Major Project survey

The face and hand make it look like you were going for crazy Queen of Ice... We've already got 3 Queens of the ice, why would we want a 4th? If you're going to go full crazy theme you can do so much better by picking a different region, and if you're going Ice theme you can go with a better personality.

The outfit looks pretty meh too, like you couldn't decide what clothing you wanted to draw and just decided to change a piece of clothing half way through. Start at the bottom and it looks like a skirt and trenchcoat, but then go up and the trenchcoat looks like a dress with straps and a shirt under the top part, but then the shirt has a collar that doesn't fit the rest? It just looks like it wasn't planned out.

I think my first reaction was "Hey, it's crazy Frozen", so take that for what you will.

I'm a big fan of the concept that is an elderly woman who is mentally unstable. It invokes memories of fairy tale villains such as Snow White's Evil Queen and Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent, while also filling in a currently unexplored character type in the League of Legends champion roster: An aged human female whose appearance represents the age of the character. There's much potential to be mined from Hertha as a champion, though I feel some tweaking would need to be done to make her go from a champion who could be in League of Legends, to a champion who should be in League of Legends.

Hertha's design from the neck-up is genuinely fantastic and is the strongest aspect of the overall design. Having her head resting in her hand while sporting a psychotic facial expression excellently communicate the unhinged personality of the character, while the ice-blue hair and eyes hint that she welds and is possibly consumed by ice-themed powers, an idea that is also backed by the seemingly damaged ice crown. It's also interesting that Hertha's mouth is wide open in a crude smile, enforcing that she is a character who will be doing a lot of speaking aloud to herself and others, furthering the insane fairytale aspect of the character.

Unfortunately I do feel that the quality of Hertha's design starts to dwindle once you look past her head. An area that could do with improvement is Hertha's outfit, her current clothes look surprisingly clean and casual for an insane person with royal aspirations who wanders around a harsh environment; to enhance these elements of her personality, I believe having Hertha dressed in regal attire that's tattered and worn would better reflect her deranged personality. Additionally, the Freljord badge pinned to her waist comes across as a tad juvenile and too modern for a universe based more in fantasy; I could see it being remade into an embroidered pattern on her clothing or as a piece of jewellery befitting of a queen (like a broach, ring or necklace), but in it's current form the Freljord badge feels askew with the theme of the character.

The biggest flaw of the image and character design is that neither convey what Hertha's champion role or what her in-game abilities would be. Ice being her power is communicated through the colour scheme, crown, Freljord badge, wrist aura and her surroundings; apart from them being ice-related, I'm not sure what exactly she does aside from maybe making it snow. Almost every piece of champion splash art expresses each champion's kit, and unfortunately I'm just not getting it from Hertha's. Perhaps having her preparing to use an ability (similar to Ashe, Blitzcrank and Heimerdinger), making her weapon be more prominent in the shot (similar to Vi, Riven and Annie), or place her in an environment that showcases her potential concisely (similar to Lux, Kled and Ziggs).

Ultimately, I am a fan of Hertha and would consider this to be a decent early draft for a champion design, however I feel that too many negatives that could be worked on are holding her back. The character's expression, age and colour scheme do a wonderful job of establishing her personality and distinguishing her apart from any other champion currently in the game; unfortunately these positives are undercut due to most of her outfit contradicting her characteristics, plus an overemphasis on conveying personality through the design, pose and environment, rather than the most important thing a champion design should do: displaying a champion's role and abilities. Hertha in her current form could easily be in League of Legends, but needs further refinement to her character design to unlock her full potential as a League of Legends champion.