Character Art and UI Design by George Sellas. Concepts by George Sellas and Rich Doak. Background Art by Glenn Kim.
Back in 2012, (over a decade ago as I type this!) I set out with my friend and fellow artist Rich Doak to re-envision the awesomely barbaric cast of the video game WeaponLord and bring them into the HD age.
WeaponLord was a 2D fighting game that came out in 1995 for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. It was barbarians, evil spirits, and monsters going head to head with steel and dark magic in a one-on-one fighting game set in a dark low fantasy world along the lines of Conan the Barbarian. It's brutally difficult and a cult classic, with a wealth of amazing ideas and gameplay options, many of which were ahead of their time.
After creating these redesigns, we sought out some of the original team members, including WeaponLord project leader James Goddard. The thought was to simply show them what we had done, tell them how much we enjoyed the original concept and show what a new WeaponLord game could look like using modern technology. This is what James had to say about our redesigns in 2015:
"The work George and Rich have done surpasses fan art, I can totally see the modern version of this game in motion and I want to play this now! It reminds me why 20 years ago, the WeaponLord team put everything we had into making this visceral barbarian fantasy and it is really cool to see the dream is living on in art like this. Amazing work guys!"
This is a project that we undertook just for fun, but we'd love to see it become a reality someday.
Mockup Screenshots - The backgrounds in the images below are by original WeaponLord team member Glenn Kim and are property of Namco.
Warning - Incoming Semi-Legal Jargon:
WeaponLord is a game that was developed by Visual Concepts and published by Namco (as Namco Hometek, Inc.) on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. WeaponLord is a registered trademark and © 1995 Namco Hometek, Inc.
The art here, unless otherwise specified, is purely fan art done for fun. I claim no ownership of the original game, its characters or trademarks. The fan art redesigns showcased here are © George Sellas.
The background paintings featured in the mockup screenshots were done by the extremely talented original WeaponLord team member, Glenn Kim, as concept art for the in-game backgrounds. I claim no ownership of these background paintings and I'm using them only to put a backdrop on the action and updated UI that I've designed.
To sum up, I don't own WeaponLord. I'm just a fan doing fan art of the characters. The backgrounds are by Glenn Kim and I take no credit for them. (I wish I could!)