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In the early morning of July 31, Riot Games grandly launched the exclusive skin of the 2023 World Champion T1 team, and the Korean media also released a related press release at the same time. At the press conference for Korean media, the design team at Riot Games headquarters personally explained the process of skin development and its far-reaching significance. The Chief Game Product Manager, Art Director, Concept Art Manager, and VFX Manager jointly participated in the press conference and shared the story behind their production of the skin to commemorate T1's victory in the 2023 World Finals.

The T1 World Champion skin will be officially launched on the official server with the 14.16 version update on August 15th, Beijing time. Sara thinks this skin is so cool and conveys the flavor of T1's return to glory very well. The skin team spent a lot of time designing this skin. Let's take a deep look at the detailed information and behind-the-scenes details of the skin!

-T1 champion skin inspired by "God"

The original intention of designing the T1 World Champion skin is to make players feel an unparalleled sense of power. The design team drew inspiration from gods from all directions and designed it with the core concept of "guardian god". Given that the T1 team is mainly composed of young players, the design team hopes to present a fresh, bright and energetic image.

Therefore, they chose bright tones, with white and gold as the main tones, and red and blue as symbols of power, showing a classic, elegant and solemn temperament. The art director said: "The skin team incorporated elements such as Faker's legacy, T1's noble quality and the return of the king into the design of this skin, aiming to present a unique charm."

-Skin design that fully incorporates the needs of players

The skin team took the players' needs and feedback into consideration during the creation process. In terms of clothing design, they drew inspiration from the white and gold outfits that the players wore when they lifted the championship trophy. Based on the sample pictures and requirements provided by Faker, the skin team finally decided on the red design direction.

Faker specifically requested that when representing T1's red, avoid using too bright red and instead add a dreamy bright red flame element. This suggestion was unanimously approved by other players. In order to maintain the harmony and unity of the colors, the skin team tried to match the red with a lower chroma blue. In addition, the players also hoped that the champion skin could commemorate the number of championships they have won, and this wish was also cleverly incorporated into the design by the skin team.

-Zeus' Jayce Skin: Honor of Choice

Zeus chose Jayce as his skin. Since he won the FMVP award, he also has a Prestige skin. In the initial discussion, Zeus suggested adding blue lightning to the base skin and yellow warm lightning to the Prestige skin. The skin team accurately captured this demand and presented it perfectly in the skin. In addition, on Jayce's left shoulder, you can see star decorations that correspond to the number of championships. These stars will show red and blue light according to Jayce's combat mode.

Zeus' favorite existing Jayce skin is "Resistance Jayce". He loves its simple design style, hairstyle and clothing design, as well as the powerful hammer feeling when the skill is released. In order to incorporate these features into T1's Jayce skin, the skin team has made great efforts. After screening many options, Zeus finally chose the simplest version, making Jayce's skin more visually clear and eye-catching.

-Oner's Lee Sin skin: Warrior Style and Tiger Descending the Mountain

Oner proposed two core requirements for the design of Lee Sin's skin: one is to reflect the image of a warrior; the other is to incorporate tiger elements. Since Oner was a taekwondo warrior, he hoped to show the characteristics of this identity in the skin design. Therefore, the shoulder decorations, upper arms and skill special effects all strongly reflect the characteristics of the tiger.

At the same time, in order to highlight the identity of a warrior, the skin team emphasized the straight outline and simple white tone in the design. In addition, to commemorate Oner's first championship, a red star was worn on the side of the belt that symbolizes a warrior. In the initial plan, the design team considered draping the team uniform on Lee Sin's shoulders, but because the design elements were already quite rich and Lee Sin's hair was tied up at the back, it was difficult to add more elements behind. In the end, this design was cleverly integrated into the return to city special effect.

-Faker's Orianna skin: The grace and power of the demon queen

Faker made many requests about the overall theme during the initial discussion. He hoped that the red color of T1 would present a dreamy bright red flame effect, and that the overall tone would be bright. At the same time, he also hoped to incorporate cultural elements into the skin design to give it a high-end art museum feel. This concept was also resonated and supported by other players, helping the skin team to clarify the overall direction of the design.

After deciding on Orianna as the skin theme, Faker further explored the essential characteristics of her robot. He mentioned the trend of AI technology becoming increasingly humanized in recent years, and hoped that the skin team could innovate in this regard. Based on these discussions, the skin team successfully created the image of Orianna as a humanoid robot by optimizing the details of the joints and face.

In the concept design of the skin, the team chose the direction of the Demon Queen, aiming to highlight Faker's temperament as the immortal demon king. In this direction, the team showed Faker several trial plans. Faker has always emphasized the importance of simplicity without losing the sense of design. According to his suggestions, the team removed all complex decorative elements, making the final skin more concise and clear. At the same time, in order to enhance the recognition, the core elements such as the four-star crown, red wings and demon horns that symbolize Faker and T1 were highlighted on the skin.

-Gumayusi's Jinx skin: Red Storm with pet companion

Gumayusi had three key requirements for her Jinx skin: red hair, pet Tooni, and a personal signature move. The skin team worked closely around these three points. To commemorate Gumayusi's first world championship, they added a symbolic red star to the crown and cleverly placed it above the red hair. At the same time, in order to distinguish it from the player's favorite Star Guardian Jinx skin, a unique knot decoration was added to the hair.

In terms of weapon design, the team designed the blue lightning image of the Boom Boom gun and the red flame-emphasizing fish bone according to the unique characteristics of the two weapons. However, when designing the image of the pet "Duni", the skin team was in trouble. Initially, they designed the Fire Chew Grenade to look like a dog, but were strongly opposed and well-intentionedly ridiculed by Gumayusi. In the end, the team decided to cleverly integrate the cute image of Du Ni into the return to city special effects.

-Keria's Bard skin: A wonderful collision of rabbit and sweet rice dew

Keria actively expressed his opinions during the skin design process. He not only provided reference materials that he personally collected, but also proposed the idea of ​​adding elements of sweet rice wine, a traditional Korean drink, to the skill special effects. Bard's W and E skills are traditional Korean music, and Bard's sound effects change constantly during the phase of picking up the Harmony Sound, starting from the mysterious D minor, to the brighter F major when picking up the Harmony Sound for the third time, and finally bursting into a victorious roar when picking up the Harmony Sound for the fifth time.

Keria's suggestion injected new vitality into the skin team's creativity and promoted close cooperation between the two parties. Bard's skin was designed based on a rabbit, which has a dual meaning: on the one hand, Bard, as a god-like existence, is closely connected to the myths and legends of rabbits and the moon; on the other hand, this is also to satisfy Keria's love for the Lux skin that he can't get, and to fulfill his wish by adding the rabbit element that symbolizes his favorite girl group NewJeans.

-Zeus's Ultimate Jayce skin: Yellow warmth intertwined with lightning

The Ultimate Jayce skin shows the unique charm of the yellow warm series. The clothing design pursues simplicity and elegance and is suitable for the age of Zeus players. The top is simple and generous, paired with black wide-leg pants to show a neat and free temperament, and the hairstyle is neat and not dragged. From the back perspective, the T1 logo and the wings are perfectly integrated, flashing a dazzling lightning light.

In order to highlight the high-end positioning of the ultimate skin, the design cleverly uses yellow and purple gems and high-level gold decorations to contrast with each other. In melee mode, the yellow gems shine brightly; in ranged mode, they turn into purple gems that shine brightly, and the corresponding skill special effects also present different styles and characteristics.

-Zeus skin's recall effect: a symbol of victory in adversity

Zeus had specific and clear requirements for Jayce's recall effects. He wanted to use the theme of restoring strength as a clue, and use visual elements to show how he overcame many adversities and ultimately won, as well as the profound lessons and growth process that Zeus experienced from the five major tournament failures before becoming the FMVP.

So we saw five lightning strikes on Jayce's body in the special effects. Finally, Jayce held up the World Championship trophy and put on the classic glasses that symbolize Zeus' glory. This classic moment of celebrating victory ended perfectly. The recall special effects of the Ultimate version cleverly replaced the original World Championship trophy with the FMVP trophy to highlight his unique identity and glorious status.

-Oner skin's return to city special effect: Coach's encouragement and inheritance

For Oner, the production of the recall animation for his skin was a challenging and fun experience. Oner wanted to add the personality of his team coach Bengi to the skin, because Bengi also had a classic Lee Sin champion skin. In order to put this idea into practice and achieve the desired effect, the design team referred to the holographic projection technology of the current popular technology company and cleverly combined the holographic image of coach Bengi with Lee Sin's recall action.

In the hologram, we can clearly see Coach Bengi, walking out of the background of light and shadow, standing face to face with Li Qing, as if imparting experience and technical essentials, giving people endless room for imagination and a sense of profound meaning. This scene is based on the Spider-Man meme of pointing fingers at each other. Finally, Oner's salute and the red star decorations on his body representing the glory of winning the championship are the ending points, perfectly interpreting this relationship between master and apprentice and the spirit of persistence and hard work behind it.

-Faker skin's return to city special effects: Career and Glory Road

To celebrate Faker's fourth championship, this skin is all about 4! Faker hopes to incorporate bits and pieces of his career and the highlights of the 2023 World Championship into the recall effect. In this special effect, we see the T1 team icon flashing, showing a strong and mysterious sense of power. The recall creative has visual narrative and symbolic meaning, corresponding to Faker's narrative in last year's World Championship promotional video: "Even if there are thousands of roads, it is difficult to escape meeting me."

In this recall animation, we see the myth of a snake waiting for a thousand years to finally transform into a dragon, symbolizing the transformation and sublimation of Faker. As the famous Korean painting "Sun, Moon and Five Peaks" appears behind Orianna, we seem to review the glorious scenes of Faker's past four championships. Those glorious moments shine like stars in the long river of memory. Orianna dances gracefully, and she gently puts the crown on her head, symbolizing Faker's achievement of reaching the top of the world again.

- Gumayusi skin's return to city special effect: Happy time with pet Donnie

For Gumayusi, his dog, Tooni, must appear in the return effects of his Jinx skin. So we saw Jinx squatting down and teasing the cute Tooni, who was in a bad mood for a while, but then jumped happily into Jinx's arms. This scene not only shows the deep affection between Gumayusi and Tooni, but also shows us the innocence and childishness of the cold killer on the field.

-Keria skin's return to city special effect: warm interaction in the hologram

Keria always brings us surprises and innovations. This time, he cleverly integrated holographic technology into the design of Bard's return to the city special effect, and presented a warm and interesting storyline: Bard used advanced holographic projection technology to send sweet rice dew, a symbol of sweetness and care, to Lux, a battle academy thousands of miles away.

Although Keria likes Lux very much, he didn't pick her in the World Championship last year, so the skin team fulfilled his wish in this way. As Bard and Lux ​​held up the championship trophy together, it seemed as if time and space were shortened, and distance was no longer a problem. A close and warm spiritual connection was established between the two, which moved us. It was worth it for Lux not to get the skin!

-Original paintings and sound effects: the truth lies in the details

The original design of this skin is very ingenious, presenting the four championship moments of Faker in a visually impactful way, which is unforgettable. From the grand theme background, to the unique skin design of each player, to the shining stars decorating every detail, it shows the glory and glorious journey of the champion.

The sound effects are centered around the musical hero Bard, combining traditional Korean music elements withLeague of LegendsThe classic theme song style of the film is perfectly integrated to create a solemn, passionate and glorious auditory feast for us! Here, we seem to be able to hear the trumpet of victory echoing in our ears, and feel the joy and pride from the heart!

- Conclusion: Pay tribute to the contestants for their outstanding performance and personal charm

The T1 World Champion skins are not only a tribute to the players' outstanding performances on the field, but also an in-depth presentation of their unique styles and stories behind them. Through the in-depth interpretation of this press conference, Riot Games not only fully demonstrated the outstanding innovation and hard work of its skin team, but also allowed the majority of players to have a deeper understanding and expectation of these carefully crafted skins.

For those who are interested in these champion skins full of stories and personalities, be prepared to get your coupons ready to welcome them! It is reported that the price of the signature gift pack is about 600 yuan, which includes a series of rich and diverse contents such as signature skins, colorful skins, eye skins and champion icons. It is a great value for money and is definitely worth owning and collecting!