I also did some experimentation with placing the character really far left from the center. It looks good in a screenshot, but it hurt gameplay too much, especially when turning left.
I ended up bailing up on the shield. Maybe it'll come back one day or with another character or in some other form.
Jim Sterling had a contest where you had to use a frequently flipped asset on the Unity Asset Store, the Horrid Spider, in a unique and creative way. You can learn more about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ4sp_OZ_nM
I took part in the challenge, but didn't make it into the final video unfortunately.
I ended up scaling the spider up a bunch and I put a fur shader on it to kind of hide the horrid human face on the back of the spider. When you shoot the spider in game it changes its material and sometimes players will catch a glimpse of the head and comment on it in a funny way.
