The Blind Monk's long-anticipated Art and Sustainability Update is coming on Patch 14.9! The ASU includes a full rebuild of his model, new animations, sounds, splash arts, and more!
Art & Sustainability Update
Art & Sustainability Updates, or ASU, are one type of champion update you can see in League of Legends. They are a type of visual update that will typically improve a champion's design, model, splash art, animations, and more. In contrast, a VGU - or, Visual and Gameplay Update - includes all of the above, as well as a kit rework. Skarner, for instance, received a VGU a couple of patches ago.
Lee Sin was first released in 2011 and he has been a popular champion in both casual and professional. In these 13 years, Lee Sin has received 17 unique skins, featuring a large scope of different themes and fantasies. With some skins having been released in 2011 and some in 2024, there is now a large discrepancy in quality and even likeness between older and newer skins. As such, Lee Sin has received a full remodel from the ground up in his ASU, as we'll outline below!
Lee Sin’s initial splash art.
Model Update
The ASU team stated that the main goal of ASUs in general is to update old champion models and textures to current League standards. With the base Lee Sin, that's just what they did; incorporating very few changes, but mostly cleaning up the model and establishing a baseline for his skins. One big change, however, is the dynamic ponytail! Lee Sin has always had a pony tail, albeit it was wrapped around his shoulders and sort of stuck in place. Post-ASU Lee Sin’s ponytail is wild and free, has animations and adds uniqueness to his model and silhouette.
Default Lee Sin - ASU Model versus Old Model.
The ASU team has stated that their primary goal with Lee Sin's ASU was to bring about consistency and clarity in his design across all of his skins. Lee Sin's updated build is, naturally, similar to a martial artist - toned and muscular, but lean and fit. As such, certain skins where the body proportions didn't fit this idea - such as God Fist which was considerably more buff and bulky - and Muay Thai, have been toned down and adjusted in terms of anatomy to match the base skin more.
Default Lee Sin, God Fist Lee Sin, Muay Thai Lee Sin post ASU
New Animations
As the model was built from ground up, Riot had the opportunity to remake all of Lee Sin's animations - from recall, to movement, to auto-attacks, to abilities. The animation team's goal was to make it feel like Lee Sin's punches really packed weight. His idle animation, while unique, caused his model to move way outside of his hitbox - and this has been fixed with new idle animations as well.
Splash Art Updates
Traditional Lee Sin
Acolyte Lee Sin
Dragon Fist Lee Sin
Muay Thai Lee Sin
Knockout Lee Sin
