F-23 Falcata V/STOL Heavy Fighter

This one was a fun practice in dredging up cut content from the game Halo Wars and remaking it as a playable vehicle in Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
Halo Wars is a real-time strategy game set in the Halo Universe created by Ensemble Studios in 2009.
In the game the vehicle is represented by a low poly model which does not have much visual flare or detail so I decided to reference the promotional renders of it.
The project not only required highpoly/lowpoly/texturing work but also rigging, animation, and a fair bit of tech setup within Halo Reach's official mod tools.
My goal was to be as faithful to the original art as possible and also to match the visual aesthetic of Halo Reach such that it looks and feels like the asset originally shipped with the game. I only took artistic liberties where absolutely necessary, such as in areas not shown by the render or where certain geometry clashes in an unappealing or impractical way and in small little details to spice up otherwise barren areas.
Once in-game figuring out how to set up damage states and blended overlay animations was a pretty complex task but a valuable learning experience. Other things like tuning the handling, camera position and fx was a lot more straight forward.

Ever since the art has been completed it has been officially canonized into the Halo expanded lore by 343 Industries.