Hello everyone. Welcome to Halo United. The place that unites all the Halo Community goodness in one place. This week we’ve got another Halo Spotlight Weekly Roundup for you all.
This spotlight piece will be showing off artwork by Mr Skits. Mr Skits was kind enough to send over their favourite pieces of art, along with a background on how they got into making artwork, and what their process is. You can find all that awesome info below the images, so please enjoy.
Dust And Ashes
Winter Contingency
Blue Team Heavies
Last Call
Hopeful Marching
Missions Done
David And Goliath
Mr Skits also gave us the following insight on how they got started making screenshot artwork, and what their current process is:
“I first started screenshots more regularly back in 2013 by making poster art for a clan I helped start called Fireteam Sword. In those early years I would edit them using free apps on my phone, though back then it was the case of “Slapping filters on and seeing what looked cool.”
Fast forward to now and I have a pretty successful Instagram page of 12K followers who all love my work and I couldn’t be happier with the progress I’ve made and opportunities it’s gained me. I’ve talked to many amazing fellow artists and made many friends who all love Halo as much as I do. It’s also given me the opportunity to be noticed by and even spoken to several of my favourite Halo YouTubers who I’ve watched for years prior, which on a personal note is absolutely insane to me, it’s like talking to celebrities.
When it comes to my work itself, I do all my shots in game and then edit them to my liking using various apps on my tablet. As much as I love Halos Theatre mode it’s very limiting to what we can do, especially in comparison to the more modern games which now implement “Photo Mode” within their games.
I truly believe Halo is meant to have a photo mode in the future, especially in Halo infinite given the fact it’s going to be such a beautiful looking game and our Spartans are bound to look gorgeous. Being able to create our characters is awesome but actually being able to escape the body and look at our masterpieces in action is next level and I believe a photo mode could enhance that tenfold. I always try to go for that Cinematic, dramatic, realistic look in my shots unless of course if I’m just doing a Spartan Portrait then I don’t worry about dramatic or Cinematic.
As a photographer in real life I’m pretty familiar with how depth of field works and I apply that to my work manually by drawing in the Blurred effect with my smart pen. Unfortunately as mentioned before Halo doesn’t have a photo mode and I personally don’t have Photoshop to do it for me so I have to do it myself. As I’m sure you’ll notice I also add weather effects, light effects and even area effects in my shots to add more depth and feeling to my work.
For example if the shot is taken in a desert area then I’ll add dust in the foreground, if I want a cold, sad or ominous feel then I’ll add a bit of Rain, if the spartan is in the heat of battle then I’ll add smoke and embers. If I feel a shot would look better at night with a dark and ominous tone then that’s what I’ll work towards to get the image in my head out in front of me on the screen. I often make shots that reflect my own mood at the time of making it or I’ll edit a certain way in the hopes of having the viewers feel the tone I’m trying to put out.
If you like the examples shown here and you’d like to see more, you can find me on Instagram @Mr_Skits_Screenshots or over on twitter @MrSkits94“
Well that about covers it for Mr Skits’ section of the piece. Do be sure to check out their socials mentioned above.
Now it’s time to move onto the Halo Spotlight Weekly Roundup, which gives a peak at the past week of features that have gone live over on Halo Spotlight.
Halo Spotlight Weekly Roundup
Fanart Feature: Tungsten Hale
Recon Class Armour
“This was a concept art exercise attempting to combine the halo Recon materials with the Halo reach base suit”
Doom Guy And Master Chief
I created it to celebrate the announcement of the Bethesda Microsoft merger”
If you want to read the full feature for Tungsten Hale, you can find it here.
Fanart Feature: AphonicWanderer / Areogous
Admiring The View
Traditional/Digital Chief
If you want to read the full feature for AphonicWanderer, you can find it here.
Halo Spotlight Presents
In addition to the awesome spotlight pieces above, the Halo Spotlight site also introduced a brand new section of the site called “Halo Spotlight Presents”. This new page is a place where artists and creators can premier their artwork. Think of it as the first place to find some awesome creations.
The first piece to be premiered on Halo Spotlight Presents was artwork by !MOK, so be sure to check it out here. The site also created a brand new Homepage for easier navigation, which can be found here.
That’s All For Now!
You can check out more featured community members and fan content on Halo United. If you want to talk to the team, answer some polls, have a discussion or just post some memes, you can also find the Halo United team on Twitter. We also have a Halo United Discord for those who would like a more personal discussion or a friendly chat in the voice channels.
If you want to check out our partners over at Halo Spotlight, you can do so on their website. They also have a Twitter account where they post updates. If you’d like to nominate or suggest anyone for featured pieces on both Halo United or Halo Spotlight, you can find out how below.
You can check out my Twitter if you want to suggest or nominate anyone or anything for future features. You can also say hello and watch some Halo gameplay in my stream.
