R6Share Full Kit '23 KOI

esports koi R6Share Rainbow Six Siege Rogue Gaming ubisoft Rainbow Six Siege R6

INTRODUCTION

Rogue hired Tyron Blanc to lead the creation of their R6Share Full Kit '23 including a weapon skin, headgear, uniform and card background for the operator "Echo" in the multiplayer first person shooter "Rainbow Six Siege" developed by Ubisoft.

During the preparation for this project, Rogue announced a partnership with KOI which also meant that the former Rogue roster would soon compete under KOI's name. This is why the design direction of the bundle was changed from a Rogue to a KOI branding.

Due to time constraints and other projects it was decided to hire me as an assisting graphic designer to enable the completion of the project in the given time frame.

Since an illustrator was needed I recommended Nicola Yau who I had previously worked with on the R6Share Full Kit '23 for Astralis.

The challenge was to create a unique and clean design that would showcase both the legend of the KOI and the KOI branding. Below I will share the designs we came up with for each part of the project.

THEME & COLORS

Legend says that long ago, there was an abundance of koi fish in a river in China. They made their way upstream, going against the stream, building strength and perseverance. Halfway upstream, they came to a large waterfall, an impossible height that is too high to traverse. Most of the koi turned back, going with the stream to safer ground. However, some koi stayed and attempted to jump and surpass the waterfall. Some of them got halfway but then pummelled back downstream after they lost momentum and energy. The spirits of the river watched the koi try over and over again, making fun of them as they found it amusing.

But one koi tried a different strategy. It went down to the bottom of the river, built up as much speed as it could, and leaped out of the water. It swam as hard as it could up the walls. Somehow, it reached the top of the waterfall and continued to swim upstream. The spirits were silenced watching that scene - how the koi succeeded in the impossible. Knowing the multiple attempts that the koi have tried over the years, the spirits transformed the koi into a dragon as a reward for its achievement.

Based on this legend, it was decided to depict a scene of koi fish and a dragon making their way through a river. The color palette is based on KOI's branding guidelines.

WEAPON SKIN

The weapon skin design is without a doubt the most important item of an R6Share bundle, which is why it should have top priority. Accordingly, we have devoted the most time to the weapon skin.

Echo's weapon in the game is the MP5SD, the unbranded and unlicensed variant of the Heckler & Koch MP5SD submachine gun.

The weapon skin for Echo's MP5SD beautifully portrays the legend of the Koi.

The illustration captures the moment just after the koi was transformed into the dragon. He is still struggling up the waterfall, surrounded by many other koi fish that he belonged to just moments ago.

All the large silver elements have an engraved pattern with matching elements on them, making the skin look more detailed and giving it a luxurious feel.

We intentionally chose to prioritize the design of a good skin over clustering it with brand logos to allow the main illustration to take up the most space. The actual KOI branding, besides the colors, can only be found on the empty spaces between the straps on the grip and the charging handle, which is quite visible when you look at the gun from a first-person perspective.

HEADGEAR

For the base model of the headgear we decided to go with the "Venom" headgear from Operation Red Crow as it has a more modern and unique looking mask than the default model of the Echo headgear.

This headgear features a metal grid hole texture which leaves place to perfectly fit the shiny chrome looking KOI logo in between. We placed KOI's hashtag "Somos KOI"

(eng.: "We are KOI") on the headband and colored everything according to the purple, black and white color palette to fit the uniform and weapon skin.

UNIFORM

This uniform is highly inspired by the R6Share Full Kit '23 by Fnatic for Hibana.

It has a quite unique uniform and headgear that goes in a very modern fashion direction. It almost looks like it was made by a brand like Off-White or comparable and was also designed by Tyron Blanc in 2022.

Since Echo belongs to the same CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) as Hibana, namely "SAT" (Special Assault Team), he wears comparable clothes with lots of straps and belts to attach text and achieve a similar look. Inspired by this, we decided to use the blank "KOI" logo as the main pattern.

In addition, our uniform features dragon scales glowing from below all over the torso, as well as embossed KOI logos on the knee pads.

CARD BACKGROUND

The card background is the two dimensional graphic which can be potrayed behind the selected operator in-game. It shows in the main menu and in the operator selection screen mid-game.

This design is based on the main illustration and was edited in a way to show the dragon on the top left and the Koi fish on the top right, next to the operator's head to display the legend of the Koi. The whole card design is very extroverted and vibrant.

UBISOFT

Each time new R6Share bundles are introduced to the game, Ubisoft creates a trailer from in-game footage to share on social media, promotional graphics showing all bundles from the drop, and individual graphics for each bundle to use in the in-game store and on social media.

Below is a collection of the trailer and graphics Ubisoft released to promote this R6Share release of Tier 1 esports Full Kits as well as in-game screenshots promoting the bundle in the shop of Rainbow Six Siege.

KOI

In preperation of the release of the new wave of R6Share bundles Ubisoft provides the esports organizations with promotional graphics as well as in-game renders of the according operator. This allows the esports organizations to prepare their own announcement trailers in their own editing style and be more unique.

Below you'll find the trailer that was posted across KOI's social media channels as well as the corrisponding tweets.