New Zealand Iron Man -(update 1.20.14)- display upgrade

Hey guys.

I know I know, yet another foam build Iron Man, probably very similar to many others out there. But bear with me. Hopefully this suit will have a few neat features, and might offer some helpful tips to other builders.

If nothing else, the suit's outings will be a little more lively than some others!

So, a few facts. Im based in Wellington, New Zealand (where the hobbits come from). It's my first ever time doing anything like this. Im using 7mm EVA foam (camping mats) which are about $10 for a double bed sized sheet, and im cutting with scissors.

The suit is being made primarily to be worn at an event in 2013 called the Wellington Sevens which is basically a huge costume party, centered loosely around a Rugby tournament, with plenty of alcoholic lubrication, and about 25,000 people all in various outfits of some sort, invading the beautiful Wellington waterfront and its environs for two days non stop partying.

Below are some WIP pics from mid June. Ill add a few more a bit at a time, as im cheating and am already at painting stage Here is the raw foam, and some of the first pieces I made. I sized the chest and back slightly larger than the other files as I have 'reasonably' broad shoulders compared to the rest of me, and im quite long in the torso. Plus I was going for plenty of room in the suit, which will be worn in summer.



Also, here is a good place for some thanks.

I started out with Robo3687's pep files, modded by Stealth for foam, and sharkman's helmet, again for foam. Thank you to you all for your hardwork on these files. They are excellent, easy to use, and look fantastic.

Thanks to James (xrobots.co.uk) for the inspiration. After stumbling on his instructional on how to make a foam suit I realised I wanted one. I link hopped my way through youtube, eventually finding some videos made by Stealth. These cemented my desire, and his relaxed and 'fun-centric' approach to foam building, and actually using the suit to have fun in, meant I knew it could be done in the style I wanted. Thanks to you both for your excellent videos.

Finally thanks to the builders on this forum, so many helpful, friendly and positive people on here. It's great to see an online community not full of trolls and ingrates.

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Another update for you all. Legs entire body completed and displayed proudly on the dining room table. Nothing too exiting here really although im pleased with the 'depth' that ive achieved with the pieces helped by the relatively thick 7mm foam and my attention to the angles that joints are made at no doubt.

The usual book-binding screws used on the elbow and knee joints. I chose to reinforce these areas on the backside with parts of plastic cut from plastic milk jugs which really help stiffen things up. I also used 'washers' to aid smooth movement, made from cutting circles out from glossy magazine covers, as the foam has quite a lot of friction when rubbing against itself. No point in over complicating things right!

I also, as recommended by Stealth, used belt clips to secure the shoulders to the chest, the arms to the shoulders, and the thighs to the cod (under the hip pods). Velcro is used in the side panel of the chest, in the side of the neck seal, and also secures the ab plate to the ribs, and the ab plate to the cod and chest plate with small squares top and bottom. The cod has no split, as I can wriggle into it by performing interesting interpretive dance moves.

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Everything is looking awesome mate. Hope you finish it soon and have a blast at the Wellington Sevens.

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Looks great dude.....actually I'am new here Can you help also to build my 1st ever costume like Iron Man...want to build it for up coming halloween

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Fellow NZ'er here, its looking good so far mate!!

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Thanks Stealth and Sloth.

Jhonny, happy to help. Can you post up a link to your build thread? It'll save cluttering up this thread that's all. If you dont have a build thread, start one

Here's some pictures of my helmet and gloves. The helmet has a hinged faceplate, which wont be motorised, but will be cable operated using rc plane flexi control rods, and a hidden lever at my waist. Itll have illuminated eyes in the same style as James from xrobots.co.uk (thanks for the tips) and these will only turn on when the faceplate is closed thanks to a reed switch I had left over from a DIY house alarm I installed a while back. I am also installing a 5v fan in the top of the helmet as this will be worn in summer. Itll run off the same 3 aaa batteries as the eye lights. Im also considering gutting a cheap childs 'voice changer' and cramming that in there as itll be fun ordering beer that way :cool I reinforced the helmet by gluing in loops of stiff plastic coated gardening wire around the openings of the faceplate and neck, in the chin, around the top of the head, and in the face plate. It really stiffens the whole thing up nicely and also means you can mould the shape of the helmet by bending it.

The gloves I simplified by only building the palms. Then I used an old pair of neoprene gloves I used for diving for shellfish, or working on the car, repaired some holes in the fingers by gluing on elastic strips, and then just eyed up and cut some plates for the fingers and thumbs and stuck them on. The result is very comfortable and passes the acid test of holding bottles of beer with no troubles. The lights are just normal dot-it lights with the wires extended so the batteries will sit under the wrist/handplates. I incorporated the reflector of the lights into the palm build. They just seemed to be the right size which helped! I plan on making a simple switch from two pieces of foil, mounted inbetween the back of the hand and the first finger joint, so that the lights only turn on when the index finger is extended. As it stands you can easily turn the lights on and off by pushing the palms of your hand with the fingers of that same hand, I just think it will look slicker if they come on when you extend your fingers in the classic Iron Man way :cool

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Ok, my shoes next. I built them in default scale, which by luck was exactly the right size to go over an old pair of addidas running shoes I had. I just hot glued all the way around the sole. They arent going to come unattached anytime soon!

I also made hip pods from a couple of margarine tubs. I didnt really like the look of the foam ones I'd seen. Im not sure detail parts like that suit foam unless you have really clean cuts, which I don't! I simply cut the bottom 1cm off the tubs and glued that back onto the top of the lid. Then a couple of strips of card and some screws and theyre done. Theyre actually glued onto the buckle that joins the thigh to the cod. In this way, I have found that when walking the hip pods actually appear to rotate in a very robotic fashion as they are obviously directly aligned with my own hip joints.

Finally I found a way to make fake rivets using the tubes from a dismantled TV rabbit ears ariel. 'Drilling' into the foam leaves these nice round marks which I can use to detail parts of the suit. I could use different sections of the ariel tubes to create different sized rivets. You can see the one behind the ear is a bit smaller than the others. The very small tubes didnt work as it just mangled the foam, but the larger diameter pieces worked very well. After about 10 rivets though you had to abandon the tube as it got too blunt to make clean rivets. The ear pieces of the helmet came out a bit oddly shaped, leaving gaps around the edges. Reference to the original file shows the same thing, with similar gaps. I could redo them, but to be totally honest, you don't even notice the gaps until you study the pictures. They also have allowed me to cut small slots for cooling, and hearing through!

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

I love those hip pods. Great work. And really excellent idea about using the antenna tubes to make the rivet cuts. I'm going to look into doing that as well.

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Thanks Jeffrey! Just make you dont drill all the way through by accident

Ok some more pictures for you all. I made a duct tape dummy to keep all the parts on, and for spray painting the parts. Unfortunately because ive padded out the insides of most of the foam parts to ensure a snug fit, most of them dont fit on the dummy without some serious struggling. So I abandoned the idea and went simple, and just used it's internal skeleton that I had made out of broom stick handles.

So here is the completed foam build minus the handplates. The thighs dont fill out properly without me in them, but the rest of the parts look the same as when I wear them. The chin of the helmet is also a little lopsided here just from trying it on repeatedly. Youll remember though that I can easily reshape it thanks to the metal wire inside it. You can see my shoulder bell bolts which Ive started to flesh out by gluing on the bottoms of drinks cans. I also chucked together a found item arc reactor which ill detail in another post.

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Ok so, found item/recycled arc reactor. Only thing I bought for this was the $3 light.

From bottom to top the layers are as follows:

Lid from rusting stainless steel travel mug
Dot-it style light with lens removed
Upside down cone made from foil (not visible but inside, to reflect light outwards not upwards)
Lid from a fabric condition bottle
Circle of gardening mesh
Paper cut out of triwing thing with some small screws added
Ring of clear tubing adorned with staples, and copper wire stripped from speaker cable
Blister pack that the light came in
Top lip of stainless travel mug sawn off

I also put a circle of card backed with foil around the outside to increase the light reflecting up through the ring.

Does the job, and was basically free. No $20 spends at the $1 store for me! I also reckon I have enough doodahs left over from my scavenging to make another one in a totally different style. There is so much you can use out there to make these arc reactors when you start looking, and most of it is free!

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Sooo it has been rightly pointed out to me, despite me thinking otherwise at first, that you cant see the arc reactor when the suit is being worn. Superimposed over it is the 'unibeam', which is broadly similar looking, only without the triwing element or the magnet arrangement. So, I remade my chest piece to better reflect this. To be honest, I actually think it looks better this way.

So, the parts list for this one is:

Lid from rusting stainless steel travel mug
Dot-it style light with lens removed
Inside of a small roll of sellotape
Circle cut from old speaker grille
Lens of dot -it light
Black ring from the lid of a sports drink bottle
Another spare lens of a dot-it light
Ring of opaque plastic cut from a milk jug
Lid of a delicious McDonalds Chocolate shake
Top lip of stainless travel mug sawn off

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

sleek

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Looking good mate!

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Ohh an Aussie! Hi there P4r4dox86 and thanks! And thanks too Ironmaided

Next steps are some paint tests. Ive managed to get hold of some brushable flexible Urethane, and will experiment with the plethora of different PVA methods that people have used before (x coats of watered down + y coats of neat PVA). My aim is NOT to create a beautiful suit but one which is durable up to the point that it still looks good from a few metres away at least. This suit WILL get battered around and damaged on it's very first outing so I am realistic about it, and do not want to spend the day worrying about cracking or creasing the paint or scuffing it up. Part of the plan is to rather heavily 'battle-scar' the suit, so that unintentional damage blends in more!

I also prefer aesthetically, the darker red shades (burgundy, cherry) rather than the bright reds Ive seen used, and the lighter shades of gold as opposed to the very yellow golds that ive also seen. This would seem to align with the look of armor's colour scheme in these photos. These are the colours im after.

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

I actually saw a red Toyota the other day and I have decided that I'm going to try and find a spray can of that colour somewhere for my Step Daughters Ironman suit.



It seems to fit the bill IMO.

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Yeah mate, that colour would be excellent! Bound to be something similar if not the same available at your Repco or whatever you guys have over there

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Yeah we've got Repco, and a billion other different auto shops lol I'm sure I'll find it somewhere.

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

So, some interesting results with the paint, and a few pics.

Firstly, my experience with glue coating. I tried a comparison test. I used watered down 1:1 PVA and tried 3 and 4 coats of that, and also tried neat PVA glue, again 3 and 4 coats. I found that there was no difference at all in the quality of the paint that was applied after any of those combinations. It had the same finish, the same durability (cracking, no peeling etc) and the only difference was that the more glue that was added, the more it hid the pen marks that were left on the foam from the cutting process.

I also tried a brushable urethane, which dried into a rubbery latex type finish. It ended up pretty smooth, and very flexible, but offered no advantage in protection from paint cracking, and peeled from the foam MUCH more easily than I would have liked, even when using PVA as a primer. A harder urethane may be more successful, but I also noted that it tended to hide a great deal of the sharp edges of the suit. In areas like the ribs and chest area, some of those edges would look odd if they were rounded off.

I have opted to use 4 coats of neat PVA as I get it free, and it will save me applying multiple coats of primer (which I dont get free) to hide any pen marks and get a more even paint finish. The urethane will be saved for another project. It probably suits being used as a skin for a solid mold better than it does a coating.

So, the results of a test piece painted up, and some pics of PVA coating in progress.

Re: New Zealand Iron Man - My build thread

Looking good... cant wait for your next update....

Filling the gaps

So on the suit there are a few gaps left for ease of movement, and construction. Here are some of my solutions for filling some of them.

The chest/neck area will be filled with a part I free cut, in a similar style to the original suit. It's sprayed gunmetal grey with a texture to represent more 'raw' metal. I also glued on a couple of brackets I had laying around in the garage, and adorned them with some knurl headed screws. The textured rubber is from the knee pad of an old wetsuit kindly donated to me.

The inner elbows and back of the knees will use neoprene 'scales' from the same donated wetsuit. Ive cut some sections and overlapped them, and then glued them to thin strips of neoprene to hold it together. This arrangement allows the scales to move over each other when compressed so will allow good movement. Ill also be painting them, but not sealing them like the other parts of the suit so that the paint 'stains' the fabric rather than being a layer on the top. This should avoid problems with creases and cracking. If this technique works, ill use it on the back of the knees too.

The other gaps like the tops of the thighs, butt gap, back of the neck, outer elbows (visible when the arm is bent) and under the arms, will be dealt with in different ways which Ill cover later.