The dancer one getting shrunk seemed inevitable for that design. I'm surprised it wasn't just a "nice idea, but it can't work in motion" runner-up.
Does that mean that most spears actually exceed the template? Because looking at this, the creator's choice was for the spear to be at *least* average in length.
https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/f8...879.1673406266
Yeah, despite the nice glow Elemental weapons have, I've never liked the lance precisely because of its length. That's fine though so that there's more variety but there's certainly weird issues happening when spears are too short as your picture shows.
The newest Manderville relic is another example of this. I like it but I'd prefer if it was longer so that it better highlighted the glow and design of the weapon, as its mostly centered around its tip area. I also feel the same with the first glowing stage of the ShB relic but as I said, it's alright to have so many choices for those who enjoy shorter lengths.
The strangely short length of the spear has also been discussed in a Reddit thread (link).
Bumping for visibility and support
Nah.
Fix or alter the position of the cloth, yes, because that's just a face-clipping mess. But the length is fine; I dig the short spear look.
Bumping for visibility
Just got the exquisite version of the Night's Wolf after doing a lot of Another Aloalo Island (Savage) recently and was reminded of how sad it is that such a cool design is overshadowed by the silly length they decided to give it even though the original concept art didn't specify it had to be that short
The weapon design submissions were all drawn on a template representing the maximum size of the weapon, whether the artist uses the whole space or not. I haven't compared weapon and drawing, but I assume the modeller has most likely produced it to match the proportions that were illustrated, rather than interpreting it to be a "good" length.
The designer used all the available space. It was the modeller who then decided to make it that short, perhaps because they didn't think of a better way to handle the drape. Just to provide another example, the winning BLM entry also used all the available space and the rod is quite long in-game.