The above in Shae’s words:
The concept above was done for HALO 4. It was some work for a portion of a level that was ultimately scaled down so the team could execute it within time limits. Along the course of this experience, one would encounter a series of banshees in water that was knee deep while fighting a variety of other foes.
So now I’m curious which level this was to be? There are a few places I can think of that this could have been added.
-Sal
Okay, I decided to go with a compilation of the characters in relative scale (scale might be off a little, don’t judge….LOL).
This is a FREE download. However, if you choose to donate to the blog, I would very much appreciate it. Donations can be made via the donation link to the right on the main page (via Paypal).
I went back and forth with what color to use for the background given that I had different background colors for each character. In the end, I kept coming back to white. It’s simple, and clean, yet allows the characters to be the main focus. I did add a slight gradient as you see, just to differentiate the ground from the rest, to give a slight bit of depth.
If you do share this on another site, PLEASE give me credit for the graphic. If you would put a “by-line” as: Artwork by Sal at Halofanforlife.com. That would be appreciated as well.
-Sal
Issue 2 picks up right where issue 1 left off. The dignitaries, Lasky, Palmer and Spartans are currently in a parts depot looking to be extracted.
We readers are introduced to another Spartan. She is Spartan Ray. She specialized in Communications before she became a Spartan and is the one most qualified for what Lasky needs at the moment.
In the meantime, the depot has been found by the renegade Covenant forces. Here we are introduced to “Shipmaster” Gajat. Followed by Tek, a Skirmisher. Okay, so we were told previously that all of the Skirmishers were wiped out during the battle of Reach. I for one am HAPPY they are back in Halo. I really liked the look of the Skirmisher. As well, I found it hard to believe ALL of them would have been subjugated to Reach. Now during this interaction, we find that there is a HUMAN that seems to be running the shots. Hmm, very interesting…
Meanwhile in orbit, the Infinity, Arbiter’s group and the Brutes have lost contact with Lasky and the rest on the surface of the planet. At this time, we also find out the name of the new XO (Executive Officer /second in command) of the Infinity. His name is Bradley. That’s his last name.
Back on the planet, the rouge group of Covenant burst into the depot only to find the other group having temporarily escaped. Palmer takes one part of the group, while ordering Scruggs to take a second part of the group. Scruggs group lags behind a little. (This is important to note.) Both groups fall under attack from a Covenant Lich and it’s soldiers. Palmer gets the other Spartan’s grenades and tosses them into the Lich (via her helmet).
In the meantime, Lasky and Ray are searching for a communication station so that they an contact the fleet in space. They are almost caught by surprise by an Elite, but end up taking him out. They find what they need and Ray makes a discovery that the network itself is jamming the signal.
Palmer, Scruggs and the other Spartans are fighting off the Lich’s soldiers and win that battle. Lord Hood is suspicious of how the rogue group kept finding them so quickly and suspects there is a spy among them. He finds a UNSC tablet among the body of a dead elite.
Meanwhile, Lasky and Ray are making their way take out two more elites and steal their Banshees. What’s great here is that we see BOTH the classic Banshee and the updated Reach/Halo 4 style Banshee. Man, I’m LOVING how this story is bringing continuity together!
The rest of the rogue group where Lasky and Ray were are leaving in a hurry. They seek to intercept the VIP delegation.
HUGE SPOILER! Scruggs radios to Palmer that the other location they are going to is secure. This among the bodies of dead Spartans and Brutes. Seems HE may be the spy….
Okay, I have to say this tory is INTENSE! Mystery, action, intrigue! It’s a fantastic story and I can’t wait to see what happens in issue #3. The art again is well done. The pacing of the book is frenetic is a good way as it keeps you reading to see what happens next. That final reveal bothers me a bit. I would NEVER under any circumstances think a Spartan would be treasonous. Then again, he’s a Spartan IV and not a Spartan II, like Master Chief.
Whoo-boy! This series is going to be exciting for the third issue! I HIGHLY recommend getting this series. It may certainly have implications for the next game in the franchise.
-Sal
This is it. The last of my Halo minimalist art pieces.
Who better to end this series than the big baddie of Halo 4 himself, the Didact!
There is a ton of detail in this one, even for a minimalist art piece. I used 8 colors for him. I could have dropped it to 7, but felt the dark red near his shoulders (which is hard to see in the small graphic above) was needed.
I was going to go with a dark background for this to help blend the Didact in However, when I did, it just didn’t seem right. SO I kept it lighter and allowed the Didact to pop off the background more.
So comes an end to my Halo minimalist art project. There were more I wanted to do, but didn’t want to drag this out too long. I have other characters in mind and would consider doing a second series of these. However, I’d like to know if YOU folks want to see more of them. Please let me know by either replying below or sending me an e-mail to sal@halofanforlife.com. Let me know which characters you’d like to see done in this style.
Alright, so I said these would be made available in a larger format after these all were revealed. I can’t sell these as posters as I had wanted to as that breaks the usage rule per Microsoft. (Not that I had expected to make any significant money from these anyway, and all the money made would have gone right back into the blog anyway) So I’m at a conundrum as to how to make these available to you folks, without my artwork being ripped off. I’ve asked Jessica Shea, aka BS Angel, if she would be willing to show these as an article on Halo Waypoint. I’m waiting to hear back from her on that. If yes, then I’ll give her my high resolution files so she can post them. If not, then I’m going to need suggestions.
A reader had asked about t-shirts. Again, because I’m not permitted to make money from these, I can’t do that either. While I could easily watermark these, that would detract from the piece itself. To boot, I’d have to place the watermark over part of the piece so it couldn’t be as easily replicated. Again, I think it would be tacky to do so for art pieces.
So again, I’m open to suggestions here.
Thanks to all of you who have been following this project, especially those who commented here. I enjoyed making these. If you look back over the whole series, I only used between 5 to 8 colors for each piece. Not to bad when trying to keep to a minimum.
I recreated these in Adobe Illustrator using some fun techniques and refining some of the shapes. I tried to use as few colors as possible yet show enough detail so that each character was instantly recognizable.
-Sal
Normally I have a bunch of things to show from Pinterest finds. This week it’s only one, but it’s a GOOD one.
I unfortunately do not know who the artist is to give proper credit. If anyone out there does know, PLEASE e-mail me at sal@halofanforlife.com (with a link for proof please), so I can credit the artist on this.
Don’t forget you can always check out my pinterest page by the link to the left on the main page in the blogroll. And of course you can go see it right here and now.
-Sal
Production Weekly reveals films and tv shows going into production weekly. Jim from IGN caught this and asked about Halo.
The answer of what seems to be a MOVIE, no lees done by Ridley Scott himself is exciting. Now, is this part of the Steven Spielberg TV show or an honest to goodness movie?
I have to say, if it’s a movie, that really is some exciting news. TO be produced by Ridley Scott even better. He’s the one who brought us Alien, a CLASSIC Sci-Fi movie (and subsequent franchise).
-Sal
Darkhorse has delivered another epic Halo comic book series in Escalation.
In issue #1 we’re introduced to a few new characters. First up we find out about another Spartan Fireteam named “Jackknife”. It’s led by Spartan Scruggs. Scruggs looks like a cross between Jun from Darkhorse’s Halo Initiation and Frank O’Conner, 343 Halo franchise development director.
Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer is prevalent in the story and first shown in battle…sort of.
Several of Halo 4’s spartan armor are shown as well, which is nice to bring further into the canon.
One thing I think could have been improved upon is the height difference between Lasky and Palmer. Consistently Palmer is shown to be the same height as Lasky. We all know Palmer is nearly a foot taller than Lasky. Maybe I’m nitpicking though.
Lord Hood makes his appearance again in Halo, which is very nice to see. Admiral Osman (whom we know from the Kil0-5 trilogy a well as an episode of Spartan Ops) is also in the book. Now you just know if ONI is involved, something MUST be up!
A brief review of the happenings of Spartan Ops as well as Lasky and Palmer’s actions with regards to Dr. Halsey. Very surprisingly, Palmer does NTO throw Lasky under the bus, but rather takes one for him.
Now we finally get into the meat of the story which is about a high profile meeting between a Brute Chieftan and…THE ARBITER! YES!!! Finally, the Arbiter is BACK. ANd he looks MAGNIFICENT in this issue. His armor has been upgraded. He looks much more badass!!!
As can be expected the Brute Chieftan is untrusting and wary of the Arbiter. This is in part why the UNSC is present, not only to have escorted the Arbiter, but to make sure nothing goes awry with the meeting.
Suddenly the meeting comes under attack. Palmer and the rest of teh Spartans assigned to this mission jump to action. It’s some rogue band of Covenant. Are they part of Jul M’Dama’s group, or something else? One thing that’s cool is that we see the Jackals as we knew them from the classic Bungie trilogy of Halo games. Long beaks!
Spartan DeMarco from Fireteam Majestic is on this mission. It’s not know if he lost his position as team leader or if Jackknife is a compilation of team leaders for this high-profile mission.
The Arbiter, Brute Chieften, Admiral Hood, Lasky and the Spartans run for cover and find refuge in a parts depot. That’s the end of the book.
Now let’s talk a bit about art style and color. I have to say I enjoyed this art style even more than I did Halo Initiation’s art style. The only thing that is a slight mark is the slender Spartans. Other than that, no complaints. The inking is well done and color choices are fantastic.
Oh, I should make note that we see Brute armor from Halo ODST/Reach in here, as well as some of the classic Elite armor, notably the Flight armor.
This was a great opening to the series. I love how each era is represented in this book, bringing it together. That makes this much more cohesive in terms of continuity. The writing is definitely on par with what we know of Halo.
All in all an excellent read and visual delight! I highly recommend getting this series. This issue’s been out for a month, so it may be hard to track down. However, I believe you can still order this through Darkhorse itself.
I’ll be reviewing issue 2 tomorrow, so come on back for some more Halo comic book goodness, brought to you by Darkhorse!
-Sal
-Sal
Now you don’t think I wouldn’t include the Arbiter would you???
Stepping from the light into the shadow as it seems the Arbiter had done as of late until recently, here he is in my version of minimalist art style.
This one uses 6 colors, The light purple on the carbine really pops out here. I was tempted to add another color, but thought this worked with just the 6, so I stuck with that.
Here is the final preview of my Halo minimalist art project. Any guesses ????
Check back later today for this final reveal.
A bigger version of this and all of the other minimalist pieces will be available after they’ve all been shown. Stay tuned for more details on that.
I recreated these in Adobe Illustrator using some fun techniques and refining some of the shapes. I tried to use as few colors as possible yet show enough detail so that each character was instantly recognizable.
-Sal
Ghost pictured above right, has been hired by 343! Folks, this is GREAT news for the Halo franchise. I believe he above any other pro-play they’ve hired has made the most impact on Halo. This will bode well for competitive matchmaking for certain.
I was fortunate enough to meet Eric when he came to my LAN party in August of last year.
At that time I handed him two pages of ideas for Halo. Hopefully, he’ll review those and maybe bring them up to the rest of the folks at 343.
A HUGE Congrats to Eric! Well deserved!!!
-Sal
Today is the last day of my Halo minimalist project. As such, I’m revealing not one, not two, but THREE art pieces today. This is the first of those three.
I’m sure you could guess today’s first reveal was a human, but did you know who/what?
It’s an ODST! Specifically Buck, though I changed the color palette for him.
This one was only 6 colors. I liked that much of him blended with the background. In this way it shows how ODSTs drop behind enemy lines.
As I mentioned, this is but the first of today’s three reveals. Who or what might be the last two?
Here is the second of day 12’s previews:
I’ll let you all think of what or who this might be. CHeck back later today for this reveal as well as the preview of the final art piece in this project!
A bigger version of this and all of the other minimalist pieces will be available after they’ve all been shown. Stay tuned for more details on that.
I recreated these in Adobe Illustrator using some fun techniques and refining some of the shapes. I tried to use as few colors as possible yet show enough detail so that each character was instantly recognizable.
-Sal