I'm not a big League of Legends fan, but the popularity of the game is such that it's all but impossible to avoid news related to the game if you're even marginally interested in video games. So, last week (September 15), when
Riot announced a new League of Legends champion called "Kindred," I, like millions of others, clicked on through to check out the concept art every gaming portal on the planet was teasing. As I've come to expect from video game concept art (and Riot in particular), the art was stunning (even if
the character is a little creepy).
It was also very, very familiar. At first, that didn't bother me. Between my
video game posts here on The Geek Art Gallery, my
link round-ups on SF Signal, and an expansive list of social media accounts, I see every game-related news story two or three times before it drops out of the news cycle. I just figured that I'd already seen a thumbnail of the art somewhere, but Wednesday,
Imgur smack me in the face with the real reason the "Kindred" concept art was so damned familiar.
The concepts are blatant immitations of the art of Chiara Bautista, who has been inspiring cosplayers, tattoo artists, and starry-eyed fangirls since 2010, when she first posted a
MySpace page featuring her work. Since then, she's created accounts on
DeviantArt and
Facebook. She's a particular favorite on Tumblr, where her work routinely scrolls across the dashboard of users subscribing to practically any art-related keyword. I've personally posted galleries of her work
here on The Geek Art Gallery several times to thunderously positive responses.
I'm not the only one noticing the similarities, either.
The Bautista / Kindred issue has
surfaced on Reddit at least
three times in the past two weeks. It's also been pointed out on the
League of Legends forums. Check out some side-by side comparisons of Riot's "Kindred" and Bautista’s work below.
