Parhelia (Commission)

Commission for of the ex-Covenant freighter Parhelia from his fanfic Not All Who Wander (which is off to a really good start, BTW). Formerly owned by a wealthy Sangheili noble, it came into the possession of a Kig-Yar merchant during the fall of High Charity, and is shown here sitting in a civilian spaceport hangar somewhere in the ex-Covenant sphere.

Make sure to check out the full view for all the details. I got a bit carried away with the background, but that's all well and good; I'd almost forgotten how fun it is to just cut loose with detailed environments. Apart from the overall composition, I didn't really have any idea where I'd end up when I started.

This is one of those commissions that are just something totally different from what I usually do, kind of like this one about a year back. While I've dug myself a niche in drawing human stuff, I actually like working with the Covie aesthetic. I've also been wanting to do more Covenant locations for a while now, especially civilian ones where you can really get an idea of the day-to-day life of their civilization. You have the staple tech and aesthetic, but how does it look applied in a non-military setting without strict central regulation? We've seen High Charity, but mostly the fancy districts; this is a more "used" location, of which we've had only hints in the Halo 2 Anniversary terminals. It's a side of the Covenant I really wish we saw more of because it's that kind of places and characters that really make the universe feel more alive.

The ship is nearly 300 meters long, which makes the hangar huge and left me a lot of room to fill in the gaps. Apart from a couple of suggestions by the client, most of the details were improvised by me. I wanted to make the scene more colorful than we're maybe used to with the Covenant to show the variety of equipment and affiliations; the purple, blue and pink are still the dominant colors, but there's a lot outside that as well. I also wanted to show the location as something that's built up layers over decades, perhaps centuries of use, into something very chaotic and interesting. I could label all the little vignettes and easter eggs I've inserted to the scene, but I'll let people figure them out themselves.

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My commission information