This year's V-Day update is going to be a bit lighter on the content than we would like. Nevertheless, we do have content -- and we are delighted to share it with you!

Today we are showing off some of the art that has been produced in our (ongoing) pursuit of nailing down the design of the armor that Blue Team wears in July, 2552.

This armor is essentially the last, best combination of MJOLNIR armor components that could still be classified under the generational category of "Mark 4" -- it is the sum total of all of Halsey's piecemeal allocations of various upgraded components to her most prized Spartans over the last 27 years of war with the Covenant hegemony.

By this time, the entirety of the various Mark 5 components had presumably already been developed (Reach revealed to us that at least one combination of components that fall under the generational category of "Mark 5" had been fielded in November of the previous year).

In addition, those components that would come to be classified under the "Mark 6" generation were to be fielded mere months later.

With that in mind, let's get right down to it!

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To start, it's important to remember just what body is inside this armor. Most of you likely remember the fruits of our labor from the SPARTAN-II Content Creation Guide, but here is an alternate view of that body:

Click here for full-sized version.

And here are some sketches depicting the body at different angles, so that it's easier to wrap one's head around the shapes and dimensions:

Now here is an earlier piece of art that defines the elements of the design. The exact details of the design are still a Work-In-Progress, but this is definitely in the same ballpark as where we are going to end up:

Click here for full-sized version.

Here is a sketch that just ended up turning out really well; it does a good job of both showing off the physique of the operator and showing off the design of the armor:

Click here for full-sized version.

Lastly, here is a series of pieces that are meant to visually explain the progression through the various layers of our character design: "naked," loaded out, and passively camouflaged.

There will later be motion camouflage as well (think "partially covered in jungle plants from that specific area of operations" -- the reason behind that being that they don't want their cover blown whenever the wind starts blowing).

Click here for full-sized version.

Click here for full-sized version.

Click here for full-sized version.

And now we have some art depicting the women's armor design:

Here we have the initial depiction for the Work-In-Progress of what a female SPARTAN-II should look like, which is derived from the same research that is found in our SPARTAN-II Content Creation Guide:

And here we have a pair of pieces that show off some of the slight alterations that we made to the design in order to account for the different physiology:

And here we have a scene meant to explore the design of the armor by depicting Kelly-087 (face is only temporary) mid-sprint, wielding two of the weapons that she'll have on-hand in the game.

Click here for full-sized version.

Lastly, here is an image of a member of Blue Team's hand, meant to give an idea of the kind of nitty-gritty details that we're aiming for with the eventual final assets:

Click here for full-sized version.

Well, that's it for today! We hope that you enjoy what we've presented to you today, and we earnestly look forward to your continued comments and feedback!