mrsmiley let us know that etoli, a regular at the Halo Babies website and a fantastic artist with a lot of Halo fan work under her belt, has gotten a job as a character designer on an upcoming Wii game. He’s interviewed her about the path she took from fan artist to professional artist – this is probably worth reading for anyone looking at getting a job in the industry.(Louis Wu 17:27:55 UTC)

Bungie’s back to weekly updates – this first one since the holiday break is loaded with reminders, plus tidbits about the upcoming Pentathlon, some info about new maps, and info about an upcoming Live patch. Go read, either at Bungie.net or in our Weekly Update Archive!(Louis Wu 03:54:26 UTC)

GameZombie.tv had a video roundtable about Halo 3 – you can watch it at Revver. (Louis Wu 18:52:44 UTC)

Another minor spoiler in today’s One One Se7en – but a nice shot at a particularly unpleasant denizen of Xbox LIVE. Go read.(Louis Wu 15:42:26 UTC)

VVM noticed a post at MajorNelson.com that updates us all on some sales stats. You might remember that the worldwide numbers at the start of December were a bit below 6 million copies of Halo 3 sold – according to MN, worldwide numbers are now at 8.1 million copies, suggesting that 2.3 million copies were sold in December. (Sounds like a lot of people got Halo 3 for Christmas.) Additionally, a worldwide sales total of 17.7 million Xbox 360s was announced – meaning that across the globe, the attach rate of Halo 3 is an absurd 46%. (That’s not quite the 52% figure for the US alone, but still ridiculously high – almost one in two Xbox 360 buyers have also picked up a copy of Halo 3.) (Louis Wu 13:47:25 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue continues Reclaimer with Chapter Two, Part Thirteen – and a new (old?) character appears. Are you confused yet? (Louis Wu 13:37:54 UTC)

Mrguy whipped up a couple of gorgeous panoramas – one of Valhalla, one of The Pit (gotta love those clouds!). Check ’em out! (Love his word, too.)(Louis Wu 13:34:08 UTC)

According to this story at Music 4 Games, there will be a special exclusive arrangement of Halo music, prepared by Marty O’Donnell and Andy Brick, that will be performed at upcoming PLAY! productions. The debut of this piece will occur in Fort Worth, on January 19 – but you can also hear it at the shows in Seattle the following week. (Check out the PLAY! website for full tour information.) Get your tickets now! Thanks, Greg.(Louis Wu 13:30:43 UTC)

Thirteen new pieces are posted for your perusal in the Fan Fiction section this week – go read!(Louis Wu 13:16:03 UTC)

Dark Helmet was a pretty big name in the Halo community, back in the day. He hasn’t been around a lot recently… but yesterday, he dropped in to let folks know that he’d run across a copy of the Halo PC marketing beta… with the printed material that was distributed with it. He’s selling it on eBay – if you’re a collector of all things Halo, this could be a pretty nice addition to your stash!(Louis Wu 13:03:45 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy wants to know what you see in heatmaps – she’s running a Rorschach Inkblot Test… on Construct’s killzones. Yes, she went there. (Louis Wu 12:56:42 UTC)

retinence stopped by with plans for his Bionicle Grunt (we mentioned it earlier this week); if you’re interested in building one yourself, swing by and see what you’ll need! (Louis Wu 12:49:19 UTC)

Running Gun Studio has released Spriggs Episode 4 – it swings from manic to surreal to just plain daffy. Just over 10 and a half minutes of… weirdness. And high explosives. Go watch!(Louis Wu 20:27:57 UTC)

Morpheus has decided to celebrate the 100th day of Halo 3 (September 25th was 100 days ago) with 100 things he loves (and hates) about Halo 3. The 50-item Love list is up now – apparently, he’s waiting a week for the 50-item Hate list. (Won’t it be 57 by then?)(Louis Wu 18:50:44 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy found a custom Master Chief paintball mask on eBay – the picture has a bunch of other masks which are cool too, but it’s pretty clear which one’s for sale. Starting bid is $30 – take a look!(Louis Wu 18:46:39 UTC)