XRobots Iron Man Mk6: Updated - Hands video part 4

This is Increible. I've seen your other stuff on Youtube which also was awesome.

The PVA glue idea is very genius as well.

looks great, just one question pva glue is some kind wood glue?

PVA is your basic white glue! It comes in many different formulas, strengths, flexibilities, etc so it takes some experimenting to see what works best for you.


BTW this is my favorite foam build so far hands down. LOVE how smooth looking you were able to get it!! Please keep posting progress pics!

I've been wondering how do you use the pepakura templates and transform it to foam? This foam looks like its already plastic looks awesome..... Seems like doing it in foam is way faster than Pepakura

where did you buy the foam from?

Thanks guys, the quick answers are:

The foam was from eBay in the UK, although you can buy 'Plastazote' foam in a number of places, just make sure it's not too low density.

The PVA is the cheapest I could find in my local Wickes in the UK - it was about £ 8 GBP for 5 litres/~a gallon.

Originally I cut out all the Pepakura pieces in card, then taped some together to make larger pieces, cut them about/added bits etc until I knew that I could make that large piece out of foam based on the testing with heat bending/stretching etc. The foam is very quick and easy to work with and you can stretch/squash it if the pieces don't line up perfectly too.

This is actually the second foam suit I made, the first was lower density foam that I just painted, but I may return to that and reseal it/rebuild some pieces that aren't quite right:



You can see more of that here: XRobots.co.uk - Iron Man 2, War Machine Costume

I have the legs done now, so most of the major parts are finished. My mannequin can't bend his ankles though so I can't get his feet through the shins to show the whole suit at once...





The next step is to sort out any imperfections around the seams / trim / reseal with PVA, and then spray it all up in primer. I'm seriously considering making moulds from the parts at that stage and casting it up in Urethane fast cast of some sort.

I still dot know how u reduced the pieces to so few. When I did mine I messed with disjoin join faces till pieces were larger but never this simple. I'd love to see some pics of the leg templates?

I'm afraid I've already cleaned up all the bits of card and off-cuts, it's been 3-4 days to do the coats of PVA and let them dry since I finished the pieces...

But basically I printed the Pep templates as they are and cut them all out, then assembled as much of it flat as possible - in some cases up to 10 pieces of card together, some overlapping or with gaps etc. Some extra bits were stuck on and new edge contours cut also, so the finished template is basically a mess of card and tape with pen drawn all over it. Of course you only need to cut two pieces out the same, one for each leg, and after that the template goes in the bin - If I want to make any more I'll just mould and cast from these...

I've just looked in my recycling bin, and there a few pieces left, some of them were bigger than this though:

Okay we've done it in a very similar fashion.

Thanks James.

XRobots said:

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I've just looked in my recycling bin, and there a few pieces left, some of them were bigger than this though:

I realised that I can bend the mannequin's ankles, so here we go. Note that he's much too short for this costume, so the thighs are bunched up with the cod-piece when there should be a gap:

Look fantastic James!

thiiiissss is BEAUTIFUL <3

Do want!

Beautiful work!

PVA!! GENIUS!! fantastic work. this is some real inspiration, i was put off making one from foam as i didn't want the foamy look but that is just killer. great effort!

Holy mother of beautiful foam construction!

That looks amazing! How long did it take you to get to that point? I keep going back and forth between wanting to do a foam build and a fiberglass build, and knowing how long this took you would help make up my mind.

And does anyone else sorta like Iron Man in black? It's a cool stealthy look, but I'm sure it'll look even cooler all painted up!

Great job, once again!

-Nick

That's pretty well pegged the awesome meter there, XRobots! VERY well done! The sealed foam really doesn't look like foam, in your pics - it looks like a solid, smooth surface. Painting ought to come out pretty well, IMO.

Have you worn either of these suits yet?

holy eff! how did i miss this thread?? This is so incredible! i love it. I seriously am so tempted to build mine in foam. All these foam builds are just coming out so great, but this one is just above and beyond awesome.

The ONLY little thing i see that could use some fixing is the ab plating. It looks very flat in the center.. If that was heated and bulged out a little to make a more convex shape, it'd be spot on!

so beautiful! ahhhh

Very cool and thank you for finding out about the white glue as that's alot cheaper than anything else.

Wow. That build is unbelievable. Foam construction is really getting it's own little renaissance lately, eh?

mmm im craving an update