This is a small collection of personal Valorant weapon skins I've designed in a 1990s watergun theme for the Riot Games concept art internship application. Being born in the mid-90s, this is a period in toy design I have always loved and missed dearly. Between the color pops, level of inventiveness, and fearless exploration into what was just cool and unapolegetic, I truly believe some of the best toy designs ever came out of this decade. This project also made for a good time getting out of my confort zone and experimenting with new styles, while simultaneously expanding my artistic wheelhouse.
Bucky.
Frenzy.
Stinger.
Design breakdown for how I imagined the roload animation to play out for the Frenzy.
Design breakdown for how I imagined the roload animation to play out for the Stinger. This is the only weapon to feature an add on/mod for for the sight. While breaking the uniformity of the set I feel it adds a nice touch to what we did as kids and how nothing was out of bounds.
This animation I envision being one of the most fun main because the user gets to pull a garden hose out of frame to “reload” the gun. It takes me back to playing outside in the summer time and using the resources we had around us.
This was the stage when I narrowed down the final set and the general ideas for their designs and how they would probably function in game. I ended up sticking mostly to these color palettes but could have made amendments at this stage if necessary.
These were the final sketches for all the potential weapon variations. To be honest adding colors at this stage was premature but I was having fun seeing how all the different ratios read.
This “Era” ref I put together to really create another level of subconcious support for the realm I was designing in. While not water guns, it’s all connected in unseen ways and I wanted that to marinate in my brain and come out later in the process. Plus malls are just nostalgic and I miss the hell outta toy stores.
Waterguns reference. What ultimately helped me create my best designs was directly picking one gun to design around and even pull a colotr palette from. Being specific and deliberate in the way I design helps me carve out a better end product that resonates with something real.