MJOLNIR Mark V[B]

Practice with rapidly working up character illustrations.

The MkV[B] is unique in that it's the only Bungie-era MJOLNIR design that I've actually grown to like less the more I've looked at it.  It's got a few areas that seem almost as cluttered and unfocused as many of 343i's armor designs in Halo 4 (though Reach's more realistic aesthetic does a better job of hiding it), and I used this as an opportunity to try to address my problems with the design.

-The changes to the helmet are purely a matter of taste.  I've always felt that the default MkV[B] helmet was sort of like the RGM-79 GM to the "real" MkV's RX-78-2 Gundam- it's clearly built on the same design ethos, but it just looks kind of bland and cheap.  I took a couple cues from the classic MkV while trying to preserve essential parts of the design like the visor shape and the overall cut of the mouth-guard and cheeks.
-The biggest problem area with the official MkV[B] design (in my opinion) was the lower-forward section of the armored "roll cage" around the chest.  On the final game asset it just seems like a mess of angles that don't fit together properly, with odd triangular cut-outs and a series of awkward, irregular zigzags along the bottom edge.  I tried to preserve the most important details, such as the forward-oriented planes with shield emitters on them, while cleaning up the overall shapes.
-My other problem area with the original design was the thigh plating.  It was originally smooth, curvy and contoured, and it stuck out like a sore thumb in a design which was otherwise all flat planes and hard angles.  This wasn't difficult to address, I just planed off the forward thigh plating.
-The other changes are relatively minor: I tried to clean up and streamline some of the details of the bicep and gauntlet plating, and tried to make the lower greaves look like a series of interlocking components.  The bodysuit is just whatever, as I was focused on the plating.  The official Reach bodysuit is pretty much fine, anyway.

Halo belongs to Microsoft.
Artwork by