Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Championship Shyvanna Feedback Thread (crossposted from the forums)

Oharris··5 votes·1,943 views

I saw the reveal of this skin on Surrender@20 and am incredibly happy with it. I only have two real points of critique and one may already be planned to "fix". Firstly, she doesn't have a numeral for season IV anywhere on her. I think the numeral would help the skin look cooler, especially if it was very visible between the wings on her dragon form. The space on the dragon's mid back is fairly blank (possibly because they intend the numeral to go there already).

More importantly (in my opinion) is her feet and legs. The human form of the outfit is heavily armored and very bulky. This makes her look like the badass toplane/jungle tank I know and love. All the way until you hit her legs. Her boots are designed to look like her dragon form feet (a cool concept), but are very thin and spindly in contrast to the rest of the outfit. What's worse (again, in my opinion) is that the boots stop at the thigh leaving her upper legs exposed. For an outfit that is so heavily armored I think it looks a bit silly for her to be exposing her thighs like that. Especially with so many of her other skins exposing plenty of flesh.

In conclusion I think the skin's overall design would look more consistent if she had full leg boots/greaves that had a bit more bulk to them like the rest of her armor rather than skinny little boots that stop mid thigh (even if the boots look like her dragon form legs). Thanks for reading.

PS: Maybe make the axe blades on her right hand weapon a bit smaller. They seem to clip through her in a lot of animations.

15 Comments

Life Of Nami4 votes

I do think her boots need a bit of work, but I do not want to see heels again like they did with the Ice Drake skin. Ice drake is my least used skin with shyvana because of those heels.

Oharris3 votes

I certainly wouldn't want heels on the boots personally. Mostly I just want them more heavily armored and not showing a random smidge of thigh.

Tarot Senpai4 votes

I really like the idea of the dragon feet, but I agree, the "boots" don't really fit. If they were bulkier and more armor-like and still looked like the dragon feet that'd be really cool. My sentiments on the skin are quite the same. Though even if these things don't get changed (but I hope they will) I'm still very excited. The shade of blue is really nice and I love the particle colors. It feels like that shade of blue doesn't get used enough.

Captain Danger3 votes

Here's something I posted in another thread, and on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2hegf2/riot_indepth_critique_of_championship_shyvana/

First off, let me praise Riot for choosing Shyvana for their new Championship Skin. Shyvana is one of my favorite top laners (even as she's fallen out of the meta).

I have severe concerns about her Championship skin. From a conceptual stance, Championship Shyvana is a knock out of the park. The palette is also a great change from what we've come to expect. The primary issues with Championship Shyvana is her human form, specifically her head. Her head and helmet lines deviate in a drastic way that make human Championship Shyvana look bloated and unusual. To be blunt, Shyvana's Helmet and hair combine to make her look like a peanut. I have several tweak suggestions at the end of this post.

The Artistic Concept of (human) Shyvana

To analyze where Championship Shyvana goes wrong, we have to look at the artistic concepts that guide the design of her human form. Shyvana is a sleek and powerful hand-to-hand fighter who will get up in your face, and then turn into a powerful dragon form when her fury has reached its maximum. Her human form is defined by her sleek, muscular body, her long ponytail, her battle helmet, and her gauntlets. (Of course, Ironscale Shyvana does not have a helmet... we'll return to this.) The underlying geometrical structure (the lines) for all of these shapes are a downwards V.

First, let's focus on her battle helmet from an overhead perspective: http://i.imgur.com/gO3lPxA.png

The overall shape of the helmet is a V whose tips curve inward: http://i.imgur.com/Yd2nKy8.png There are additional lines in the center that add a secondary shape, but again, a V is what defines the overall structure.

Now let's look at her face: http://i.imgur.com/x2Exqlp.png

The sides of her battle helmet slant downwards, suggesting a v-like shape: http://i.imgur.com/P9FpV05.png

From this low angle, you can see an inverted V on the top, but again, a V-shape on the bottom. http://i.imgur.com/PnP4bbm.png

Ironscale Shyvana

Ironscale Shyvana notably loses Shyvana's helmet, but you can still see the downward V structure dominates the form:

It's even clearer with the face how the sleek V lines of her hair take away from the overall roundness of her face:

Boneclaw Shyvana

The Vs dominate Boneclaw Shyvana's form. Look at how her helmet has multiple Vs and sharp lines, all leading down. The hair/headband thing also once again sleeks out her roundface.

Darkflame Shyvana

Darkflame Shyvana is somewhat an inversion in that her helmet lines from overhead is an inverted V, but the overall structure remains extremely angular. The sides of her face are once again are made sleek via the downward V of her helmet.

Ice Drake Shyvana

Ice Drake Shyvana is a return to the Boneclaw style where the Vs dominate the form.

Captain Danger4 votes

So, Championship Shyvana

So, how does Championship Shyvana deviate from this form? Championship Shyvana's forms are all defined by rounded angle-brackets: < > These angle brackets change what we generally have come to accept from Shyvana's form.

Here's her overhead: http://i.imgur.com/g8cYcAO.png

And here's her overhead with the lines showing: http://i.imgur.com/V7SIlUT.png

Notice how the helmet dominates by being a similar structurly to her face+hair. Notice how the centerpiece of her helmet is a closed pair of angle-brackets that reinforce the overall lines to the head+helmet.

Look at her face and focus on the hair: http://i.imgur.com/jO9Zkyu.png

Look how her hair flairs down and out versus down and in: http://i.imgur.com/HeqPmrO.png

The eye has to follow these bumpy shapes as opposed to everything suggesting a downward V. Look at the overall lines suggested by her helmet, hair, and face: http://i.imgur.com/THAP3id.png The helmet looks awkwardly balanced on the tip top of her head. It's a crown that could easily be pushed off.

Oh, and there's the facial symmetry

What's more, Championship Shyvana's facial symmetry is off. The right-side of Shyvana's face looks bloated. In most of her skins, her facial symmetry is well-balanced. And even though Ironscale Shyvana's facial symmetry isn't balanced (again, the right-side is bloated), the sleek V lines suggested by her hair allow you to ignore that. Because Championship Shyvana's hair flairs out, it draws attention to the roundness of her face.

How to Fix

Riot can take a variety of ways to tackle this. I've got two suggestions below: the subtle reshapings and the helmet removal. Please note that I am a TERRIBLE artist, and I have zero idea on how difficult these suggestions are or are not to implement.

The Subtle Reshapings & Reshadings:

This is the more subtle approach which tweaks the lines and shapes slightly to make it more sleek and bring it more in line with original Shyvana.

  • Fix the right-side of Shyvana's face so it's no longer bloated
  • Sleek out her face similar to Ironscale and Ice Drake Shyvana.
  • Push the hair closer to her face.
  • Make the helmet darker and more muted
  • Take the horns of the helmet and 'bend' them down so that it makes her whole head shape shorter.

The Helmet Removal

This is what I would recommend Riot actually do, although doing so would require them to redo the splash art AND make major modifications to Shyvana's helm. But removing Shyvana's helmet and sleeking out her face would provide two things:

  1. You can keep the new flaired out hair-style.
  2. Shyvana lovers get a second Shyvana skin sans helmet.

I will fully admit to being biased here. The only Shyvana skin I play is Ironscale Shyvana... and I would really love another helmet-less skin. Please rito? Plz??

Captain Danger2 votes

Other thoughts/criticisms/suggestions

Here's a bunch of other random thoughts/criticisms/suggestions about the skin.

  • Eyebrows could be thicker
  • The eyeshadow/shadows are a little bit dark
  • The hair texture is pretty blocky right now. She's got three big hair clumps that flair out on each side.
  • Love the blonde!
  • She needs something at the end of her ponytail (like all other Shyvanas do).
  • Her gauntlets are way too big.
  • The gauntlet blades are cool, but too round and too fat. They should be sleek and look deadly sharp.
  • The chest piece flairs out and then back in (again, like an angle bracket). It's also way too bulky. It takes away from the sleekness of Shyvana's body.
  • The shirt collar is really cool, but it's being visually overwhelmed by the chest piece.
  • I don't get the circle wast guard shield plate things.
  • Does she really need a blue glowing crotch?
  • The dragonfeet boots are nifty. It's a deviation from all the other Shyvana skins, but it's cool.
  • I think the dragonform looks amazing
  • The burnout effect on the dragonform is too dark. I'd like it to be a few shades brighter. Obviously doesn't need to have the same brightness as her Flame Breath (that would cause her burnout to be visually overwhelming).

Concluding Thoughts

Thanks again for taking the time to read this. There's obviously a lot here, but I think just a few subtle tweaks could make this skin amazing. (And a big tweak could make this summoner extremely happy). Here's the full album of comparison images from the variety of her forms, including marked up and non marked up images: http://imgur.com/a/vLGag

tl;dr

Championship Shyvana's head and helmet looks like a lumpy potato and she must have had wisdom teeth taken from the right-side of her face.

Oharris2 votes

In regards to the armor being too bulky, the bulk of the armor is almost 100% of what I love about this particular skin. It makes her look tanky and formidable. Like she can actually absorb damage and keep on trucking. I think making her look too sleek/lithe would hurt one of the main things that make this skin stand out from her other skins.

Captain Danger2 votes

I don't have a huge problem with bulky Shy. But if Bulky, Armored Shy is the theme here, then they need to make that the focus. Give her combat boots. Give her shoulder pads and an armored skirt, instead of the bare thigh thing she's got now.

Oharris2 votes

That's pretty much what I said in my post. I don't think she needs shoulder pads, as the chest armor is pretty bulky and shoulder pads would potentially make her arms look TOO bulky with the size of her weapons. But almost the entire point of my post was that the legs were far too thin compared to the rest of the outfit and that the random patch of her thighs you can see is a bit silly in contrast with the bulk of the armored chest and skirting. This comment makes me feel like you might not have even read my post before linking your comments into the thread.

Overlord Forte1 votes

I'm curious as to why her base skin is blue (formerly gray) but all her 'alternate' skins have her as white. (Ice Drake gets a pass for it being a winter theme?)

She's the only one that has such peculiar and jarring differences, where usually the nearest 'skin change' champions only have one while the others match the base.

Life Of Nami1 votes

I'm curious as to why her base skin is blue (formerly gray) but all her 'alternate' skins have her as white. (Ice Drake gets a pass for it being a winter theme?)

She's the only one that has such peculiar and jarring differences, where usually the nearest 'skin change' champions only have one while the others match the base.

Her base skin has NEVER been gray. Where do people come up with these myths?

Overlord Forte1 votes

http://i.neoseeker.com/neo_image/55455/news/7/shyvanasplash.jpg

If that's a shade of blue then we must understand the color spectrum differently.

Life Of Nami1 votes

http://i.neoseeker.com/neo_image/55455/news/7/shyvanasplash.jpg

If that's a shade of blue then we must understand the color spectrum differently.

If you're male, then you might actually be colorblind then. I'm female with 20/11 vision and perfect color vision, her skin is bluish grey.

Overlord Forte1 votes

'Bluish gray', but I read it as predominately gray with hints of blue - at best. It's not a black leaning gray, that much I can see.

I do have a color imbalance in my eyes, but it's not colorblindness as far as the doctors are concerned. My left eye sees the world with a slightly blue tint, while my right sees an orange. Together I see fine, but using only one I can notice the color difference.

exiledFromBadmen1 votes

It's AWESOME!!!! Time for more plays! item 3160 Shyvana Instabuy111!!1

More from Story, Art, & Sound

Petition to keep the Bilgewater ARAM map in circulation
Story, Art, & Sound154 comments
1,161
votes
[SUPER IMPORTANT PETITION] Change Sion's ban quote...
Story, Art, & Sound54 comments
597
votes
Can we get an Honor animation?! 4 ways to insult an opponent but none to congratulate them.
Story, Art, & Sound202 comments
578
votes
Petition to make Rengar wiggle his butt when there's a pounce-able target near his bush
Story, Art, & Sound140 comments
476
votes
About this years harrowing...
Story, Art, & Sound357 comments
459
votes
RIOT, please postpone Blood Moon Diana and make it into a Legendary skin.
Story, Art, & Sound236 comments
423
votes