I did think about it. And then Spidertron was released so I took the easy option and made this mod for Spidertron instead.
Sadly there are WAY MORE player sprites, and the player's head moves around (e.g. chopping ore, running, standing idle, shooting gun) so I would have to figure out the motion by eye and build all those sprites, and that's just too much work right now.
Maybe one day the Engineer will be as cool as their creations 😎