of good visual effects.

Voice Over:

No new voice overs.

Value:

I personally would never buy this skin nor Broken Covenant. I think it's ridiculous that you can't get its full value if you choose to play the game effectively and utilize their Lover's Leap passive. I think it's even more ridiculous that Riot not only ignored this feedback, but did the exact opposite and completely scrapped their joint recall animation. I'd like to mention the Redeemed Star Guardian skins but I believe it warrants its own post.

I believe the precedence of Rakan and Xayah having unique joint recall animations was first set with their Sweetheart skins (their release skins, Cosmic, uses the base animation). In that skin, the animation is much simpler than their individual recalls, but still sweet and new. I'm not expecting them to make every new joint recall as elaborate as Elderwood's, but to scrap the idea entirely when Sweetheart Rakan and Xayah exists makes it seem like they're giving up.

[ikyiri]

Help i've fallen into SettPhel brainrot

+ my favorite birb couple

[muunwo]

Doodled some of my faves!

[icarus-mp3]

[aurelion-solar]

Xayah & Rakan "Romance" Summoner Icons