Tri Forged Studios

3D Printing - Casting - Mold Making - Production

 Gears 5 Interactive Hive Photo Op Wall

This was my biggest commission to date - a 8ft by 8ft giant interactive tentacle wall from Gears 5. I was asked to build this display by Xbox Canada for Toronto Fan Expo. The goal was to recreate the insides of the games enemies Hive and allow people to take fun interactive photos.

Just like every project, it starts with concept drawings. I took screenshots from the game, watched game play and cut scenes to get the details right. A scaled model was requested by the Xbox team to give them a better idea of what was going to be produced. The wall and person stand-in were 3D printed and the tentacles were sculpted out of sculpting apoxi and painted using various red paints to give depth. A printed fabric brick wall was going to be supplied to me and I had to make the tentacles free standing against the wall. The tentacles were also planned to be removable for transportation but that plan didn’t succeed through into the final design.

Many revisions were made to my design, even at the hardware store, I brainstormed all the way until the end of the project. I always value talking and hearing other peoples opinions and theories in different builds. Some of my concept drawings sent to Microsoft can be found below.

Next is the build process! The base of the wall was built using plywood and 2x4’s. The original idea was to use various different tubing to give different sizing but the best thing to use was pool noodles! I went to my local Michael’s Art supply store and purchased very red and pink pool noodle they had. I was naive to think that 35 pool noodles would be enough to cover this project. Never the less, I have earned the name “Noodle Guy” in that store. After using pool noodles to build the left side of the wall, I decided I needed about 115 more noodles to complete this project. Each pool noodle was cut down the middle and the corners sanded to an angle. The noodles were screwed into the wooden base.

Once the noodles were secured, the next step was to add the actual colour. I used over 7 gallons of dyed Mold Star 20T silicone by Smooth-On. The silicone we were using was perfect because it allowed us to dye it any colour we needed as well as having a very quick cure time. The tentacles sticking out of the floor had a thin aluminum pole inside to give it stability and flexibility. 2 overhanging tentacles were made with stockings and bubble wrap. I decided on keeping them soft as these would be overlapping on top of people and would be grabbed a lot. It rained a lot during the duration of this build so the entire piece was lifted on cinder blocks and covered with a tarp. These few photos summarize a weeks work.

The final product was delivered to the convention center and set up. Attendee’s who stopped by the Xbox booth got to take a photo with the wall as part of their gamer passport to win some cool prizes. The wall was also brought to the StackT Market in Toronto where custom Gears “Goremet” food was prepared in anticipation of the release of the game.

Thank you for viewing the build process! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!