This one’s offtopic… except for the people involved. Great read, though. Over at CGSociety, there’s a tutorial by Mike Hill – if the name doesn’t sound familiar, search our news archives. The tutorial isn’t Halo-related, it shows how he put together a specific piece (and there’s a ton of interesting info in there, even for non-artists like me)… but in the short blurb at the end, he credits Craig Mullins as his main inspiration – not for this particular piece, but for his desire to be a concept artist in the first place! Coolness. Thanks to Veegie for the heads-up.

Today’s One One Se7en – low point in pun-ditry? You bet.

Finn has put together an awesome reading list for folks interested in the Halo universe – it includes recommendations from Joe Staten and Eric Nylund, as well as some from Finn himself. Swing by the Halo Story page and bury yourself in words!

Se7en One sent along another 3D mural rendering for the Hall of Murals page – he’s a bit worried about the next one, but grab a video copy of Mural 2 in the meantime!

Yesterday, SketchFactor posted a news item at Bungie.net about some new gear at the Bungie Store. The Odd Ball T rocks! Check it all out.

The Killer Grunts Contest came to a close last night, and voting was tallied this morning. You can see all entries (and the votes they received) on the Results page. Congratulations to the 7 winners (who will be contacted by email with prize info) – and congratulations to the community, who managed to pick 7 3rd-party-art-free entries, negating the need to disqualify ANYBODY. w00t!

MLGPro.com has posted Part IV of their Newcomers Guide to Halo 2 – this one focuses on how to prepare for MLG tournaments. Great read, as usual. Thanks again, 3Suns.

imSuck, of HaloGrid.com, put together a new machinima piece called ‘Frequency’ – the Covenant tries out a new weapon. Film quality is REALLY high, cinematography is quite good. This thing breezed through the MPRRS in just a few hours. Swing by HaloGrid to download it – we’re providing a couple of links there (WMP9 and QuickTime), and PraetoriaGuard is providing a WMP9 link. Fun stuff!

Thanks to Sorahn, who pointed out this video at Google (and if you visit GameTrailers.com, you can find higher quality versions in both WMP9 and QuickTime – pretty nicely done!

I meant to post this yesterday, forgot. c0ld vengeance snagged a really nice screenshot of one of the underwater denizens you can see through the elevator windows in Delta Halo (and Regret) – you never get this close, normally.

Dennis Powers has released Interlude – A History of the Halo Universe, over at the Halo CE Chronicles website. It tells some of the backstory of the Halo Universe, for folks who have watched his Halo CE Chronicles but have not necessarily ever played Halo. It’s pretty nicely done. Although Dennis wants to host this movie (in WMP9, QuickTime, and streaming Flash formats), he did submit it to the MPRRS for evaluation – and it passed. Go watch!

The eBay’d Halo goodies continue to flow – Cassius let us know about this 3.5 foot statue and this partial statue, Flamechu found a 6-foot statue, Phil Shiel found another Muckle statue, and Steve Ray points out that he’s selling an airbrushed Halo 2 Faceplate for an Xbox 360. I think we’re gonna take a break from mentioning eBay auctions for a while – there’s always SOMETHING Halo-related there, and I don’t want this site to turn into HBeBayO or something.

3Suns points out a couple of fun bits at MLGPro.com – the Player of the Week is Foulacy, and Lil Poison showed up on 60 Minutes last night! (You can watch it online at cbsnews.com. The piece is mostly about Fatal1ty, but the Lil Poison/MLG portion kicks in around 9:35.)

We’ve had a number of people complain about the use of third-party artwork (artwork created by other fans, NOT the submitter) in some of the entries to the Killer Grunts contest. The most heated thread (but not, by far, the only one) on this subject is here. I’m tired of the argument, and tired of being reprimanded, so I’m going to let the public decide. If you think that it’s wrong that some of the entries used artwork created by other fans without attribution (well, some of it HAD attribution, in the readmes submitted to us, but since we never made those public, there’s no attribution), speak up in that thread; if enough of you are unhappy with the situation, I’ll cancel the contest. I thought it was a good idea – but now I’m not so sure.

Heh – Samantha sent us this picture a little while ago – maybe this should be the default vehicle of IBO?

Nexus Beat writes to point out that Wasabi Media is offering free hosting for any gaming-related files… if you’re looking for hosting, check ’em out! (Jamie Hutchinson)

Yet another spectacular pic from Bryn Casey – check out Lost ODST! That guy needs a story…

Wow. This guy doesn’t stop. Last week, we mentioned that scurty had finished the level Keyes in under 3 minutes on Easy, and under 4 on Legendary; he’s pared that Legendary time down to 3:09… with no shots fired. Video quality isn’t so good (looks like he’s been using the same VHS tape for the last 300 runs or so – heh), but the shortcuts are incredible. Check ’em out! (We’ve put up mirrors – WMP9 | QT – to save on mythica’s UserUploads bandwidth.) And thanks to insidi0us for keeping track.

Heh, cool. Out of Reach Constructions (we’ve mentioned them a couple of times, they make pretty spiffy display cases for Halo action figures) is selling The Armoury, display setup for the extra weapons you get with your action figures, on eBay. What a gift this would make for the Halo fanatic in your life! Thanks, Flamechu.