Titanfall 2 : "Life-Sized Model Behind The Scenes" Boogaloo

We've gone up close and personal with the folks that make the full-sized Titans for the game Titanfall 2 for events like E3 2016. Today we've got a collection of photos of the making-of process, showing what these mechs are made of. As it was the last time we brought you inside the cockpit, so to speak, these Titans are made mostly of high quality foam. Also involved, of course, is a bunch of skillfully applied paint – and metal too.

As we did with our first Titan Construction exploration back in March of 2014, we had the opportunity once more to speak with the folks at Daniel's Wood Land. These folks make copious amounts of models for some of the most awesome platforms in the world – including Respawn Entertainment and EA Games' Titanfall.

We spoke with CJ Berg, Theming Designer for Daniel's Wood Land, about the process in making another one of the world's only full-sized (life-sized) Titans.

From start to finish, this process took about 3 months. "EA and Respawn were awesome," said Berg, "they gave us 3 months to build the Titan."

"Even with that amount of time, we were in a tight crunch."

"When we first got the call from EA that there was interest in a new Titan, we met with Joel* and his team at Respawn. We worked together to go over ideas on making the Titan and delivering their goals."

"EA and Respawn continued to be involved through the entire process."

*That's Joel Emslie, lead artist at Respawn Entertainment.

"There were a few different ideas thrown around at first, some of them, like the cockpit, didn't make it to the final piece," said Berg.

"I still made part of the front hatch open anyway."

"In the last Titan I made the top hatch open so you could get inside (just because)."

"I like to say it is for access, but honestly, it's just cool."

You'll see 'the last Titan' Berg refers to in the photo above. See our full exploration of the first Titan "Betty" from 2014 to learn more.

NOTE: This year, the Titan model's code-name is "BT".

This is because the Titan you're seeing here is the same as you'll see in the single-player campaign in Titanfall 2. This Titan's full name is BT-7274. Have a peek at the first trailer for this game below and see this BT unit in action.

This newest Titan was made of 2# EPS foam as well as 4-inch steel armature. "We receive [foam] in 4-foot x 8-foot blocks," said Berg. They used the steel as a skeleton and the foam as the bulk of the sculpture — with additional steel where possible for realism (as you'll hear from Berg later in this interview).

On top of the foam is "2 separate Polyurea hard coatings. One for the mech to help create a more metal look, then another for the base which is more robust for interaction with the public."

If you get the opportunity, you can touch this Titan without fear of accidentally ramming your fist through it.

"Respawn provided us with a highly detailed digital model to work from," said Berg.

"Through the fabrication process, we enjoyed great communication with Joel and his team from Respawn and EA. It is a lot of fun to work with the EA/Respawn team, their passion for the art process is amazing."

"Every time we talked with the Respawn team, the response was always 'this is going to be amazing'. Their excitement was shared by our whole team working on the project here."

The process in making this Titan was very similar to the first – and the second, and so forth.

"I had already created a general process with the last Titanfall build, so I was lucky that I could just apply that generally to the new statue," said Berg. "The big difference was the construction methods we used on BT (the new Titan)."

ABOVE and BELOW: Putting this "BT" model together onsite at E3 2016 required a variety of tools, both large and tiny.

"In the last Titan, I was able to create flat panels that assembled to make the Titan," said Berg." For the new Titan, pretty much the entire piece had to be milled. This added about 6 weeks to the construction time table."

"The idea was to get the steel fabricated and when that was done to have pieces ready to assemble."

"It worked well and was able to keep progressing and a steady pace."

"The biggest problem we had was with the weather," said Berg.

"The size of the Titan meant that we needed to be working outside on a lot of the assembly process. If it rained or was a threat of rain, the whole assembly operation had to be halted. We lost a number of days to the weather at crucial times."

"Other changes to the process was the material choice and the addition of body working the pieces."

"For the design, I broke off as many panels to be separate pieces as possible."

"We were able to coat these pieces separately and sand/clean them up individually rather than as one large piece," said Berg.

"This makes the piece look more like as if it was actually built in a factory from panels."

"In addition, we continued to try to incorporate as much steel and realistic elements as possible, always striving to deliver the best possible piece."

The first appearance BT made out in public was at E3 2016. Above you'll see this Titan's design, milling, and painting process, then an on-site construction process as well.

Photos with SlashGear watermarks were captured by Chris Scott Barr for SlashGear. The rest of the photos you see in this article were provided by Daniel's Wood Land.

Titanfall 2 will be released in full on October 28th, 2016 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

Before that you'll get the chance to drop in early with the game's first "Beta" test for multiplayer within the next several months – we've yet to get a final date!

Take a peek at Daniel's Wood Land if you've got any monstrous model needs of your own, too!