The Arbiter vs. Tartarus

Perhaps to wrap up my Halo 2 series of customs (before truly beginning my Halo 3 series, although I've already posted the Halo 3 Master Chief...), I present to you now on August 27, 2007: the Final Battle of Halo 2... Tartarus vs. The Arbiter! Also known as: some cool new figs on a crappy diorama. But hey, at least there IS a diorama!

I was originally just going to post the Arbiter and Tartarus, but then I thought: why not do the whole final battle scene? Besides, it includes two other characters I haven't made: Miranda Keyes and Sergeant Johnson. BTW, on a random note: Thank you, Bungie, for including 4-player co-op in Halo 3! Unfortunately it seems I'll have to buy another TV, another 360, and another copy of the game in order to play it. What the heck?! Gah. And worst of all... I might just be willing to do that. And they know it... They know it.

I've heard of many different ways to win this battle... some of which involve exploiting the game to get either a Banshee into the room, or to get Half-Jaw the invincible Elite to do the whole fight for you. I haven't been able to get either of those cheat methods to work yet, myself. And as a matter of fact, Ryan and I still haven't actually beaten this fight on Legendary difficulty. Heh.

Usually we just let Sgt. Johnson snipe Tartarus until his shields are down, then we hose the Brute with two Brute Plasma Rifles each. But he sure is tough! Eventually we get frustrated and take out our frustration by jumping to another platform to annoy one of our two invincible but not-too-helpful allies, Sgt. Johnson and Miranda Keyes. Apparently a lot of other players use these two damage sponges to vent their frustration as well. How else would Halopedia have such detailed but completely and totally pointless information about which types of attacks will cause Miranda Keyes to bleed? Sickos.

In the final battle scene, Tartarus has an Elite skull, a trophy from the new Covenant Civil War, attached to his large bronze-looking shoulder pauldron.

"I shall be the last... and you shall go first... heheheheh..."
Sorry, I always think of Sarevok from Baldur's Gate (PC) when I hear Tartarus talk... same voice actor. I would say that I think of Vhailor from Planescape: Torment when I hear the Arbiter talk... but I actually think of Goliath from Gargoyles. Heh.

"How do I stop it?!"
"Well, it will take some time to go over the proper procedures..."
(unnaturally long pause in dialogue)
"Quit stalling!"
Miranda Keyes' voice always grates on my nerves, and it doesn't help that she's also pretty ugly. Oddly enough, her voice actress is actually more of a television actress, so that might explain why she's not as good at the former. However, she's quite a lot more attractive than her badly-bump-mapped video game counterpart. So the question is: why did Bungie hire a good-looking actress with a bad voice to play an ugly character who looks nothing like her? Strange. But then, I hear she'll have a different voice actress in Halo 3, and apparently she will have suddenly gained an unexplained new accent. Huh...?

"Johnson, I'm on it!"
"Negative, ma'am, not until that Elite is dead!"
Yeah, he's supposed to say Brute, but let's face it... the Arbiter dies a lot more often than Tartarus.

Just because I know that everyone will fuss if I don't: here is a brown version of Sgt. Johnson. Even if it does go against my policy of making all normal LEGO humans yellow, as they should be. You can't see his face very well here, but that's mostly because it was a crappy photo. This was the last photo I took and my camera ran out of batteries. And I'm too lazy to take another one. Meh.

And here's my yellow version. Ahh... sooo much more like a proper LEGO. Notice that he's holding an only-slightly-modified version of my original Sniper Rifle design. Because I still like it. So there.

And here's Keyes again. Personally I found her to be one of the most annoying characters in the game. Jacob was so much more respectable...

You know, the Arbiter has one of the most uncomfortable-looking helmets ever created by man or alien. After inspecting it very closely in the game in order to make this minifig, I observed that it has the following features: a big hook-like beak on the front that covers up the front of his mouth, going BETWEEN his mandibles... a pair of sharp hooks on either side that go between the SIDES of his mandibles... and finally, two more small hooks that go under the bottom of his head and practically force their way down his throat! Perhaps all of this is meant to be painful to the Elite as punishment for his previous transgressions. The only question that leaves is just how the Arbiter was so easily able to don this torture device in the cutscene where he first puts on his helmet.
"What do you want your Arbiter to... OW, this helmet hurts like hell!"

My original Arbiter minifig (still built because I have a fondness for it) next to his much larger brick-built counterpart. I can't decide which one I like best. I guess if I could find a way to get the clay-made head onto the brick-built body that would result in the best combination, but I hate working with clay, and besides, I wanted my new Arbiter to match the rest of my new Elites.
You know the Arbiter was originally going to be called the Dervish, but the name was changed because it might be offensive to Muslims? Even though I'm glad they changed it because Arbiter sounds cooler than "Dervish," I'm somewhat offended by the fact that they use lots of Christian terminology like Covenant, Ark, and Flood... but Muslim terminology is apparently off-limits. Bah!

And my personal favorite of the new minifigs shown here: Tartarus, Chieftain of the Brutes! I don't like the Brutes that much, but I gotta admit, Tartarus was pretty cool. In fact, I wish they'd kept him alive as a villain in Halo 3, actually. The minifig was fun to make, although I went through many designs for his hammer (the Fist of Rukt, according to Halopedia) before settling on this one, which I'm still not quite satisfied with. Note his feather Mohawk. Heheh.
It's funny how most people don't even realize the name Tartarus is from Greek mythology. In keeping with this naming method, I named the Brute in my Halo fan fiction Thanatos... and soon got an e-mail saying "Nice Resident Evil reference!" What...?

Finally, here's Tartarus next to one of his Brutish goons. Note the height difference (Tartarus's head is three plates tall instead of two), and also the different hands. I used my original Nova Refuge Slashrim Lizardmen hands for him so that his wrists could rotate in order to hold a two-handed weapon. Oh, and finally, Tartarus also has his original shoulder shield in this picture, without the Elite skull attached.

Well that's it for Halo 2! Next time, it's on to Halo 3!

EDIT: And just for fun, here's a picture of a Black Halo 3-style SPARTAN people have been requesting that I take. Note that I didn't modify the torso armor in this instance because I didn't want to mutilate my black breastplate...