The latest Stygian Sentinel update from OtherSide Entertainment is all about Lizardmen, and how they will look in Underworld Ascendant:

We started with a couple of different versions during the Kickstarter: A dinosaur-like take and one that loosely resembled a fishman from H.P. Lovecraft’s Innsmouth. We even had a vote on which one the fanbase liked more. There was a healthy debate in the office, too.

After some time evolving in art direction of the game, we needed to come back around on how all of our creatures looked. Nate and the art team have been taking a new look at what the Lizardman might appear in this developing style.

This includes, among other things, differences between various species — or skin colours, at least — of Lizardmen:

this is the first look at a Green Lizardman, the friendlier of the types you’ll encounter.

Since they’re a closely related species, we didn’t want to deviate too drastically from the basic look. But as game developers we need to accomplish a few things when doing a separate species that is essentially the same. We’ve all seen this in games , the reds and the blues, the big and the little. In a 3d FPS game the silhouette is very important. Like spotters on ships in WWII being able to identify a silhouette at a distance can be the difference between life or death.

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To address this with the Red Lizardmen, we decided to adjust his shape slightly in bulk and to give them some easy-to-read attachments that Green Lizardmen don’t have.

In the early study (above), you’ll notice the frills on the Red’s head and face… which Will wants to call it a “head sail” and Tim a “scalp tongue”.

Another part we use to accent the silhouette is with armor and clothing.

Click on through to read the rest, and to get a look at some of the clay models — yes, Nate Wells evidently enjoys working with clay — they’ve made of some of the Lizardmen.