Background
This project was part of the Halo 5: Guardians Limited Collector’s Edition, released for Xbox One in collaboration with Microsoft, 343 Industries, and TriForce.
The centerpiece of the collector’s edition was a commemorative statue featuring Master Chief and Spartan Locke, presented together in a large environmental display base. The composition was designed around the tension between the two central characters of Halo 5: Guardians, with both figures shown in dynamic combat-ready poses.
The collector’s edition also included a SteelBook case, a Metal Earth Guardian model, classified orders and dossiers for Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris, as well as additional digital content and game-related bonuses.
Challenge
The biggest challenge came before tooling.
The body poses could still be adjusted during development, but the final sense of tension depended heavily on small changes in head angle and viewing direction. Even a minor shift could make one character appear to be looking in the wrong direction and weaken the relationship between the two figures.
Once the tooling was finalized, changing these poses would become much more expensive.
So the challenge was to determine the final body positions, head angles, and sightlines before tooling, while keeping the adjustment process as efficient and low-cost as possible.
What I did
To make the viewing direction easier to evaluate, I introduced a directional projection method using infrared light.
The light was projected from the rear of each character’s head toward the front, allowing us to visualize the direction the character was effectively facing. Instead of relying only on subjective visual judgment, we could use the projected direction as a clear reference when adjusting the head angle and overall pose.
By placing both characters back into the full scene and repeatedly comparing their projected sightlines with the intended combat composition, we were able to fine-tune the poses before finalizing the tooling.
This gave us a simple and low-cost way to test different viewing directions without repeatedly modifying production molds.
Outcome
The final composition created a clearer relationship between the two characters: Master Chief appears to be advancing forward while Spartan Locke provides side coverage, helping the two figures read as part of the same combat moment rather than as two separate statues.
More importantly, the key poses and viewing directions were confirmed before tooling, reducing the risk of expensive mold changes later in development.
This project reinforced one important lesson for me: in a multi-character statue, where a character is looking can be just as important as how accurately the character is sculpted. A very small change in head angle can completely change the story of the scene.
