WELP, the newest Halo: Legends episode is up. Seen it yet? Any thoughts?

I had some concerns regarding certain details. I took said concerns to Frankie himself, and here are some of his answers (to both myself and other questions.) Semi-Spoilers:

<sub>The Hunters are HUUUEG!
- "Hunters were huge, but correct. Hunter size and deployment varies by use, gravity, terrain, etc And there are Hunter forms WAY bigger than those..."
- "Another thing to consider is that they're on Sanghelios, technically in "peacetime" and so they aren't fitted out for anything specifically combat-related. In production, I liked to think of them as giant, violent ambassadors, engaging in an internecine problem at a very low level, almost as a kind of diplomatic responsibility."

That female elite ain't right. She doesn't have mandibles!
- "The female Elite does have mandibles, but doesn't expose them. That came down to IG wanting to have her be a sympathetic character, rather than monstrous-looking. I suppose it's the visual equivalent of Germans in war movies speaking English with a German accent, if that makes sense. That said, there are plenty of Earth species where the female bears almost no physical relation to the male."

But boobs.
- "If we'd made her "too" alien, the point might have been lost on regular folks. This was one of the hardest things in the entire anthology."
- "Actually, her bewb structure is deliberately ambiguous - it could be some gross ribcage extension. To be clear, if we did a Bestiarum version of a female Elite (and we might, for this very purpose), it would be a lot more alien and gross, to be honest. Some of her appearance is in service to the story. Her basic silhouette is about right though. The "femininity" is deliberate - we've already set up Elite society as a fairly rigid patriarchal society, where breeding rights and lots of their pretty misogynistic, or at least "old fashioned" elements are in play. Our Arbiter, being a pretty forward thinking fellow, has a much more equitable relationship with his wife than is typical.

Also, we did trim the overly simpering "giggling" pretty substantially from the first edit pass. Some of you would have cut yourselves. But by the same token it would have been misrepresentative of her "story" to have her be some fighting warrior queen. I can tell you squarely that this single item was the most difficult individual item in the entire series (apart from one thing that didn't make it in, because we couldn't reconcile it)."

Fal has a wife, but isn't he a swordsman?
- "An Arbiter can take any woman he likes, and would typically take concubines or other Elite's wives to further his Sword line, but our Arbiter is monogamous, and chose a wife instead. He's an exception to lots of rules."

"HE'S A DEMON!"
- "Yeah - it is literally the only moment of levity - we had an edit with and an edit without, and the endless carnage and grimness actually loses impact without it. You need to breathe to have a proper dramatic context. We noticed this more in rooms with an audience - when more than a few people laugh at that point, it sort of gives the audience permission to relax."</sub>


TL;DR:
- Hunters are cool.
- The look of the female Elite in this ep was the result of some artistic license. As such I do not feel compelled to follow her design in my own work.
- Monogamous swordsmen are not unheard of. A big thumbs-up to my character Yazo 'Siiqom. Nice to see some rule-bucking.
- Epic grunt is epic.

♥ Thank you for the art!

Hey guys! c: Sorry I've been a bit scarce of late. Classes started up and I've been in the process of readjusting to schedules and projects and such things. I have alot of fanart/sketchdumps saved up so expect a slow trickle of activity from here on. Every now and then I'm sweeping through my dA gallery and deleting old/ugly stuff too so if something disappears then you know why.~

I'm also in the process of completely rewriting most of my Halo fanfiction (especially earlier chapters.) I'm not satisfied with it and wish to make it more awesome and less clunky. I'll edit the chapters I have on here and begin submitting the cleaned up parts to ff.net as well, so you can read stuff here or there. I've not started this process yet but I'll let you guys know when I do.

This journal doesn't get much daily wear so if you're interested in frequent blather and sneak peeks of future artwork (as well as silly stuff that I don't submit here) then my lj/blog is where it's at. [/the more you know]

♥ Thank you for the art!