War Machine, my first Pepakura project...

GordonTarpley

I'm about 85% done with my first Pepakura project, the Iron Man 2 "War Machine". I got it up to a wearable level for Halloween but it still has quite a ways to go, loads of things I plan on fixing and missing parts to complete. I tried to take lots of photos of the process and I'll post them here with description as I have time. I'll try to be sure to give proper credit to the maker/s of the pep files as I post images of individual parts.

The suit is a paper/fiberglass and foam hybrid suit and I'm actually planning on remaking a few of the fiberglass parts out of foam due to the comfort factor.

This is about two months of work, after hours weekends, etc...
With the amount of mistakes made I've learned a heap of "what NOT to do" and the next build (whatever that turns out to be) will go much more quickly and considerably smoother








The eyes actually light up (the eyes are red now) but my setup is crap and too much light leaks inside the mask and makes it difficult to see out at night.
It's almost fixed now and should be good to go by next time I have a chance to wear the costume.

Hyperballistik

It looks really good, I can't really tell which parts you did with foam but i agree the pep stuff does get a little uncomfortable to wear, I did a complete pep suit that was based on Halo and it was heavy uncomfortable and hot, since I discovered how to build with foam its my prefered choice to build armor with, but awesome job on the War Machine

SemperBourne

Wow I love your war machine..looks awesome

EyeofSauron

awesome
you did this in two months?

im on and of working on mine for 6 months now and its nowhere near as far as yours

Pokeman

Thats so true. I feel the exact same with my costume.

That costume is sick!!! I'm kinda curious about that pepakura thingy, I've never tried it.

EyeofSauron

its a hell of a lot work, but its pretty addictive
i started with a helmet, and did the whole suit because i liked it so much

but its not for everyone, you have to be very patient, and dont mind hot glue burns

Graphic Jordan

Great suit and I also see you live in Tampa Bay as these photos are in Ybor. I am in St. Petersburg, Glad to meet another local.

GordonTarpley

Thanks for the kind words!

I started out with and iron man mkVI helmet by cutting out lots and lots and lots of paper. I realized shortly that the paper I used was way too light weight and I just wasted loads of time. When I decided to start over War Machine seemed like it might be a little bit more fun. back to cutting paper and tiny little tabs...


I pepped up the helmet, torso, shoulders and arms first.

The first war machine paper helmet came out pretty decent. And yes, I did say "first". I began glassing the model and was making decent progress. I set it outside the to start the next round of resin coating and went inside to get some supplies. When I came back out, maybe 10 minutes later, a freak rain shower had happened and my helmet turned to deformed mush. So.... back to square one...





Shortly after this I made the legs but didn't get any photos of them before glassing.


Fiber glassing the parts came with a whole set of new challenges. I experimented with different methods on almost every part I built to see what would work best. On most of them, what seemed to work was a thing coat of resin on the outside of the piece first. On some of the parts I would do a second coat on the inside and let it cure before adding the fiber glass mat.

One of the hardest parts to manage were large pieces with big, low detail areas. These were very prone to deform once the resin started to soak into the paper. I found that doing a few areas at a time worked better than trying to coat the whole thing. I would start in areas that needed lots of support and reinforce the seams, edges and corners with a light coat of resin and allow to cure before venturing out into the open areas. This helped the rigidity enough to keep the parts from collapsing under the full coat of resin.

The shoulders were particularly tricky and wanted to curl in on themselves. I ended up using a box and building a support structure inside to help them hold their shape.



The were both attached and needed to be cut apart.




with a few distortions to fix and lots of filling and sanding to go, (plus a few other troubles I'll write about in a future post...) In the end, I was in too much of a time crunch to do all the extra work required on the shoulders so I moved over to a quick foam version which, I think, worked nicely (even better than expected) in such a pinch. and actually convinced me that more of the parts could have been made from foam.



I will go back and finish the fiberglass versions in the future.

Some more will be covered in the next post... got work to do.

EyeofSauron

as every WM project, im following this

one tip: dont do arms and legs in Pep. you will thank me when you try to wear it (i did the whole suit in pep, arms and legs are painful to wear over time

GordonTarpley

haha, you're SOOOO right. unfortunately I learned this the hard way!
the arms and fiberglass shins are actually alright. I replaced a few parts of the shins with foam and they don't hurt to wear anymore. The thighs on the other hand.... OMFG. you should see the marks on my legs from halloween. terrible. I'm working on the full foam upgrade for those now.

SemperBourne

x2 I have been mostly on wm threads because I am building one myself. I have noticed that there are way more iron man projects then wm.

pRoJectEarth7

man... your war machine is pretty neat... awesome job!

it reminded me of the first ever pep we did... unfortunately, we only managed to do the helm...Ironman/Warmachine Motorized faceplate pRoJectEarth7 - YouTube

Our warmachine helm became a guinea pig for our first time molding process and was totally destroyed afterwards

Anyway, your build along with other WM thread here inspires me to rebuild our warmachine...

thanks for the inspiration...

cheers!

Kormier

Working on wm pep myself. Thanks for the tips about using foam for some pieces, I will consider this.
I have never seen anyone do the gattling gun on the shoulder... THAT would be neat! ( but probably heavy and bulky to wear). Great work. Inspiring.

EyeofSauron

sure it has been done

even working ones, with airsoft, or just with rotating barrels, or even only static

look at masked riders build, his is probably the most accurate build

Kormier

I just checked it out, that is awesome!!.... I had never seen one before.

DarkKnightOfPA

Nice job. I've been looking at all the pep threads and it's making me really want to start a project like this. Just not sure I would have the patience.

Oh, and I love the shot where it looks like War Machine is about to get attacked by a rabid Scooby Doo.

GordonTarpley

Thanks! That helmet looked good! I want to motorize my faceplate too. got any tips before I start making lots of mistakes?!

GordonTarpley

I'll be making the shoulder gun starting this week. (first version anyway, probably upgrade it later) I'll be sure to post some photos. Also getting ready to put up some pics of how i did my chest/back it's mostly fiberglass but has some foam parts that made a huge difference in wearability. check back later today or early tomorrow for a better description, maybe a quick video if i get some extra minutes...

jayjayn

great job, could u share the paint you used?

GordonTarpley

Sure! Nothing crazy was used, I got cheap stuff. For the metallic parts I used Krylon Matte Aluminum and the Grey parts are done with Rust-Oleum "Charcoal Grey" The foam pieces all had different treatments before painting, but used the same paints listed above as the final coat.

i'm making some more parts this week and I'll do a comparison of the foam sealing methods and show my results.

Both of the paints I used are slightly too reflective but after weathering the reflections were deadened some and I think it looked better.

The weathering is a bet excessive and was done extremely quickly (literally 35 minutes or something before I went out for Halloween) I'd like that to look better so I'll be redoing the whole thing soon. paint, weathering, the whole nine yards.

jayjayn

great thx.. love the build.. im gonna start on wm build soon =D

GordonTarpley

I'm starting the foam thighs tonight so I headed up to Wal Mart to get some xacto blades. While i was wandering around the newly rearranged store I found the floor mats, almost identical to what I've been buying from Home Depot BUT at WalMart you get 6 sheets of foam for $1.50 more than 4 sheets at Home Depot. Much better deal.

The mats at Wal Mart are found in the isle with the exercise equipment.

Looks like this...



I think they still may be cheaper at Harbor Freight but that place isn't open in the middle of the night.

ewhite00

Wow, looks great! Good job, look forward to seeing the updates.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk

AndreaG

Hi Gordon,
You rule!
I'm following your way, I've the same exercise mats ready to be cut! I just miss the x-acto blade (the one tht cuts 45 degree angles) as I cannot find it here.

Please keep this post updated, I cannot wait to see your progress!

Kal

How thick are those mats?? I got the ones from Harbor F. But they are .5 every ones says they use 6mm. 6mm would be .25 so, did I buy the wrong stuff or is it the right stuff and every one else is just daying the wrong size?