campaigns<\/a> like HEARTSTEEL. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Lattuga spoke about her responsibilities, good habits for a professional artist and the time she met Harry Lloyd (\u201cArcane\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\nThis interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nThe Michigan Daily:<\/strong> What would you say are the skills that you need to do your job? Is it more visual arts? Do you think having something like choreography or performing experience is important?\u00a0<\/p>\nChesney Lattuga:<\/strong> I have a degree in motion media animation, so that is my specialty. But I actually think the biggest part of my job is communication and soft skills. So, not only being able to understand from a crafts level of \u201cthe proportions look off\u201d or \u201cwe should be in this color space instead.\u201d A lot of it is communicating with my team and external vendors and making sure the feedback we\u2019re delivering is very clear and concise.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nTMD:<\/strong> What would you say your day-to-day looks like? How much time in a day or in a week is dedicated to creative stuff, and then how much is administration and that kind of stuff?\u00a0<\/p>\nCL:<\/strong> I would say the majority of it is creative. We thankfully have a large team of brand strategists and producers and people who handle the timelines. Since I\u2019m mainly responsible for creating, my day-to-day revolves around feedback and communication. We partner with a lot of external vendors to create a lot of the work we do. For example, if we get an animation delivery, I work on crafting the feedback and making sure the vendor is heading down the right path. Then, if there are any additional details or feedback from specific teammates like art directors or narrative writers, I communicate with them to make sure their thoughts and opinions are included, and I gather all those. So it\u2019s a lot of people management, but the basis of it is always creative.\u00a0<\/p>\nTMD:<\/strong> Yeah, that makes sense. Would you say this (process) is something that\u2019s pretty common among all game companies, or do you think it would vary with different styles of games? Riot is a very big company. Is it different compared to a smaller indie company?\u00a0<\/p>\nCL:<\/strong> Yeah, I don\u2019t have a ton of insight into other companies, but in terms of Riot, I think the really interesting thing for us is we\u2019re a live-service game, so we\u2019re not necessarily a studio that produces a single narrative-lead game. We get to explore different universes and experiences of our characters. They\u2019re always changing compared to a more traditional studio that works on single-player, narrative-driven games.\u00a0<\/p>\nTMD:<\/strong> How do you approach making sure new ideas work for players but making sure they\u2019re not derivative? Do you do a lot of market research?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nCL:<\/strong> This is my personal take on it: I feel like a big portion is to just be aware of current trends from an organic perspective, right? I personally spend so much, maybe too much, time consuming media. Whether it\u2019s socials or TV shows and movies, I\u2019m constantly aware of trends from an organic perspective.\u00a0<\/p>\nWhere it gets a little cringey is when you\u2019ve got these brands or these companies who blindly see a trend and follow it but they don\u2019t have any of the context \u2014 they don\u2019t know why people are hopping on. It feels superficial and fake. If you position yourself within the current, you avoid making creative (choices) that feel superficial.\u00a0<\/p>\n
TMD:<\/strong> Do you find that there\u2019s overlap between your personal work and your \u201cwork\u201d work, or do you try to keep that more separate?\u00a0<\/p>\nCL:<\/strong> I actually think there\u2019s a lot of overlap. For me and my personal work, this is something that is really hard to balance as a professional. Since my job is being a creative, coming home and doing creative work is sometimes really hard to do because you feel a little bit of that burnout. But, I feel very lucky in working at a company and on a team whose champions and intellectual property I really, really love. So, a lot of times my personal work will reflect what I\u2019m currently working on.\u00a0<\/p>\nFor example, one of my favorite projects I\u2019ve ever worked on was HEARTSTEEL. It\u2019s this boy group music universe. We came out with a music video, and a lot of my personal work was just illustrating them, doing dumb things and just expressing my personal outlet through what I was creating at work. It definitely didn\u2019t feel like work because I was very excited by it. They kind of go hand in hand a little bit, at least for me personally.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nTMD:<\/strong> If you were to give advice to people that are looking to pursue art professionally, how would you suggest finding balance between professional stuff and personally fulfilling stuff in their work?\u00a0<\/p>\nCL:<\/strong> I would suggest avoiding forcing yourself to do things. There\u2019s a lot of pressure as a creative to always be creating, and we tend to kind of get into these art blocks where there\u2019s no inspiration. I don\u2019t feel motivated to do anything. I can\u2019t, but I know I need to be drawing, and I feel this pressure that I need to be creating. A lot of times, when you force yourself out of that, it just makes you spiral.\u00a0<\/p>\nTaking creative breaks and immersing yourself in something completely different helps me personally. This goes into my job as well \u2014 if I can\u2019t nail an idea and I\u2019ve been looking at the same stuff and the same references for days and nothing is clicking, I pause and go pencils down and I\u2019m like, \u201cOK, I\u2019m actually just going to go watch a movie.\u201d I\u2019m just going to go outside. I\u2019m just going to go somewhere else, and either I find inspiration there or when I come back to the work, then I go, \u201cWait, this is the idea.\u201d Take a little bit of a break and allow yourself to just do nothing, knowing that when you go back to doing creative stuff, you\u2019re going to be in a better mindset.\u00a0<\/p>\n
TMD:<\/strong> Have there ever been instances where you\u2019ve had to just push through an art block, and if so, how?\u00a0<\/p>\nCL:<\/strong> Oh yeah, absolutely. What I do in those situations is I always go to my colleagues and say, \u201cI need fresh eyes on this. I\u2019m bashing my head up against the wall. I\u2019m out of time and I just don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d Getting that fresh perspective, whether it\u2019s them saying something and I go, \u201cOh, that\u2019s it,\u201d or they suggest something and I\u2019m like, \u201cThat\u2019s a great direction.\u201d Getting help from other creatives is my fail-safe in those situations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nTMD:<\/strong> I\u2019m very protective over my own work and find it very difficult to hand off to other people. Do you ever feel that? How do you deal with that if you do?\u00a0<\/p>\nCL:<\/strong> 100%. I feel like, being a creative, when you create something, that\u2019s kind of your baby. It\u2019s your idea. You feel like you have this vision and personal picture of what it will look and feel and sound like. Working with other creatives is something I still struggle with, but for me, I always remember that digesting art is a very personal experience, and everyone interprets things with their own unique twist. You can create something with one idea in mind, and then someone else interprets it completely differently. That happens to make it more resonant for them as an individual and makes the original idea that much stronger.\u00a0<\/p>\nThat\u2019s why I\u2019m a big fan of headcanons and the idea of seeing an existing character, an existing story, and taking that idea and putting it in your brain and being like, \u201cYeah, you know what, this is what I think they would do.\u201d It feels that much more fulfilling. So that\u2019s something I try to remember, but a lot of it is just sucking it up and biting your tongue.<\/p>\n
TMD:<\/strong> Are you involved a lot with the League of Legends fandom online? I know some creators don\u2019t want to be involved with fandom \u2014 what are your thoughts on creatives and creators being in fandom spaces?\u00a0<\/p>\nCL:<\/strong> I personally love it. I am somebody who is constantly online. Twitter is where I\u2019m the most active, and it\u2019s always exciting to see what people think, and it\u2019s also important to understand what a community is feeling. A lot of our job is just experimenting because we want to keep things fresh and exciting. Sometimes we\u2019re like, \u201cLet\u2019s try this,\u201d and it doesn\u2019t work. I think it\u2019s very important to have insight into what the player base is feeling and have a connection. I think that really humanizes this idea of this giant corporation making a game and puts a face and a name behind the logo.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nTMD:<\/strong> Have there been times that you haven\u2019t nailed it? And then you\u2019ve been online and you\u2019ve just been like, \u201cThat didn\u2019t really go well?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nCL:<\/strong> Yes, but as a creative, we\u2019re so critical. The tough thing about creative stuff is that it\u2019s never done. It\u2019s not like a math equation where you end up at the end and you\u2019re like, \u201cOK, this is it.\u201d Art can always be improved, and\u00a0that\u2019s something that I personally have learned to take it as learning and take that into your next project or build upon that. We\u2019re always going to be critical of the work that we do because it could always be better, but we have to live with that and take those learnings from that project and use them elsewhere, which I do almost every single project I work on. It\u2019s just the idea of this constant absorption and utilizing it right. It\u2019s not personal, it\u2019s never personal.\u00a0<\/p>\nTMD:<\/strong> What are some cool experiences that you\u2019ve had at your job?\u00a0<\/p>\nCL:<\/strong> One really cool thing was a couple of years ago: Worlds, which is our end-of-year championship where our professional League of Legends players duke it out, and it\u2019s in a different region every single year. A couple years ago, it was in South Korea and that was the time that I was also working on that as a project. I got to go to Korea, and this is also the time where HEARTSTEEL came out. We did a bunch of pop-up events and it\u2019s just really cool to go to another country and interact with the (players) there and see the spectacle of it all. A lot of the stuff that we create lives on the internet, so it\u2019s always extra special where you get to go somewhere in person and you get to see the reactions of the people who are watching it for the first time or hear the conversations that happen. When I\u2019m feeling stressed, those times bring me back, and I\u2019m like, \u201cYeah, I love what I do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nTMD:<\/strong> What did it feel like to be able to finally see the faces of players and the people that your work has reached?\u00a0<\/p>\n