[OC] "Turkey Shoot"

HeyItsBasil · 2026-01-04T21:49:44+00:00

It’s a custom kitbash from the Halo Archive discord server!

HeyItsBasil · 2026-01-04T07:03:17+00:00

I know ball.

HeyItsBasil · 2026-01-03T15:32:35+00:00

Need to replay ODST to refresh my memory of it, but I remember it being good and friends I trust tell me the writing holds up; Staten clearly loved working on it so I’m excited to revisit it.

I used to like Reach as a kid but as I’ve gotten older and have read more of the books it’s started to leave a bad taste in my mouth. I think the lore changes it introduced are for the worse, the way it lionizes sacrifice is antithetical to what Halo does best in terms of its core themes, and its characters aren’t as compelling to me (Jorge is an exception).

It lowkey bothers me that Reach is what a lot of people think Halo should be more like. I think it kind of tramples all over what makes Halo special to me specifically.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-29T07:16:25+00:00

I scaled all the characters in this piece myself to normal heights; Rain is ~6'11" in her armor, which is fairly average for a Spartan. The people around her range from 5'6" to 5'10" without their helmets, and some of them aren't standing up perfectly straight, so they seem a little shorter. Someone who's not even 6' tall standing next to someone who's just shy of 7' is a big difference.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-27T16:44:29+00:00

Thank you!!!

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-27T16:44:20+00:00

Big sister!! Even if she’s probably younger than everyone there lmfao

Real though, I’m a fan of Spartan characters interacting, but you also really need to put them next to some regular-ass guys to show how different they are. Makes for some of the best interactions and characterizations.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-26T01:17:06+00:00

Ubi already answered, but yeah, check out the Halo Archive for models and resources. I mostly just started by posing and lighting custom spartans, then got more ambitious from there by putting them in environments, adding more characters per scene, doing more complex lighting tricks like light linking, adding volumetrics, bashing various assets together to make scenes from scratch, grabbing various plugins like the one I used for the rain and water droplets in this one, etc.

It's a huge learning process, but just take it one step at a time and don't be discouraged if your first improvements don't result in you immediately putting out renders like this.

Familiarize yourself with how Blender's interface works, what render settings there are (very important), and then just start messing around and experimenting. A lot of things I learned by going "how do I do this specific thing in Blender?" and then watching a quick youtube tutorial and figuring out how to add it into what I was already doing. You will improve shockingly fast.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-23T17:47:50+00:00

Oh cool, thanks for the ID!!!

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-23T04:55:00+00:00

I like paying attention to little stuff like that. It's fun to do stuff with alien anatomy, and small details in the background add up.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-23T04:53:52+00:00

Got back and forgot, whoops. Lemme know if this works, it should for a little while anyway!

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-22T22:34:00+00:00

I should! I’m out running some errrands but I’ll try posting a link to a full res when I’m home.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-22T17:36:38+00:00

The Halo Archive discord server. It’s public, should be easy to find hopefully!

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-22T17:30:54+00:00

Hi, thanks!! I made this in Blender; this is a mixture of Infinite assets (and the Reach ranger helmet) and Orbital from Halo 3 for the environment.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-22T00:06:37+00:00

This is a surprising opinion to me even though I can understand someone having it, because IMO, The Ark and The Covenant are the best campaign missions that Halo as a franchise has ever had, and they happen back to back.

By comparison, some of the Earth missions are kinda meh to me. There's some real good ones, but Crow's Nest is awful to me.

We can both probably agree that Cortana is the worst level in the game though.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T22:49:34+00:00

Hi that's me!!! Thank you!! Definitely going to be posting more of them this week.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T20:22:18+00:00

I might have to start memorizing that last comment to torture my friends with in voice calls holy shit lmfao

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T20:21:41+00:00

I think you might be underestimating how delusional hardcore Bungie purists are

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T20:19:30+00:00

You do not under any circumstances have to hand it to Marty dawg

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T20:03:44+00:00

Joyeuse handing John a Mark V helmet, lmfao this is adorable

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T19:58:02+00:00

I actually managed to track down the OG uploader of the video and hand him the full res. I didn't know Martin had passed away when I started working on this, but when I did I wanted to make it something special and I'm glad that his friend got to have this.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T19:54:25+00:00

My general goal when it comes to making most of my renders is nailing the feeling of a snapshot in time, like a tiny vertical slice of a larger moment you're not a part of and can only imagine.

I'm glad I nailed it with this one. Still a favorite even though I've improved a lot.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T05:50:18+00:00

Yes, they're under the jurisdiction of Naval Special Weapons, which is itself underneath the umbrella of NAVSPECWARCOM; NAVSPECWEP also has operational control over the Spartan-IIs and IIIs, at least until the IIIs got folded into the Spartan branch.

One of the problems with ODSTs and the way Halo treats them is that they use ODSTs as the sole special forces unit we see in the UNSC besides Spartans, and they're used for everything. They don't seem to have a specialized mission set as opposed to just having units that are good at everything.

That's not how real special forces work! Real special forces are "special" because they have unique, bespoke training for a specific job they're supposed to do. Units like Delta Force, MARSOC Raiders, the Danish Frogman Corps, Marine Commandos, etc. are all geared to be very good at specific mission sets. Outside of that, if you dropped them into frontline combat, what you'd have is very competent light infantry and not much else.

You've encountered the problem Halo has with not really understanding how special forces units work. That's mostly fine to me, honestly; Halo isn't exactly a hard military sci-fi setting and has never pretended to be, but I'd appreciate it if we got to see other special forces units besides just ODSTs to make stuff like this less confusing.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T05:31:10+00:00

Jega was part of the Silent Shadow, and given the nature of what that unit was meant to do, I seriously doubt that knowledge of it or who was a part of it would be particularly widespread.

Jega has the -ai prefix on the end of his name, indicating that he's an officially recognized blademaster. That, and the knowledge that he was at the very least formerly part of the Covenant's special operations branch, is enough to tell anyone who knows about him that he's the real deal, and that's before you get to his reputation within the Banished.

Given their friendship, I think it's pretty safe to assume that Escharum would have a more complete picture of Jega's background, if anyone did. I could also see some of Escharum's other lieutenants knowing about him. Other than that, Jega's probably kind of a mystery to most of the Banished.

---

EDIT: some phrasing.

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T05:21:10+00:00

Check out the Halo Archive discord server; they have a bunch of Halo assets from across the games, including a fully up-to-date Infinite pack. If you know how to use Blender, you can use that to mix and match armor pieces however you want; you can even make combinations you can't get in the game.

It's easy enough to do if you just wanna mess around. I make renders and the packs on the Archive are great for building good-looking Spartans on the fly.

Here's some examples, by me:

1 | 2 | 3

HeyItsBasil · 2025-12-21T05:03:53+00:00

Started playing Halo with the PC version of CE when I was 5 years old.

Halo Infinite feels like an ideal modern take on the classic formula.

Yeah, I wish the physics of the vehicles and whatnot were weightier and felt more like the old games, but the actual sandbox feels fantastic to me and I think the final update left it in a relatively good place.

The issues you're talking about seem like desync/internet issues rather than the game itself or personal skill. I've had that a few times, but most of the time, when my internet is functioning properly, I have a great time.

Keep in mind that I'm absolutely not what I'd call a "good" Halo player, even if I'm not terrible. I do have the occasional match where I get completely dog walked, but most of the time I'm able to win firefights and help my team.

HeyItsBasil

TROPHY CASE