Dani posted a bit of concept art he discovered for Condemned, the map released in the Defiant Map Pack. It was created by Jason Borne at Certain Affinity – and it’s really nice.(Louis Wu 18:28:38 UTC)

In celebration of Halo Fest, Frank O’Connor created a new Mister Chief masterpiece. It hung on the wall in the display space. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote up the event… and noticed the picture. The caption on their photo is priceless. Thanks to ChenK for noticing. (Louis Wu 18:26:57 UTC)

Over at NeoGAF, enzo_gt put together some cover art for Halo: Reach and Halo 3: ODST. Yes, you already HAVE cover art for these two products – but he went the minimalist route, and the result is gorgeous. We’ve hosted mirrors of his files, to save you the headache that is MediaFire: version 1 has no text on the spine, while version 2 gives you the product name. Just right-click to download.
Reach 1 (1.8mb) | Reach 2 (1.1mb) | ODST 1 (2.2mb) | ODST 2 (2.2mb)(Louis Wu 18:18:53 UTC)

France’s Halo Destiny has a short bit with some dates for the fan film Halo Faith – the trailer will be out on September 2 (that’s Friday), while the full film will be available just after the release of Halo Anniversary. (Google’s English translation – surprisingly readable – is here.) Thanks, ElzarTheBam. (Louis Wu 18:14:34 UTC)

Game Informer put together a feature on Halo 4 – nice summary of what we know. (Well, except for this.) Thanks, excowboy83 (and Flipyap). (Louis Wu 18:11:30 UTC)

necro2607 took another batch of pics at Halo Fest last week – swing by Flickr to check ’em out! (Louis Wu 18:00:36 UTC)

Revenant1988 noticed an article on the 405th about the Halo 4 armor that Adam Grumbo (and others) showed off at Halo Fest last week. Really amazing work – go see! (Louis Wu 17:58:37 UTC)

Nak3d Eli has some rather huge ambitions – he plans to create tutorials for every Halo: Reach challenge ever posted. (That’s a lot of challenges.) He’s starting with a tutorial showing you how to beat the current extremely-high-value Weekly Challenge. (Yes, it’s been done before. Many times. But his run is pretty clean, the video’s sharp, and he’s provided some decent voiceover.) Check it out! (Louis Wu 17:51:40 UTC)

TDSpiral created Sword in the Stone, which is pretty clever Halo fan art. I love it – I bet you will too. (Louis Wu 17:48:23 UTC)

2good4u2 posted Reach Randomness 3, a collection of… well, randomness. The Gunther bit in the middle is even MORE random than the rest. (But quite humorous.)(Louis Wu 17:45:32 UTC)

Heh. Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson voiced a piece about the Halo 4 Warthog in Forza 4… it made me laugh. Thanks, CaptainTony. (Louis Wu 17:44:05 UTC)

Greenskull (who has a penchant for teabagging) put up a couple of interesting videos from Halo Fest – check out his interview of David Ellis, recorded at the VIP Party on Friday night, along with some footage of the opening speeches from that evening. Thanks to Dani for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 17:20:35 UTC)

ElzarTheBam pointed out some high-resolution vids showing off gameplay on the new Reach maps coming with Halo Anniversary. Go watch!(Louis Wu 17:16:49 UTC)

Dielectric used the new Mega Bloks package to put together a Halo Wars Vulture. Not bad! (T07WRX5 reminded us of his LEGO version, which is also quite cool.) (Louis Wu 16:29:34 UTC)

GAF’s Im_So_Pringles found a pretty old (November 2009) YouTube vid showing off a fan version of Under Cover of Night arranged on guitar – KILLER. Go listen. It was new for me, and if you haven’t heard it yet, you should.(Louis Wu 15:44:45 UTC)

Okay, I’ve DEFINITELY missed stuff, and Grim and Hitmon have definitely missed stuff… but we caught a LOT. (Well, Grim caught a lot. Hitmon and I have been partying.) I’ve got a few things saved up from the last few days that I don’t THINK have been posted yet. Let’s see how long this page gets when I get it all listed. First up, from 3 days ago: robofin117 pointed out a live action fan film from Andrew ‘DaFronlineTrooper’ Cook, a New Zealand member of the 405th. Not too shabby!(Louis Wu 15:40:06 UTC)

We said it once, but we’ll say it again, as we try to gather the myriad of news bits that have bombarded Halo fans over the past weekend, make sure you head over to Forward Unto Dawn, where they have an excellent summary of the Halo Fest news that includes some great media links. Check it out!(GrimBrother One 16:47:15 UTC)

Ty_Coker made our forum aware that they have released a story trailer for Season 2 of his Machinima project entitled SYNAW. Looks very cool, definitely go and check it out!(GrimBrother One 16:39:25 UTC)