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As you can see, I have finally caved and made grey-skinned
Grunts. This is because Bungie finally went and made their skin
look actually grey in Halo 3 (unfortunately). Grunts have gone
from being kind of cute in a bizarre way to truly hideous
beings. The Brutes, on the other hand, have become awesome. For
more on this, see my Brute Chopper page.
(Want to make your own custom aliens? You can find
instructions on this page! And don't forget to visit
my decal shop, where you can
buy the stickers I use to make mine!)
After a long break from building any Halo-based LEGO creations,
I recently finished these in April 2007. There are a lot of Halo
LEGO builders out there now, and I don't mind saying, many of
them had me beat. But I can step up to a little competition, so
here's my latest entry... something I've been working on for a
long time now: the glorious alien army of the Covenant! Okay, so
it's not the whole army yet, but it's at least three races from
the Covenant ranks: the Elites, Brutes, and Grunts.
The Covenant is an alliance of alien species brought together
under the flag of the Prophets, who claim to possess divine
knowledge that will lead their followers on "the Great Journey,"
which sounds vaguely like a movie I saw as a kid about two dogs
and a cat traveling to the woods to get back to their family. If
someone asks the Prophets, "Where exactly are we journeying TO?"
they simply answer "Glorious Salvation," which sounds vaguely
like the name of any old Covenant starship. It can all be very
confusing.
The Covenant are, of course, your main enemies in the Halo
series. And they're pretty awesome. One thing that sets them
apart from most sci-fi aliens you end up fighting in FPS games
is that they wear sleek, brightly-colored armor, have often very
human-like values, and do not look like zombies at all. This
makes them far more appealing than the grotesque, stereotypical
enemies in, say, Gears of War.
One race of Covenant first introduced in Halo 2 were the Brutes
(Jiralhanae, if you're a fanboy). I never thought they much fit
with the whole Covenant look, myself. For one thing, they're
hairy and mammalian, with very human-like musculature, and for
another thing, they use human like weapons consisting of solid
blades and grenade launchers. All of this makes them seem very
non-alien and non-Covenant. From what I've heard, however,
Bungie is taking some steps to fix this in Halo 3, by making the
Brutes wear more armor and fit better within the Covenant ranks.
This LEGO Brute here, however, is from Halo 2.
Before I decided to attempt to make all of my Covenant aliens to
exact minifig scale, I originally began working on a Covenant
Brute in my previous style: by decaling a regular minifig body
and making a clay head. The decals I used on the final model are
still basically the same as my original ones, only resized.
Actually one of the cooler things about the Brutes is their red
plasma rifle variation. It's awesome. Way cooler than the Brute
Shot. It probably won't make an appearance in Halo 3 though...
*sigh* Apparently most of the old Brute guns are being scrapped
in favor of new ones, like the Spiker or whatever it was called.
Far, far cooler than the Covenant Brutes are the Elites (Sangheili,
if you're a fanboy). I've been working on this new LEGO Elite
design for them for QUITE some time now. I actually started this
by simply copying the
Elite made by Danny C. (or Mandalore, as he's known on my
forums). I have now changed it almost completely though, with
new legs, arms, head, etc. Still, thanks to Mandalore for the
original inspiration.
This particular Elite is, of course, Half-Jaw, also known as
Rtas 'Vadumee to fanboys. Don't even ask me how you pronounce
that name. Anyway, Half-Jaw is the Elite that's always hanging
out with the Arbiter and is, of course, missing two of his
mandibles. Much like Sgt. Johnson, he's actually completely
invincible.
Personally though, I'm not all that crazy about white Elites
(boring), so here are some more colorful ones for your viewing
pleasure. Sorry, no Arbiter yet! Maybe later.
Unfortunately, my new leg design does require ONE bit of part
modification... a rod cut slightly short. This is a very minor
modification, and as other LEGO builders have noted, LEGO should
really make 3-stud-long rods anyway. In fact, one day they
probably will. And then this act of part-modification will not
be a big deal at all, and I can replace it with an official un-modded
alternative.
This is my Red Elite, or Elite Major, as they are called. I like
to think of him as Rebas 'Noiproks from my Halo fan fiction.
Elites completely own Brutes, let's face it. In the Halo 3
documentary video that Bungie recently released called "Et Tu,
Brute?", there is a quick clip of an Elite dual-wielding energy
swords, who cuts off a Brute's legs, and then stabs him. Purely
awesome. Also, now that Elites really do dual-wield energy
swords, Rebas doing it in my Halo fan fiction doesn't seem like
as big of a stretch. It's been made official!
You know, Elites were way cooler when they said things like Wort
Wort Wort (it's actually Sgt. Johnson saying Go Go Go
backwards), instead of just saying stuff in English like in Halo
2...
The ninja girl in the background there is sneaking around the
Covenant ship to flip out and cut off some alien heads. Okay, so
actually she's just there because I didn't clear away the set up
for the LEGO comic I'm currently making, "So You Wanna Be An
Adventurer?" You can check it out here:
http://comics.saber-scorpion.com Updated at least every
week, you know. Yes, I am blatantly advertising for my
non-Halo-based work here. I can't help it; my Halo pages always
get the most hits!
I also like to think of this guy as Urgas 'Konoproksee from my
Halo fan fic. Whenever I start making an Elite, I always make a
gold one first, since they're the most awesome. I have received
numerous e-mails from fans who claim that I was wrong on my
older pages about the gold armored "Zealot" Elites being the
highest rank. Some claim this honor now goes to the white ones.
Well, you're WRONG. The whites are like squad leaders, leading
individual groups, but the gold ones are in charge of whole
armies or fleets. Even the Arbiter, who according to some was
ranked Supreme Commander (perhaps the highest rank in the
Covenant military), wore gold armor at his trial. If only he'd
gotten to keep it. It looks way cooler than the Arbiter outfit.
For those of you who haven't seen him, here's my original Elite
design with the custom clay head, which was posted in 2004. He's
come quite along way since then, don't you think? I looked at
this again, and I was liek nooooo...
Another reason the Elites are far more awesome than the Brutes
is because they were intelligent enough to defy the Prophets and
betray the Covenant. Now most (if not all) of them have joined a
group of Covenant Separatists. I only hope this means we still
get to see a lot of them in Halo 3. Although actually, my
biggest wish for Halo 3 is 4-player co-op. Preferably with a
scoring system, so that players can see which one of them did
the best. Man, that would be awesome...
A good shot of the backs so that you can see that... well, they
have backs. It's barely visible, but the gold Elite does have
that weird glowing blue rune on his back that they all have.
Golden Elites are the only ones who have these, which is further
evidence that they are clearly the highest ranking Elites. Even
Half-Jaw doesn't have one... I checked!
"Wort Wort Wort!" Speaking of which, do you ever actually hear
the Elites say Wort Wort Wort in Halo 2? I've never noticed it.
That's too bad, because it was really cool. I never believed it
was really "Go Go Go" played backwards until I actually recorded
myself saying "Go Go Go!" and then PLAYED it backwards... and
yes, it did sound like Wort Wort Wort! Well, actually more like
Worg Worg Worg, but that's really more what it sounds like in
the game too...
And finally, here are my LEGO Grunts (Unggoy). Yes, this was the
sneak-preview pic I posted on my site. As you can see,
they still haven't changed much from the versions I originally
made in 2003 (shown below). That's because I still think it's a
great design! It's almost the perfect height, and the helmet
works great for both the gas-mask shape and the breathing
apparatus on the back, which ends up in exactly the right
position! The Grunts are the lowest-ranking Covenant troops,
treated as cannon fodder by the rest of the Covenant. Still,
they can be somewhat threatening in large numbers, and
apparently there was a "Grunt Rebellion" some time in the
Covenant's history, which was a big enough deal to require an
Arbiter to take care of it! And he probably died in the process
(since that's what most Arbiters do)!
My new Grunts feature longer breathing apparatuses, detailed
with decals, and custom face designs. They also have blue hands.
These are the Red and Green grunts. Red Grunts are Majors, in
command over the lowest-ranking Grunts. Green Grunts, first
introduced in Halo 2, are Gunners, specializing in setting up
and using fixed gun emplacements.
The lowest-ranking Grunts are the Minors, who wear Orange armor.
You slaughter these guys by the boatload in Halo, although they
are slightly less common in higher difficulty modes, since the
game prefers to throw stronger enemies at you.
The highest-ranking Grunts are the Ultras, who wear white armor.
They often command the Spec-Ops forces, who wear black. Before
anyone says anything: yes, I know the fuel-rod guns are a sort
of dark yellowish color in Halo 2. However, I decided to make
this one purple, since I don't think the other color fits the
Covenant guns very well, and also because I just like Halo 1
better. Pleh!
MEASURE UP! Time for me to show off the accuracy of my various
minifigs. First of all, here's my standard. I assumed that a
standard male human minifig is slightly above six feet tall,
since this is the average height of the Marines in the world of
Halo... according to Stephen Loftus. If you don't know who
Stephen Loftus is, he has a ton of
in-depth Halo pages, including a character height comparison
chart, on which the heights of all my minifigs are based. So if
you think I got any of the heights here wrong, check his page
and take it up with him!
A comparison with my new Halo 3-style Master Chief, who stands
almost exactly seven feet tall on my scale. As you can see, I've
beefed up my Chief considerably using a modified set of green
knight plate mail from the Knights Kingdom 2 line. I've also
modified my decals considerably to fit this new body, as well as
to make the design look more in tune with Halo 3. Credit goes to
Brian Kescenovitz (Mondaynoodle?) for originally having the
idea of cutting up a LEGO vent for use as a "belt" to make the
fig look taller.
Comparison with the Grunt. Grunts stand only a few inches above
five feet tall in the Halo game, and the tip of their breathing
apparatus comes to almost exactly six feet. My fig here is
pretty dang close. I tried not to put too much detail into the
Chief, by the way. I wouldn't want him looking like some kind of
Kubricks fig. I personally dislike Kubricks, since in my opinion
the only reason to own a deformed little LEGO-type figure is so
that you can use it in to-scale LEGO models. And Kubricks have
no bricks or scale vehicle models... just the figures. What's
the point? Why not just make action figures like JoyRide?
Enter the Elite, probably my most inaccurate minifig
height-wise. Although if you knew how long and hard I worked on
this Elite design trying to get it to LOOK good, PLAY well, and
still be as scale-accurate as possible... Anyway, the Elite is
supposed to be only slightly taller than the Master Chief, not
counting the spikes on the back of the helmet. Mine is a bit too
tall, but still not bad if you check the chart.
My Brute, however, at a height of just over eight feet, is
almost exactly the right height. Although, to be honest, they
never struck me as being that freakin' huge when I fought them
in the game. Tartarus is supposedly about as tall as the average
Hunter was in Halo 1. Hunters were also beefed up for Halo 2,
from about 9 feet tall to about TWELVE! I started working on a
Halo 2 Hunter for this set of figs, but I never was completely
satisfied with it, so I decided not to post it yet. Maybe in the
next batch...
Here are my Elite and Brute next to a Slashrim Zrillak lizardman
(in this case, Lashnar) that I made for my own universe,
Nova Refuge. I
originally planned for my LEGO Elite to be built in almost
exactly the same way as my Slashrim, which is based more closely
on Mandalore's Elite design. Apparently the Slashrim Zrillak are
considerably larger than Elites, however, standing slightly
taller than a Brute. Bah, the Helexith Coalition could take the
Covenant any day!
One must wonder what chance the Covenant stands now that they're
facing the combined power of the Master Chief and the Marines,
as well as their own Elites, Hunters, and Grunts... The Brutes
may be big, but I'd say now they're pretty much doomed!
The Jackal here was posted on 1/7/2004. He's made from a "Life on Mars"
alien with a decal plastered over his head. The shield can be held in
either sideways or straight-on positions. Jackals are rather dangerous
in Halo on Legendary, since they can shoot their plasma pistols at
ridiculously high rates of fire... But in Halo 2, they're downright
deadly, because now they use sniper rifles. On Legendary difficulty,
those rifles will take you down in one hit, making them easily the
most frustrating enemy in the whole game.
 
When I posted my Hunter on 5/11/2004, I was completely pleased with him.
And despite some expressing dissatisfaction with it, I still think it's
not a bad rendition of the Covenant's biggest alien. The torso can bend
forward and rotate, as can the head, and the arms are fully poseable as
well. The spikes on the back are made of katanas, but this allows them
to be positioned both up in attack mode and down in idle position. In
Halo 1 these big guys lobbed explosive fuel rod shots, but could be
taken out by a single well-placed shot in the fleshy part of their back
(usually with a human gun, such as the shotgun, sniper rifle, or
all-powerful pistol). In Halo 2 they are bigger, faster, their weapons weapons instead shoot intense
laser beams, and though their back is still the most sensitive, it's
tough enough to take way more than one bullet now. This model is, of
course, the Halo 1 version.
The Arbiter here was first posted 2/19/2005. He sports an improved Sculpey head decorated
with decals, including a ton of them all over his body. Since he's one
of the main characters of the game on par with Master Chief (you play
has him through like half the story), I had to keep his level of LEGO
detail even with the Spartan.
The energy sword was one weapon I simply could NOT think of a good way to
make. I tried every method I could imagine, including the popular method
of sticking blue lightsaber blades in the eye-holes of a pair of
binoculars, but none of them satisfied me. Then, I finally thought of a
method, though it was risky. But it turned out so good that I decided not
to reveal the method on my site, to keep people guessing. Many did guess
it. Others BEGGED me to tell them what it was. It's probably the number
one question I STILL get asked about over e-mail.
Well, you guys have worn out my resolve now, so here's the answer: I cut
it out of the back of a LEGO windshield using my pocket knife. This is the
type of windshield I used:
http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/2483 I noticed that a minifig could
hold the bumpy part on the back in their hand, so I took out my knife and
just started sawing. Eventually, after much cutting and sculpting by
shaving off piece after little piece, I came up with the right shape. I
then finished the job by etching the right design on the surface of the
sword with the tip of my knife blade. So there's your answer. Be careful
if you try it at home though.
 
Another, easier method for making the Arbiter is shown in the comparison
shots above. I call this method the "Block Head Arbiter." His head in
the second shot consists of quite simply a 1x1 plate stuck under a 2x1
vent piece, the other end of which is stuck to the neck, and then a
decal is plastered over the top.
The only other new Covvie I made for Halo 2 was this guy : the Prophet
of Truth. At least, I think Truth was the one wearing these colors. I
get them mixed up. Actually I thought the Prophets were kind of stupid -
I was hoping the Covenant were led by something a bit more impressive
than these lame guys in Professor X wheelchairs. Oh well.
"Halo! It's divine wind will sweep through the stars!" - Prophet of
Mercy
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