I came upon this through a tweet from Reddit Halo. It chuckled.

So did you like it? Laugh even?

-Sal

Well folks, here we are at the last concept art article (for the time being). I’ve saved what I consider to be the best for last, that being the UNSC. Some of these you may have seen before, but I’m betting there are more than a few you haven’t. Read on and enjoy! (As always, click on pics to make bigger)

The concept above it titled “Pursuit.” It’s obviously a Broadsword, but what is it trying to escape from? Those do not look like Covenant vessels chasing it down. So they have to be Forerunner. Man, I’d have loved to have had a dogfight with Forerunner ships! This art is fantastic. My eye is immediately draw to the Broadsword, which of course is the focal point of the piece. The yellow glow on the ship from the glancing beam is an excellent touch and helps to sell the realism even more.
Another of Sparth’s amazing concepts. This is the Ivanoff Research station. More specifically the docking port. It’s amazing how much of this ended up in the game. I absolutely love this piece and would love to have it as a print. Man, why 343 hasn’t done this is beyond me. I think there’s a market for prints/posters of this stuff. WE mostly get the finished graphics as posters. Concepts like this are worth it to me. Heck, even MORE worth it, IMO. But then, you all know I love concept art.

One of Ivanoff’s corridors. Many similar details here exist in the final in-game version. This definitely feels like a space station to me. Alsmot along the lines of the Rebel corvette at the start of the original Star Wars. The orange lights as shape contrasts to the darkness of that portion of the hallway, while the lit portion is even more of a contrast. great design here!
A concept from a scene in the Web mini-series Forward Unto Dawn, here we have the ceremony deck that officially christens the UNSC Infinity into service. Very light and airy. I’m getting “Coruscant” (From Star Wars) vibes here!

The UNSC Infinity flies above the ceremony of it’s christening. I love how it just DWARFS everything else. Continue to look at this a bit longer. You’ll notice much more detail in the ship than with a quick glance.

The Infinity launches it’s dropships to Requiem. With dropships the size of the Forward Unto Dawn, you know the Infinity is massive! We didn’t quite see this scene like this in Spartan Ops. Instead we saw many Pelicans and Broadswords depart of Requiem. We did however see these dropships launch from the Infinity in protection of her from the Covenant fleet already positioned at Requiem.

Might this be the Composer aboard the Infinity? Why yes, yes it is. Recall that during the campaign, Dr. Tilson tells Chief that it took the Infinity months to move this from Halo Installation 03. This one became an instant classic and was used in early marketing.
Okay, I have to admit I LOLed when I first saw this. Why? Well, don’t those three sections with the three circles within look like the Phillips “Norelco” electric razor? Perhaps that too is a nod to Star Wars as The Pahntom Menace used a female razor as the base for the Jedi communicator prop as used by Qui-gon Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

An unidentified UNSC ship outside of Requiem, while a (likely) Broadsword flies past. While there is no fire in space, I never mind the embellishment by artists to convey thrust in space, using fire.

One of the rooms in the Forward Unto Dawn. The dark blue/black hues give off an air of cold to the whole piece. That makes sense as she was drifted for 4 years, 7 months, and 10 days. Chief was literally frozen over as well.
Another room within the Forward Unto Dawn. Again the same cold foreboding feel to this concept.

The above two were used for a scene in the Forward Unto Dawn miniseries. This is aboard the UNSC Infinity. Basically the humans, debris and fire was layered over the previous one, while the base layer was recolorized. It’s a great technique to use in Photoshop without having to create a whole new piece of virtually the same thing.

Once again, Ivanoff station. Love those lights and casting shadows coming off the asteroids.
This is another of the classic concept pieces used early on in marketing. This interior bay is quite large. While a bit dark, the treys give off a very industrial feel to the whole piece.

Originally this concept was to be somewhere within the Infinity. Technically that’s still true. I’ll explain. While we know this became the interior portion of the multiplayer map “Erosion”, we also know that War Games actually take place within the Infinity’s holodeck. So it is true, from a certain point of view. (Heh, lots of Star Wars references in this article.)

The Didact’s ship Mantle’s Approach coming to collect the Composer from Ivanoff Station. While the station is big, its NOTHING compare to the immensity of the Didact’s ship. heck, even the Infinity is small when compared to the Mantle’s Approach.

Here we see Chief as he is trying to complete his mission to stop the Didact. Much of this scene is very similar to the in-game version.
The above is a random interior shot of the Infinity. Man, why did we NOT see this in the game? Other than Episode 7 chapters 2-5 of Spartan Ops, we never got the chance to explore the Infinity. Yes, there were some cut scenes, but that’s not the same. I would have loved to have had the Infinity as a hub in the game that we could have interacted with. Hopefully the next game can bring something like that with it.
Once again Ivanoff. This design has always seemed a little strange to me.A station built AROUND asteroids? Heh, well, it IS sci-fii after all.
A greyscale sketch of the Infinity’s bridge. Even for a sketch, there is a lot of detail.

The next seven concepts are all differing viewpoints of the Infinity’s engine room.It’s clear that in the concepts Forerunner tech was much more prevalent. In Spartan Ops, during the missions, we never really get a sense of that. We do just a little in the cutscenes, but it is very little.

Well folks, that wraps up the concept articles at present. As I find more, I’ll post future articles. I can’t wait to see what Halo 5 Guardians concept art looks like!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the past couple of week’s worth of articles on Halo concept art from Reach and Halo 4. Now, just because these articles are (temporarily) ending, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come back to HFFL.

There’s going to be LOTS of Halo news in the coming weeks. E3, RTX, San Diego Comicon, PAX Prime and MORE are on the horizon!

If you’ve enjoy this or any of the other concept art articles, please let me know. I’d like to read your thoughts on these. Hopefully they were entertaining and maybe even a little informative.

-Sal