Lorraine McLees (mehve)

Lorraine in 2020

This person is a former Bungie Employee

Lorraine's avatar on Bungie.net

Lorraine Reyes McLees (a.k.a. "mehve") is a former Bungie employee known for creating the Halo logo and game covers, various Bungie-specific art, and promotional art pieces for Oni, the Halo series, and the Destiny series.

Throughout her Bungie career, she was credited as an art lead for consumer products, “pixelsmith” for the Halo series where she encompassed multifunctional roles creating marketing key art working as a senior graphic designer, visual design artist, and cinematic artist, and a 2D artist and illustrator for Oni where she was responsible for most of the promotional and in-game artwork.

McLees is the creator of numerous works of recognizable Bungie-related art, such as Bungie's 10-year anniversary poster, concept art and posters for Oni, the Halo series and Destiny series, Halo Babies, and several avatars used on Bungie.net (including custom avatars for Achronos, Duardo, and Foman123).

She is married to former Bungie employee Robt McLees and they have two children.

In October 2023, Lorraine was laid off from Bungie, where around 100 employees were affected by company-wide staff cutbacks. The decision was cited to be Destiny 2's perceived underperformance.

Biography

Lorraine Reyes grew up in the Philippines thinking she wanted to be an archaeologist, but eventually realized that she was actually infatuated with the technical drawings found in archeological journals. She was also a fan of comic books, manga, and video games. In her teens, she contributed editorial drawings to her high school newspaper and soon became its graphics director, working full-time while attending American Academy of Art to further hone her skills.

After college, she joined anime distribution company, ADV Films, in Houston, Texas, where she established an art department. During her time here, she worked on artwork and as a voice actor for many anime series, specials, and movies, such as: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Battle Angel, Blue Seed, Fire Emblem, and more.

In 1998, she was contacted by a former college classmate, Robt McLees, about joining the art team at Bungie Software Products Corporation in Chicago, Illinois. She soon joined the team as a freelance illustrator and eventually graphic designer for Oni, with some of her first few projects working on Myth: The Total Codex, designing the Halo logo, and finalizing Konoko’s appearance. In 1999, she became art director for marketing. She is credited as a “2D artist” and created or helped create almost all the advertising and promotional artwork, in-game splash screens, and some of the talking-head portraits.

At a Bungie Halloween party in 1999, Marty O'Donnell showed up in a disguise wearing a Telly Savalas mask, trench coat, and leather gloves. Throughout the evening, O'Donnell walked around touching people's hair, stroking people's hands, and hugging women without saying who he was. At one point, O'Donnell came over to Lorraine in the kitchen, who was cutting cake; she threatened him with a kitchen knife, telling him to back off. Seropian and Joe Staten grabbed him by the elbows and took him into a closet. During their interrogation of him, O'Donnell laughed and explained who he was. They laughed with him and let him return to the party. According to Lorraine, the women were vocal about their individual encounters the next day; O'Donnell put roses on their desks and apologized.

"The “boys club” mentality was laughable in how awful it was," she said, "because by this time I thought we were past that. But where are we now?" "We laughed about it what, 11 years ago? Same way we laugh about inappropriate pranks we did as kids—but it is no longer funny when we demonstrably do not grow tf up and learn from it."

According to O'Donnell, he "NEVER touched anyone. The Bungie Halloween party story is hilarious. Alex, Joe, Jaime, will tell you about it. I scared people with a mask." O'Donnell also said, "Yes, the women got really creeped out but I made sure to never touch anyone, just loom." and "Alex told me to put it back on, continue terrorizing, and see how long it took for others to figure it out. They told everyone not to worry, it wasn't a creepy stranger. End of story."

Sometime between the year 2000 and the release of Halo: Combat Evolved, she married Robt and has been credited as "Lorraine McLees" ever since.

When Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000, she was given a choice to leave with severance, stay with Bungie as a 3D artist, or take on a new role with user research. She decided to join the team as a 3D artist, where she learned to model, texture, and rig characters. She designed the Pillar of Autumn, the first ship you see in Halo: Combat Evolved, was a cinematic artist, and helped create the cover for the game. Her other art roles included marketing assets, posts, book covers, posters, and even some voice acting as a pilot during the flashback scene on the level "343 Guilty Spark."

For the launches of Halo 2 and Halo 3, she evolved the Halo logos, helped design the look of Bungie’s website, created the iconic look of Master Chief for marketing materials (such as Master Chief wielding SMGs), created action figures and statues, and even supported the live-action Halo commercials by working with Microsoft’s marketing team, CG houses, and practical effect studios.

Before Destiny’s launch, Lorraine was the senior artist on the Visual ID and Design team, designing a top-secret Destiny pitch book that Bungie used to shop around for potential publishing partners, and worked with the franchise art director to establish a style guide to help inform future graphic design endeavors.

In addition to the visual language of Destiny, she also became the art lead for the Consumer Products team, helping design everything from T-shirts to Collector’s Editions.

In October 2023, Lorraine was laid off from Bungie, where around 100 employees were affected by company-wide staff cutbacks. The decision was cited to be Destiny 2's perceived underperformance.

Gallery

Self portrait from Lorraine's site. "This one I drew sort of as a joke portrait, but ended up coloring it and using it as my 'portrait' for the Guest info for the ACen 99 program book."

Lorraine standing in front of the Bungie 10-year anniversary poster she created.

Lorraine unboxing the Halo Reach Collector's Edition with Marcus Lehto and Brian Jarrard.

Lorraine at a convention.

Lorraine in 2003.

Lorraine's self portrait to enter her site.

Mehve image from Lorraine's site

Trivia

• Lorraine's long-used gamer name has been "mehve" (a reference to the glider used by the main character in the Nausicaa mange).
• Her website was Mehve's Aerie, however, it went down after she left Bungie in 2023.
• She met her husband, Robert McLees, while attending American Academy of Art in Chicago, IL.
• She voiced the Pelican dropship pilot carrying both Jenkins and Sgt. Johnson in the Halo: Combat Evolved level "343 Guilty Spark."

From Lorraine's old "Meet the Team" Bungie.net page from 2006 to 2012:

Nickname: mehve	Classification: GrizzledAncients
Current Job: Pixelsmith	Origin: Philippines
Blood Type: Iron-laden	Age: 32 +
Weight: Like a Puma	Height: 5'5"
Girth: What???
First Job: Illustrator
Hobby: Drawing, reading, cooking, teasing the resident neanderthal(s).
Ultimate Halo Match: Prisoner, rockets only, no shields.
Ultimate Dish: Crab Curry in coconut milk over Jasmine rice
Ultimate Snack: Salt and Vinegar Chicharon (that's pork rinds)
Favorite Fiction: Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind (as translated by Studio Proteus)
Favorite Story: Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind (as translated by Studio Proteus
Movie seen the most: Totoro (lost count after 30)
Mode of Transport: 2001 VW Cabrio
Fake Weapon: Metal t-square
I might hit you with... a metal t-square
Biography Lorraine arrived at Bungie as a freelance illustrator for Oni during the release of Myth II and became a full-fledged employee in April 1999. Being the only female employee to make it out to Redmond during the Microsoft acquisition, her tolerance of "gradeschool man-talk" is unparalleled. Her interest in science fiction, the military, martial arts and giant monster flicks, cool mecha, anime, comics and manga often confuses her fellow co-workers into calling her "dude". She's been rumored to scare Marketing people with the ability to firmly say "NO" and threaten with an invisible MA5B Assault Rifle.

Credits

Gaming

• Oni (2001)
• Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)
• Halo 2 (2004)
• Halo 3 (2007)
• Halo 3: ODST (2009)
• Halo: Reach (2010)
• Destiny (2014-2016 with Expansions)
• Destiny 2 (2017-2024 with Expansions and Seasons)

Anime Voice Work

Anime - Dubbing

• Blue Seed - Additional Voices
• Neon Genesis Evangelion - Additional Voices

Anime Specials - Dubbing

• Samurai Shodown: The Motion Picture - Child E

Movies - Dubbing

• Kimagure Orange Road: Summer's Beginning - Additional Voices

OVA - Dubbing

• Battle Angel - Additional Voices
• Burn Up! - Additional Voices
• Devil Hunter Yohko - Additional Voices
• Dirty Pair: Flash - Additional Voices
• Ellcia - Additional Voices
• Fire Emblem - Additional Voices
• Golden Boy - Girl B, Additional Voices
• Gunsmith Cats - Additional Voices
• Mighty Space Miners - Additional Voices
• Power Dolls - Additional Voices
• Suikoden Demon Century - Additional Voices
• Sukeban Deka - Additional Voices
• Super Atragon - Additional Voices

External Links

• Lorraine McLees (Mehve)'s Bungie.net profile
• Interview on Bungie.net in 2003
• Interview on Xbox.com in 2006
• Lorraine's self-published "Who are you?" on her website in 2006