On Nov. 23, the hit animated show Arcane came to a close when part III of season two dropped on Netflix. Arcane is the backstory of several League of Legends characters, focusing primarily on sisters Vi, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jinx, Ella Purnell, who are embroiled in a developing conflict over clashing beliefs and arcane technologies. The intricate plot is even more captivating by the meticulous art direction.
Production And Animation
Arcane has been continuously praised for its animation. It is critically acclaimed, even becoming the first streaming series to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program in 2022.
This impressive and beautiful animation didn’t happen overnight. Season one of Arcane took about six years to complete from planning to the overall writing, production, and animation. This long process is evident in the detailed sets and character designs.
The idea for Arcane originated with Christian Linke and Alex Yee in 2015 following Riot Games’ exploration of other media forms, like cinematic trailers and music videos aiming to deepen player engagement. Riot partnered with Fortiche, a French animation studio known for its work on League of Legends music videos, to bring the animation to life, specifically targeting an adult audience.
Arcane’s production differed from standard industry practice. In collaboration with Riot, Fortiche Production created an intricate combination of 2D and 3D elements, giving the series a hand-painted quality. Fortiche’s artists layered 2D digitally painted backgrounds with 3D objects and characters in the foreground, allowing them to create highly detailed scenes that blend cartoony and realistic elements. The utilization of such a style in tandem with violence, adult language, and dark subject matters allows Arcane to appeal to older people.
Set Design
Even if you have never played League of Legends, Arcane’s impressive worldbuilding allows audiences to feel a sense of familiarity and intrigue within the world without feeling bloated or exposition-heavy. Not to mention, the steampunk environment looks gorgeous.
While essentially having just two major settings, Arcane is able to feel diverse and large, with meticulously designed sets and detailed, yet digestible environments. This allows audiences not to feel overwhelmed with the world of the original League of Legends game and lets the show become its own entity not reliant on the game.
Arcane is set in the utopian city of Piltover and its undercity district of Zaun. Piltover is the “city of progress,” everyone has nicer clothes, homes, and privileges. There isn’t nearly as much crime or pollution as in the undercity.
Visually displaying this contrast to the audience, the color palettes of the two settings are opposites. Everything in Piltover is brightly lit and full of lively whites, blues, and golds, while Zaun is filled with neon lights, greens, purples, and pinks, along with dark shadows, smoke, and a reputation for being dangerous.
The main emphasis of Arcane is the growing social unrest and tensions in Zaun, where people live in deplorable conditions and are continuously in danger from Piltover’s ruthless enforcers, creating political tensions. Piltover and Zaun are made to seem like two separate communities and environments by providing a certain aesthetic to both places.
Character Design
These differences in aesthetics are also present in Arcane’s characters. Several of the characters were part of the League of Legends game before the creation of the Netflix series. In the show, these designs are distinct and identifiable even as the characters change throughout the story. These unique designs allow the cast to be brought to life with ease. Fortiche wanted to respect the lore, but because animation is a different medium than video games, they adapted the characters’ into their own style.
Alexis Wanneroy, head of character animation at Fortiche Productions, said in an interview for SyncSketch, “What Fortiche always wanted to do was to create something that felt real, that felt raw, a bit gruesome sometimes. It was not what you would see in other animated projects, they often are watered down. They wanted the characters to feel very graphic, to have imperfections.”
Because Arcane is a fantasy world, diverse humanoid and non-human creatures coexist alongside human characters. Costuming in Arcane is detailed and tailored to perfection with geometric shapes and steampunk elements.
The distinctions between Piltover and Zaun are evident through the costume design. In Piltover, the enforcers wear golden embellishments on their blue uniforms with golden metal facemasks to walk around Zaun. Councilor Shoola is seen with an impressive kinetic necklace that revolves like a clock. Meanwhile, in Zaun characters wear stolen and worn-out clothing.
The standout costume designs are Vi and Mel Medarda (voiced by Toks Olagundoye). In comparison to the game, Vi’s character design has improved, focusing less on the male gaze, and making her wardrobe look accurate to what someone in her circumstance would look like. Further, season two Vi is hardened and shaped by the trauma she endured in season one. Worn bandages frequently cover her arms, and the battle scars and tattoos all over her body are a reflection of her unjust upbringing behind bars, which has fundamentally changed how she views the outside world.
Mel, in direct contrast, is a noble with a seat on the city council of Piltover. She favors ivory, white, black, and gold as her color palette, immediately associating her with elegance, luxury, and wealth. Her dresses are extremely feminine with soft, silky fabrics that make her look as though she is gliding when she walks. Mel understands the power she holds in the clothes she chooses to wear and uses this influence with ease.
Conclusion
Every element of Arcane is beautifully created. The creative writing never ceases to amaze, and each character is full of nuance. Though the story is fictional, it covers real-life issues, like the prevalence of drugs in underprivileged areas, the meaning of family, the ignorance of the wealthy, and the consequences of war.
The stunning animation of Arcane should captivate you whether or not you have played League of Legends. A genuinely captivating and incredibly dark narrative awaits you. I suggest this show to everyone, whether it is the remarkable animation or complex story, Arcane is an easy show to love.
Sources
Arcane: Fortiche x RIOT blow critics away with masterpiece animation
You don’t have to play ‘League of Legends’ to enjoy the masterful animation of Netflix’s ‘Arcane’
