Crankles
Improved
Scope, Scale & Ship
Wayward Cats came to The Luxark with a bold vision for Crankles Improved — a stylized action-adventure game featuring expressive characters, vibrant environments, and a production roadmap stretching from Demo through Launch and beyond. They needed a reliable art partner who could deliver quality at pace without disrupting their internal pipeline.
The Luxark embedded directly into their workflow — providing vetted stylized artists, clear delivery milestones, and consistent visual quality across every production phase. From the chihuahua character trio to the bioluminescent cave environments and sun-drenched tropical beaches, every asset was built to spec, on time, and ready for engine.
Meet the Crankles
Three stylized chihuahua characters — each with distinct personality, color palette, and collar design — built for real-time rendering in Unreal Engine.
Big vision, tight timeline, indie budget
- Ambitious stylized art direction requiring consistent execution across a small team
- Multiple environment biomes needed simultaneously — caves, beaches, tropical zones
- Character designs required expressive rigs compatible with Unreal Engine pipeline
- Demo milestone locked to a hard deadline with investor visibility
- No in-house art lead to manage external artist onboarding and quality control
A dedicated art team, embedded and aligned
- Assembled a tailored team of stylized 3D artists matched to Crankles' visual language
- Luxark Lead Artist managed all delivery, reviews, and art direction alignment
- Parallel production tracks for characters and environments to hit Demo milestone
- Standardized asset delivery pipeline — organized batches, orthos, and engine-ready files
- Transparent weekly updates with direct team access for Wayward Cats' director
World-building at every biome
From bioluminescent underground caves to sun-soaked tropical coastlines — each environment built to reinforce Crankles' distinct visual identity.
Four phases. One ship date.
The Luxark aligned art delivery to Wayward Cats' full production roadmap — from Pre-Production concept through Demo, Launch, and Post-Launch DLC support.
Pre-Production
Concept development, documentation, and first play tests. The Luxark provided early concept art and character explorations to lock the visual direction before full production began.
Demo
40 minutes of finished gameplay. The Luxark delivered core character models, key environment biomes, and production-ready assets to support community and marketing efforts ahead of the Demo release.
Launch
Epic Game Store & Steam release with 4 hours of gameplay. Full environment art, character roster, and VFX assets delivered across parallel production tracks to hit the launch window.
Post-Launch
Console ports and 3 DLCs. The Luxark continues as an ongoing art partner — scaling support up and down as new content phases require, keeping quality consistent across every release.
Shipped on scope. On time.
"I've been cooperating with Austin and The Luxark on Crankles. With his help we've been able to cover multiple art positions with very talented people. Austin and The Luxark team constantly invest their time and effort into seeing our game succeed, they're organized and easy to communicate with. I strongly recommend them to any indie team looking for art support."
See the work in the wild
Explore the Crankles art team's production work on ArtStation, wishlist the game on Steam, and visit the studio behind it.
ArtStation
Browse the full production artwork — characters, environments, and concept development from the Crankles art team.
Steam
Wishlist Crankles on Steam and follow development updates from Wayward Cats.
Wayward Cats
Visit the official Wayward Cats website to learn more about the team and their upcoming titles.
Download the Crankles Improved PDF
The complete breakdown — scope, pipeline, roadmap, and deliverables.