Female Iron Man Mark 42

Whilst I'm on a high after building my first suit, a Mark 7, I want to build a Mark 42 for my wife.

I have downloaded copies of the Mark 42, but I am eager to modify the files to suit a female figure, so that the suit is clearly "female shaped" (that is the best way I can word it!)

Can anybody offer me any general advice on the best process to go through, or some tutorial links on how I might go about modifying the pep files I have to be the right shapes?

The way I currently see things, I'm going to be using the "male" pep templates and then tweaking my foam build as I go along. I don't quite trust myself that much, and would love to have a better method to ensure a decent result.

Oh, and want to get it built in time for London Comic Con in October, so no pressure...

Thank in advance!

I advise using the files and tweaking the files as you build the suit,also i hope to see you at comic con in my mk42 suit

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Cool, thanks for the advice.

A bit of healthy competition might spur me on to get it sorted in time for October. I've just got back from Manchester and there were no Mk 42 suits there...

Gaz said:

Cool, thanks for the advice.

A bit of healthy competition might spur me on to get it sorted in time for October. I've just got back from Manchester and there were no Mk 42 suits there...

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I'm from maldon Essex I'm build a cardboard no 42 ready for 10 September for the iron man DVD release in Tesco and another big DVD store in Chelmsford
I've just done a part of the chest and got the helmet built my suit will have 50 high brightness led and a removable faceplate
I'm using a mix of cardboard for non moving parts so chest,back,arms,shoulders,feet and legs and foam for abs and hands I'm hoping to get it done for £30

I must confess that I'm really intrigued to keep up to date with you to see how you go on with your £30 budget.
I've just completed a full foam Mark 7 - the foam alone cost me over £50, and I think the final tally for parts and tools came to about £250. There are so many things that you don't initially think about costing up, such as the strapping system, clasps and velcro to get the whole thing buildable and reusable.
The highest cost was the paint - I used car paint from Halfords and a plastic primer from B&Q. Those spray cans don't last very long at all!
Surprisingly the cheapest things were the electrics. I build the repulsors out of some deconstructed LED touch lights (a 3 pack from Poundland) and the Arc reactor, which looked very similar to the one in your avatar pic, was again a collection of scraps for about £8.
Look forward to seeing you in London!

I would love to see how this pans out. I want to build a Mark VI someday when I have both the time and the money but I was worried about modifying it to fit the female form better. I don't want it to look like there's a woman wearing it but at the same time it still needs to fit properly instead of being huge in some parts and small on others.
Are you attending LFCC in October or the Excel Comic con?

I'll start posting WIP pics from next week.
I've been studying the pep files and I've got a rough idea of what I hope on doing; it's mostly going to be minor adjustments, such as making the arms more slender, the shoulders smaller etc. I'll add a slight heel to the boots to make the leg more feminine, which will also give me room to install some repulsors lighting in the heel.
The main difference will be the chest piece. A lot of people on the forums have made basically bikini style armour tops with exposed skin on the chest, but I want to maintain the mark 42 look, keep it as full armour, but add a definite cleavage shape. The abs will also need an hourglass shape adding too.

In my wife's case, she wants it to be feminine as she is cosplaying as Natasha Stark, Tony's female equivalent from an alternate universe in the comics. Natasha has her own unique armor, but I want to do the 42 as it more widely recognisable.

Stay tuned to see how it goes. I'm waiting for my supplies to ship but I should have the chest built within the week. Unfortunately I haven't the skills to modify pep files but I'll try and keep track of what general changes to do where and by how much.

We were planning on attending London MCM Comic Con, but we weren't aware of LFCC. Which are you heading to?

Ahh sounds super
I'll be heading down to the LFCC. I was at the one a couple of weeks ago and it was awesome. Plus I can't get the time off for the MCM one which sucks because that one looks amazing.

Quick update - over the weekend I managed to complete the initial foam build of the chest, back and shoulders (apologies that it doesn't look too attractive yet!).

The chest ended up being a hybrid - I used Helagak's Mk42 chest pep files (freestyle modified to feature a cleavage shape) overlaid over the "bra" elements of a Recue pep build by Eirth.

I was very happy with the finished product seeing as it was basically a bit of a stab in the dark as to whether it would combine well. The lower part of the chest (the visible "bra" element) will ultimately combine with the abs and be hidden more than it currently is.

The back is just a straight Mark 42 build, but scaled down to be very petite and figure hugging. Same with the shoulders; they are just big enough to cover the shoulders and don't add any bulk / "muscle" (this has the added benefit of being more flexible, as my mark 7 shoulders really restricted arm movement):


I'm currently building the abs and cod, at which point I'll be combining all the torso pieces, adding strapping, velcro and additional under-armor panelling to make a more consistent unit. I'll post more as and when, hopefully completing the torso / body by the end of the week.

Strapping and velcro now installed on the chest and back (shoulders temporarily taped in place until sealed and painted). The snug fit seems to be working well.

I've also build the ab section, but I'm waiting to construct the cod this weekend to work out how they all sit together before I finalise the torso links.

In my experience, the only things that really NEED to be modified to fit a female body are the thighs and the cod. When building both the War Machine and the Iron Patriot, I've had to make the upper part of the thighs a few inches wider to fit in to them. The cod will depend entirely on her shape. Personally I don't think the chest pieces ever really need to be modified, unless she is really well endowed up there.

Good luck!

msleeper said:

In my experience, the only things that really NEED to be modified to fit a female body are the thighs and the cod. When building both the War Machine and the Iron Patriot, I've had to make the upper part of the thighs a few inches wider to fit in to them. The cod will depend entirely on her shape. Personally I don't think the chest pieces ever really need to be modified, unless she is really well endowed up there.

Good luck!

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Thanks for the tip, however I think we have a different approach to the adaptation of the armor. Looking at your war machine armor in your profile pic, which is very awesome, it doesn't really give any indication that it is for a female until you take off your helmet. The brief for my build was to make it obvious that it was a female, without over sexualising it, hence referring to it from here on out as a Natasha Stark Mk 42 armor.

I agree with your point on the cod piece - I've already had to scale different pieces of it separately to fit around female hips vs a simple male waistband.

Measuring the digital pep designs for the thighs, I think my wife should be fine to fit into the standard shape. The biceps definitely need slimming down though, but I'll do that post-build freestyle.

No you are totally right, my War Machine was non-feminized. My in progress Patriot isn't either - but since that armor itself is less bulky and more form fitting like the Iron Man armors are, it's less ambiguous that I'm a woman inside of it. For comparison, last year my friend @Maggie built a Mk 6 and only had to modify the same areas I did, and hers looks way more feminine just by virtue of who is inside of it. The fact that the chest piece is just in general much larger than your body, and the shape of your waist and hips compared to a male's, makes it look unmistakeably feminine. My Patriot is turning out looking more like this, than my War Machine did (since the WM chest piece is basically a big box).

great job looks awesome

Today's update - finished the core bodywork, fully fitted and ready for sealing. Arms next...



The last photo is just a close up of the central chest area, which shows the main area of change from male to female.

It's been a while since my last update, but I've been busy constructing everything apart from the helmet. Currently going through the process of PVA sealing everything and painting.
I had a bit of a dilemna with colours. After doing a trawl for reference shots, it was clear that there are a number of different colour schemes visible on the various scale models (Hot Toys etc) vs the movie armour. And then, under different lighting conditions, the "beige" colour looks gold, certain silver parts also look gold. In the end I decided to follow the movie model, and have been using the reference shots taken of the replica statue at Disney in California. This again is situated in very poor, dark light, so I've had to trust my gut and go with "Citroen Wicked Red", "Ford Sierra Beige" car spraypaints, and smooth gold and silver Hammerite branded metal paints. I decided to go for brush-on metal paints for the gold and silver parts as it would have turned into a nightmare masking off those areas.



I haven't had the opportunity yet this evening to add the gold and silver detailing to the lower body sections, but you get the idea of the colour scheme (and again, it is yet to be touched up and lacquered)
You might be able to just see on the pictures that I added a couple of hex screws to the shoulders and collar section, as per their presence on the actual suit. There are some larger round discs around the ribs area that I have yet to install, but I've basically bought a bag of children's plastic counters and painted them silver to do the job better than I could do with foam.



I'm still sealing the legs, but as you can see from the pictures, I have decided to take a pair of ladies high heeled boots (with a study square heel) and clad them in 3mm foam based as closely as possible on the male mark 42 equivalent. I tweaked the calf section slightly and added an exaggerated heel flap to match the boots.



Not a lot to say about the arms, I've built these pretty much as per the male versions, but removed about 3 inches from the circumference of the bicep and 1 inch from the forearm to make a better fit. The hand plates aren't pictured, but they will be attached to the forearm with elastic strapping.



I'm making the gloves the same way that I made my Mk7's, using the guts from a pair of £1 push lights. I install the LED array in the palm, and utilise the push function to activate them as and when I need them, then I run an extended cable around the glove and install the push light's 3xAAA battery unit on the back of the hand, where it is concealed by the hand plates. They worked perfectly last time, so I have no need to change the design.

- - - Updated - - -

By the way, apologies for all of the photos being in the wrong orientation - I can't quite work out what I'm doing wrong as they look fine when uploading!

This....is amazing.

very nice suit!!!!

very cool build!

Here a couple more update photos from over the past couple of weeks. Everything is now pretty much done, and I just need my wife to try everything on and make sure if all works out okay. Things have ended up taking a lot longer than I originally planned, mainly because I've been prioritising my job and other commitments, which is never really a bad thing. However, it's all done one week before my target of London Comic Con, so I'm happy!

I've been particularly happy with the way the lower legs / boots turned out, mainly because they were a freestyle build, and in combination with the chest I also freestyle built myself, they do the most to emphasise that we are looking at a female variant.

The helmet turned out a lot better than my Mark 7, mainly because I've laced the interior with meccano (sandwiched between 2 layers of 3mm foam) so this helmet can support a hinging system. I still didn't get around to adding a lighting system for the eyes, as yet again I've prioritised a snug fit over making something big enough to house the LED and battery rig. Personally, I don't like the look of the helmets that seem like bobbleheads, and I can't afford to commission a fabricator to make me a professional one just yet.

I made sure that this suit all interconnected for storage too, as my last suit is literally sat in a heap of component sections in the spare bedroom at this point in time. I've also learnt to put it away into the utility room, as coming downstairs in a morning, seeing that thing hanging in the doorway, is pretty damn scary through half-asleep eyes!

I'll add some photos of the outfit test here in a couple of days, and then I'll stick some on the showcase section when we get back from Comic Con!