Riot, you churn out new awesome splash art every patch. For example, the new Cho'Gath Splash. It just makes me wonder, is this the direction their VU's will go eventually, or will you make a new one all over again?
These splashes, as far as I'm aware, are made with the champion as they are in game currently as the primary source, coupled with some artistic lee-way. I'd say don't take these splashes as an indicator of upcoming VU's, instead think of them as Riot bringing ALL of their splash arts to the quality bar they have set for splash art. There's a good possibility that, if an extensive VU happens for any of the champions who've received updated splash arts, these splash arts will be replaced with one that makes sense with the VU.
TL;DR New splashes are to make the game better by having better art. They likely have no bearing on upcoming VU's. These new splashes may get replaced depending on the scope of an upcoming VU.
The updated base splash art for champions are meant to illustrate how they'd literally look and feel within the world of Runeterra. =)
Regarding future visual updates for champions, yes, the updated base splash art is meant to be the direction we want to go with the champion. While the in-game model and the base splash art won’t share the same level of detail (for the sake of in-game clarity), the splash art serves as an inspirational reference point for the champion’s visual update.
well as far as i know,in caitlyns case they did the splash art before there were any plans for the VU(but from what Ironstylus said,they are probably going to change caitlyn so much,that they might give her a traditional skin,that would keep the splash art).
From what we know,they didn't start with cho'gath yet,because the current plan is giving him an evolving model,but that is above the current champion standards. So I'd say that the VU might change things around,or might try to keep him similar to how he currently looks(ingame and in the splash art),they probably didn't decide on this themselves and simply updated his splash because it just looked bad
