Saints Row DLC: A Song of Ice and Dust: Frostlander Concepts
These are various concepts of the Frostlander enemy LARPers and their weapons and vehicles from the video game, Saints Row (2022).
I was the Art Director for the main 'Saints Row' game and the final DLC package, 'A Song of Ice & Dust'.
For this chapter of DLC, the Saints are attending a Live Action Role-Playing festival called the DustFaire, in the nearby town of Vallejo (a fun nod to fantasy concept artist, Boris Vallejo). The festival is invaded by the Frostlanders, a group of role players from Meeker City who bring a higher level of threat, since they use paintball guns and paint grenades! They are led by the Chill Queen, who has a long history and grudge with the DustFaire.
The LARP they play is called 'The Dustlands', which is a post-apocalyptic fantasy themed world with various rival factions. Think 'Mad Max' meets 'Game of Thrones'. I had a lot of fun playing with these concepts and ideas!
For DLC, I created various concepts and direction sheets for the Frostlanders to visualize their world, including the character designs for the Frostlander enemies, their weapons, and their main vehicle.
For the character, the challenge here was to develop concepts on a tight deadline with a specific amount of character art bandwidth. My strategy was to develop a look where we build from scratch a couple of signature pieces, and then use other, existing assets as the base geometry and build on top to save some time. For instance, the body armor is wholly unique, but the base motorcycle helmet was an existing asset, as well as the boots and wrist armor. We took those existing assets and built on top of them, adding the metal plates, bolts, fur, and ice elements to create something new. Beyond that, using body paint helped to create a unique look without model changes, and affords for more variation. For instance, we didn't need to sculpt and develop a brand new head for the Chill Queen, but used body paint to create her unique look.
Below you'll see my concepts, and rough direction designs provided to artists to develop the world of the Frostlanders.
Frostlander Wolf logo designed by James Taylor, Context Artist and DLC Art Director.
A Song of Ice & Dust Launch Trailer. Here's a good trailer with an overview of the DLC package contents.
Concept I created for the Frostlander Chill Queen The Chill Queen is a variation of the base Frostlander design, but with white armor and asymmetrical should pads. The design on her face is patterned after an Alaskan Husky. She is the leader of the pack!
My Frostlander Enemy Line-Up Concept, featuring the Thegn, Female Grunt, and Male Grunt. The Frostlander shield here is a 3d prop, created by Cameron Raab.
Frostlander shield game asset created by Cameron Raab.
Frostlander Shield Direction and mock up. Our weapon artist built the Frostlander Shield from this mock up I created with reference notes. Overall, the idea was to use an old fridge door from the 50s, and re-purpose it to be a tall shield.
Frostlander Paint Grenade by Adam Coe.
Frostlander Grenade Sketch. Our weapon artist created the Frostlander grenade based on my direction sketches and notes.
A CO2 cannister is attached to the spray can with a jerry rigged ring to pull the pin. The valve is a bike nozzle.
A paintball 'grenade' doesn't really exist...they tend to be paintball water balloons. The idea behind the grenade was that it was supposed to feel like it was re-useable. I designed the grenade to use a short spray paint can with a sprinkler head.
Simple sketch of the paintball grenade. One element of the Frostlander style are 'bolts'. The bolts are represented by soda bottle tops glued on.
Frostlander Icicle Axe by Adam Coe.
Frostlander Icicle Axe direction sketch. Our weapon artist created the Frostlander Icicle Axe based on my direction sketches and notes.
Breakdown of the Icicle Axe and how it would have been constructed. The goal here was to create a 'boffer' style weapon used by LARPers. Super fun to design!
Simple mock up to show scale and how its held with existing animation hand holds.
Frostlander Paintball Gun. Our Hard Surface Lead, Craig Johnson, created the in game model based on this direction mockup and designs I developed.
Frostlander Paintball gun direction sketch. The base design (top block out) of the paintball gun was created by James Taylor (DLC AD) and Craig Johnson (hard surface lead). I took that design and developed and applied Frostlander style elements.
Frosty 'Grandad' game vehicle created by Craig Johnson.
Frostlander Vehicle. Our Hard Surface Lead, Craig Johnson, created the in-game model based on this direction mockup, reference, and designs I developed. We built the Frostlander vehicle theming on top of an existing game vehicle - the Grandad.
Mockup with reference for how the turret element could look and work, using an existing Panteros turret truck vehicle underneath.