Ironman Mark VII Foam Version Avengers

Hey everyone, I thought I would post my experiences with using foam, how it turned out, and also thank those who made this costume work.

First, thanks to darkside and those who unfolded the pdo files, as without them, all would have been lost to make this project. His thread is located here

http://www.therpf.com/f24/darkside50...-files-139470/

Second, would be stealth for his tutorials for foam costume building. The information he provides in them is really the way to go, and gave great direction on different ways of doing the same thing, which helped budget wise. Those are found here

http://www.therpf.com/f24/tutorial-u...g-part-120019/

Third, my friend who gave me the drive to get this completed in time for the premiere.

Lastly, my wife who I would not have been able to make this happen without her support and love. She really made it possible for me to have the time, the ability of building it in the house, and understanding when it was taking longer then hoped.

Well enough of those, first, I used both fomies(about 6cm) which I found through amazon, and fatigue interlocking floor mats(about 8cm) which I got at home depot. I also used parachute buckles, strapping, chicago screws, and industrial strength velcro for attaching everything.

I used the pepakura to get templates to lay out on the foam, and then get the foam pieces. I found it easiest to lay them out together so I could save a bit more money by not wasting a bunch of foam. I used pins to hold them in place, and then got to cutting.



From there, I just tossed the scraps wherever, it was not worth he clean up until after I was done.

I used hot glue to put it all together, and then used it as reinforcement on the inside as well based on stealth's tutorial.

It ended up looking like this before paint and strap work was done.



I coated all the foam in wood glue to seal it, which I probably needed a few more coast, but was on a huge time crunch. Painting worked very well, I strung the pieces up on rope and painted them that way, did all the tape off, and different colors. It ended up very nice, and looked like this.



My friend who helped is the guy in the suit, he was my shield agent and ran interference for me during the night which was very helpful as in an hour, I must have stood in 50ish pictures.

Here is one with my wife in the theater, as I walked in the entire theater erupted in a cheer; it was a great night. I was very well received and we had a great time.



I will have to make a few changes to the strap work as not all of it worked for the whole night, and after wearing it I now have some new ideas to make it work better then it did. I was quite surprised with the suit itself as I had previously made one from fiberglass using robo's mark VI files, which are great, but the glass was very uncomfortable. I wore the suit through the whole movie and could have kept going fro several more hours. I recommend this for everyone as it is a very nice, simple, and less expensive way to make a great suit.

Thanks everyone for your interest in my work.

bleahhh said:

---

Nice! Can I request some
Close ups on your Helmet And how it Comes apart and back
Together again when u need To wear it

I actually did not have it separable, and wore it like a bucket instead. I had problems retaining shape when I did it in fiberglass before, I am sure I just did not pay close enough attention when resin work was going on as you can see with the top of the left helmet.



I wanted to make sure this came together in time, so I did not remove the faceplate, but have been thinking that I may resin the inside of the helmet to get enough rigidity when working on making the plate come on and off. Also, so it would fit I did not add the bottom ring to it shown here.



I also made sure the scale from inside edge to inside edge was comfortable for me to wear, ended up being something like 16.7cm. I also sized it by calipering my head from the chin, to the back of my head where the top meets the back, that gave too much space but the proportion for the inside for the ears was correct.

It does lose some of the details, which could be added back with a bit of time, but for practicality I don't think it matters.



It ended up being just fine since I did make it out of foam, it flexed enough to get my chin in, which I don't think will be a problem when I resin the inside as I will make it come apart.

Popeanator said:

---

Awesome build man, was it hard to attach all the foam pieces together once cut out?
Did you use a hot blade/knife? Also how do you go about converting a PEP file into something you can make out of foam?

Any Help would be SWEET thanks.

I used a utility knife to cut everything out. I was surprised that I was not going to have to use something more precise to make the edges better, and I cut the foam to angle with a pair of scissors. Connecting pieces was not that bad, a simple trick, apply less hot glue. It sounds backwards but you use it on the inside to reinforce the seam. Also, stick it together and pull it apart about 3 or so times to cool it, then hold it together. The best part is, if you accidentally glue something in the wrong place, (like that would happen more then 5 times), even if it has been set for over a day, go to the inside seam and work the gun back and forth and you can pull it back apart. I did this with the abs as I glued them all together along the sides, but had to pull them apart a few times so I could shave them down, and paint them, and only started having a problem doing that about the 6th time of doing it.

Most of the files I used came as foam versions; however, I did have to do the back. I followed the instructions from stealth's foam tutorials that is in my first post. Simply try to join things that look like they are in the same plane, and then be sure to not waste time on anything you can fudge from the foam thickness.

SqueekinOrka said:

---

That's a great suit looks amazing! I love that you wore it to the movies,i think that's great. I hope to do that some day lol

It was an absolute awesome experience, my wife was even thoroughly impressed and enjoyed how it was received. Good luck in your future build.

Dan3088 said:

---

I was thinking exactly the same thing with regards to the video glasses inside the helmet you might want to check out dhgate.com or alibaba.com they supply cheap chinese electronics anything you can think of.

Thanks for the thought, I may check into the dhgate as I have never heard of them, the other has always had long ship to time for me.

CapKaos said:

---

This is a fantastic build! Quick question though, what did you use for the arc reactor? It looks great!=)

Sorry I was typing this up last night and it crashed before it posted, then it put me off to wanting to write it again then.

The chest is made up of 9 super bright LEDs wired in parallel to 4.5v from 3 AA batteries. I have an on off switch so it does not die all the time. If i leave it on, I have at best 2 hours before it is nearly dead, and I start looking more like iron man at the end of avengers. Since I have no resistors it is very bright, but that is also the reason for the lack of battery life. The LEDs I used where the white version of these, sorry did not find the white online.

RadioShack 4-Pin High Brightness Power LED (Green) : Power LEDs | RadioShack.com

This made them really easy to solder together, which I did by using a cereal box for the backing, and pushed the LEDs through that. I was able to get it to work as I punched each hole independently before the LED went through. I used this same method when I did the triangle chest light for my mark 6 suit, and it was never a problem. Just make sure it is fairly thin, but very dense like a cereal box. That way it will hold up well, but can flex when needed.

The top cover for the chest hole is part of a 5 quart ice cream bucket. It provides the right amount of diffusion with the LEDs being mounted back about 3 inches from the cap.

Tony Rod said:

---

Foam seems more cost effective and "easier", compared to the resin types... But definitely not easy, as I don't think I could pull this off on my 100th try! Good looking suit, though! I'm look forward to your future mods to it.

Thanks! It is easier then you think, it just takes a bit of getting used to with foam. My recommendation, work on a piece with really big peices that is not as important, like the thigh first. It will give you a bit of feel for how to connect the parts together and wont really matter if you mess it up kind of. Dont do the helmet or chest first, give yourself practice on other parts then do those last, you will be happy you did as they will not be the "practice" parts of your suit.

ValTroX said:

---

The back piece is really hard right? I was going to start it today, then I took an arrow in the knee...oh wait, the I saw all those details and decided not to XD. STill waiting on the reply about the arc reactor, if it's not much trouble .

I am not sure about the new back, I made the first one prior to the update of what is available now. It does take some, "tweaking" in order to get everything right, so put it off until one of the last parts. The order I built in was, biceps, upper and lower arms, thighs, calfs, abs, chest, back, shoulders, helmet. Now I have begun on the second hand, and those are a pain in the neck. The parts are sooo small, but you cant get rid of them like you can for other parts of the suit and cap the back like the holes in the back. Good luck!