Introducing the granger
Today, let's look at the granger!
To say that the granger is a cherished part of our community's history would be an understatement. With six beady, black eyes and stubby short legs, not to mention a soft white underbelly, the granger is much adored by those that have come to appreciate its delightful gurgling and comparatively non-threatening appearance. Of course, those that don't adore it are likely to shoot at it, but we don't talk about those people. Unlike the other aliens, the granger is entirely dedicated to construction tasks, with its sole means of self-defense originating in its ability to slowly bite at you and spit weak blobs of creep.
Our goal with the new granger is to update and toughen up its appearance while keeping the original as an inspiration. As you can tell in the concept art that Khaos made, the granger still has its beady, black eyes and those stubby legs and white underbelly. It's still as green as it always was. However, the granger is much more detailed than it used to be, fitting in with our art style, which is much more realistic than our predecessor. Our granger has armor plating, and will very likely be incorporating its arms into its weak melee attacks. The intent is to have a creature that can look both sturdy and cute.
The new granger is being modeled by Casey, a new modeler to join our team. He's doing an excellent job on the model, providing the granger with a great amount of detail. As of yesterday I've approved of some final changes to his high-poly model, meaning that this will be the version of the granger that we'll all be seeing in-game later on. Now that the sculpt is ready, he'll be going through the retopology process to reduce the tris count, and sometime after that it'll be time for texturing. Once we have the granger textured and ready to animate, you can expect to see it in a future update. Until then, keep the gurgly green one in your hearts!
