Riot posted one of the cryptic announcement threads that typically lead to legendary skins this weekend. The post was titled “Blitzcrank Makes the Cover of Mid Lane Magazine.” Obviously, that’s a fake magazine, but the post goes on to describe a Crank skin made by Piltover Heimer.

Here are the details on “Piltover Customs Blitzcrank:”

We took our largest, most gigantic Great Steam Golem down to the Custom Shop to see what the Revered Inventor was really made of. We expected him to be intimidated, but the moment we walked in the door his face lit up. From that moment we knew he was up to the challenge, and we just couldn’t wait to see our old friend Blitzcrank get the royal treatment.

The first thing that we noticed was the finish. Gone were the dings and soot-stains that come from a career of heavy lifting, replaced by a superb paint job that positively emanated speed and performance. A shiny chrome grill glinted in the sunlight, a great compliment to the sleek new exhaust systems.

But the real test was yet to come. We fired it up and the exhaust just roared, giving you that satisfying feeling of a true performance machine. A set of performance tires had replaced the legs, and they gripped the lane for a silky-smooth ride, even when we kicked it into full overdrive.

Our brand new Piltover Customs Blitzcrank hit the mark across the board. If you were still skeptical about whether or not Heimerdinger could live up to his reputation, allow me to put your mind at ease. Take your Golem in for a tune-up today!

With all the model changes and the fact that Riot made a special post about it, you can bet this is probably the legendary Blitzcrank skin. It does sound cool, but I’ll have to see it in game before I decide whether or not to pick it up. I love Blitzcrank, as I may have mentioned, but I already really like Boom Boom Blitz. It would be tough for me to justify buying his legendary unless it’s significantly better than that skin.

I’m a big fan of Riot’s various skins for the champions in game. A lot of them are pretty damn cool, and it’s nice to be able to show your pride in a particular toon by playing with one of the skins. Buying all of them would be a little ridiculous, though, and there are a few standard models with no skins at all. Thankfully, a small community of artists has cropped up to provide custom skins for free.

If you head over to heroesmod.com you can have a look at the skins available for any character. The site has full instructions for installation. My personal favorite is the Necron Blitz I used for the picture, but there’s also an Iron Man Blitz, a pretty cool Nidalee skin, and a nice replacement for Morgana. The skins only exist client-side, so your friends/enemies won’t see them, but it’s a nice way to add some flavor to the game. Did I mention it’s free?

Start with the tutorial for simple directions on installation. A lot of the skinners on the forums suggest you mess with a zip file in your DATA folder and it’s just not necessary.