Ironman Costume for 5yr old - LINKS on PAGE 1 - tips & important bits

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Graphic Jordan said:

This would be great for the elbow and back of knee areas.

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I'll take some video and pictures when this stuff comes in so you can see what it looks like and how it moves. thumbsup

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

This is sooo awesome!

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

I used a similar red vinyl with a bit of stretch for the abs on my first Iron Man costume and it worked really well for mobility. Made the costume really comfortable to wear.

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Dancin_Fool said:

I used a similar red vinyl with a bit of stretch for the abs on my first Iron Man costume and it worked really well for mobility. Made the costume really comfortable to wear.

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You won't, by chance, have any pics of that on-hand would you? I'd love to see how this type of material turned out for the ab area.

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

I could only find one picture online, it looked a bit glossier and closer matching in regular light.

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Amazing

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Dancin_Fool said:

I could only find one picture online, it looked a bit glossier and closer matching in regular light.

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I'd certainly be happy if the abs (made out of stretchy fabric) came out as good as your suit's! That is very encouraging!!!

Thanks for the info and pic! :thumbsup

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

I had a pretty productive weekend...

I finished up the paper peps for the brace, chest and back! I also printed out and cut another set of the brace and chest that I will use to create the foam templates from. I will still need to do the same with the back, but having the other two cut out already gives me a big jump-start on the next step of the project.

I already have some good ideas on how I'll be modifying the paper peps as I convert them to foam templates... including splitting the back piece into TWO sections with an elastic section in the middle (where the spine piece will conveniently cover the black elastic material). I'm also planning on keep the seam under the arm (between the back piece and the chest) flexible. I might simply add a section of black elastic there too. Have a strip of velcro on the inside edge of the chest piece and then glue in a narrow strip of black elastic to the back piece with the other side of the velcro on it's other edge. That way, the two pieces are velcro-ed together... but still have some elastic 'expansion' built in.

Anyway... I'll have tons more pics as I go through that process, but for now I'm calling it early tonight (for a change) and hitting the hay.

Here's some progress pics!


All three pieces


All three pieces from the front of the suit.


High-angle picture of the back on the brace.


Three-Quarters view of the back piece as it attaches under the arm.

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Continued awesomeness

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Amazing work!

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Wow! I just love this. If you come up with some new ideas on how to modify peps into templates for foam - please share! It seems that somehow you find new and innovative techniques on every single part you start working on. This thread alone has given me more info than I could ever have asked for. Thanks!

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Hi Indiefilmgeek - I found rpf a while ago and was blown away by the sheer quality of props/replicas people can make. I can barely draw a stick man so I'm definitely in awe, but your build for Mikey is just amazing. Just wanted to say it was very touching to read the whole thread (there goes my lunch hour!) and you're a real inspiration. If for some reason there's anything you need from an accountant in England, let me know!

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

blf said:

Continued awesomeness

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It certainly feels like baby-steps sometimes, but little-by-little it's getting done! Drop me a line when the EVA foam comes in and you get a chance to play with it. I think you'll be very happy with how easy it is to work with. You've done a great job on your project so far and I can't wait to see your progress! :thumbsup

Robcbh said:

Amazing work!

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Thanks and welcome to RPF!

Scandvoice said:

Wow! I just love this. If you come up with some new ideas on how to modify peps into templates for foam - please share! It seems that somehow you find new and innovative techniques on every single part you start working on. This thread alone has given me more info than I could ever have asked for. Thanks!

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Thank you for the kinds words. SO many folks here have done such incredible costumes and they have been extremely kind to me and other new builders by both sharing their works in progress and providing veteran feedback to all of us. I just felt like I should do my part by sharing what worked for me (as well as what completely failed). I'm just extremely proud of the whole community here on RPF and I fully intend to keep building and creating with these folks for a long time to come!

As for foam template creation, I strongly recommend STEALTH's tutorial videos. Those videos are SPECTACULAR and the best darn resource on this type of build.

Since I'm heavily modifying the pep files, I find it easier for me to build the original paper pep files and then create modified foam templates (physically) from the assembled paper pep build. This means I build up the paper pep and then cut it apart into what will become my foam template parts. Now, you COULD do this via STEALTH's tutorial process (in the Pepakura program itself), but for me that didn't really work well since I need to physically fit everything on a very different scale/shape. And that's easier for me to do manually than inside the software.

All that said... I'll certainly detail my process as I work on these pieces.

RickGreerUK said:

Hi Indiefilmgeek - I found rpf a while ago and was blown away by the sheer quality of props/replicas people can make. I can barely draw a stick man so I'm definitely in awe, but your build for Mikey is just amazing. Just wanted to say it was very touching to read the whole thread (there goes my lunch hour!) and you're a real inspiration. If for some reason there's anything you need from an accountant in England, let me know!

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LOL. Thanks, Rick... and sorry about your lunch hour! It's just been an honor to have a place to share my build and I certainly share your 'awe' of all the work being done here on RPF - these guys and gals are beyond talented!

With three months left before Halloween, I'm really starting to get excited. I truly hope Mikey has a splendid time this Oct and has a wealth of happy memories from the entire process. He's an awesome kid and I'm extremely blessed to have him as my son!

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Mikey is one lucky kid, as many have said
That said, what's Mikey going to do next year LOL. Does he get another one when he outgrows this one?

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

kidfury said:

Mikey is one lucky kid, as many have said
That said, what's Mikey going to do next year LOL. Does he get another one when he outgrows this one?

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Oh, I think I'll take a year off the kid's costuming after this one. :lol

I actually did a pretty elaborate Ghostbuster costume for my daughter in 2009, took 2010 off and now I'm working on Mikey's Ironman costume for this year. If I continue to follow this pattern I SHOULD be off next year... and then have something crazy to build for Halloween 2013! :cool

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Hi, I'm from Brazil and want to take a course. I have a son 5 years old, and I will make an iron man mask for him, how many percent you cut to make the mask for your child. You used Pepakura?
Thanks, and sorry my English.

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

dude u superceede the term dad in every sense of it very meaning. and reading ur thread looks to be the best one hands down. i cant wait to start my build for my boys. u freakin rock!

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

ugameenough said:

dude u superceede the term dad in every sense of it very meaning. and reading ur thread looks to be the best one hands down. i cant wait to start my build for my boys. u freakin rock!

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Thanks, ugame. As you start working on a build for your boys feel free to drop me a line anytime. I'll be happy to help out if you run into trouble or need some advice. :thumbsup

Wolfbrazilien said:

Hi, I'm from Brazil and want to take a course. I have a son 5 years old, and I will make an iron man mask for him, how many percent you cut to make the mask for your child. You used Pepakura?
Thanks, and sorry my English.

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Unfortunately, I lost my computer's hard drive recently, and I had stored all the final percentages of the parts I'd finished in a file on that computer. So, I'm not sure what percentage I ended up with for the helmet.

The best way to begin with most of these parts is to launch the Pepakura program and then open the file you are interested in building (the helmet in your case). Then take a look at the object and pick a dimension that seems easiest to measure your son for.

For the helmet, I used the 'width' measurement. First measure how wide your son's head is (ear-to-ear), then convert that to millimeters. In Pepakura, go to the 2D menu and select SCALE. Change out the original measurement for width for your son's measurements (plus a couple cm on each side - for padding).

You're first model will probably not be a perfect fit, unfortunately. But it's a valuable learning curve, as the next one you will be very good at building as you will be familiar with the parts and where the trouble spots are. IF your first paper model doesn't fit (mine was WAY too big). Then you just need to determine how much change is necessary and re-print the Pep pieces to the that new scale.

NOTE: Keep track of the scales you're using. And DEFINITELY keep a log of the FINAL scales for all pieces. I used them a lot when trying to add symmetrically placed bolts, grooved detail lines, etc. You can usually just go back into Pepakura and print out the scaled pieces you need and use them as a template for the detail lines or bolt placement. It's really the easiest way to keep the right and left sides of the helmet lines and bolts even.

Hope that helps! If you have any questions, please feel free to message me!

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Sucks.. I have took the crashed hard drive hooked up to an operating system as a secondary and pulled the files off worth a try.. :confused

Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Chest Progress

Mockle said:

Sucks.. I have took the crashed hard drive hooked up to an operating system as a secondary and pulled the files off worth a try.. :confused

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Yeah, in this case "all the king's horses and all the king's men" couldn't recover this baby. The hard drive arm started knocking against the disc and the housing until the thing was physically destroyed. However, besides my little text file with the pep scale numbers, I didn't have any real art files on the drive. The real loss was the calibrated software settings for the 3D printer we built. And while that was traumatic at the time, we've re-created all those setting and have really 'dialed-in' the printer since those early calibration tests. Now the next step in the 3D printing will be picking which modeling software I want to install and use. :unsure

Anyway! I did ALMOST nothing last night... but I did take a picture of the almost nothing to share with you!


That's the three rings around the reactor and the base of the reactor which I cut out last night. I put them one-inside-the-other and laid them on the paper pep just so you could see their scale.

These round cuts had me worried - I'm much better with straight edges. In fact, I was freaked out enough that I actually used my exacto knife instead of the handy-dandy scissors I normally use.

Next up will be more of the foam pieces being created via the paper templates from the pep... and then starts the assembly.