hey everyone, so i am starting my man of steel costume. i have purchased carl9149's file, and have requested some samples from a few companies her in the uk. the first sample arrived today from citrus rain. i know carl has some experience with them.
here are some sample photos, the first without flash
the second with flash
overall its not bad, but not great. it actually looks ok in photographs but in real life the print seems overly dark, the shadows are almost black and really washes out the chainmail effect to the point were it is all blurred together and has a bit of a red hue and the detail on the \s/ is almost invisible. i doubt this is a fault of carls file. its very detailed and looks very good, and the photos of his print show up the detail pretty well. so i think it might just be a bad test print. still waiting on another sample, they said it would probably be mid January before it is ready.
my plan is to puff paint the suit and maybe use some sort of silicon for the raised waist, wrist and leg sections. MCL34N used something similar on his amazing spider-man suit and on a test batman beyond suit and it looked awesome so if anyone knows how he did it or of the man himself wants to chime in please do. i have an idea of something i want to try from smooth on having used it in the past but its whether or not it will react well to the fabric remains to be seen. i will keep you all updated.
apart from work on the suit i am also planning on working on my body. there has been alot of great work by guys working on their fitness for tasm suits here on the forum and it has been a big inspiration so i figured i would keep track of my progress here in my thread and maybe even start a blog about it were others can see how im coming along and maybe inspire and share tips on how to achieve a man of steel body for others wanting to look just as good as henry cavill in the suit.
so please chime in and let me know what you all think about the test print and any fitness stuff.
my basic routine will be following a modified p90x routine, i really like the p90x program and i have gotten good results with it in the past, plus working out at home saves time and money. along with that some gym jones inspired functional lifting and circuit stuff in my local gym as well as some stuff to correct my posture. no point getting big and strong if your foundation is poor.
diet wise i follow an intermittent fasting lifestyle. check out brad pilons "eat stop eat" or martin berkhan on "leangains.com" for more information on it. i follow a leangains protocol myself typically fasting 16 hours a day with an 8 hour eating window. it has help shave a couple of inches of my waist and keep it off and thats with minimal exercise. so i imagine when i step up the activity i should see even better results. my overall goal body wise is to increase the muscle mass on my shoulders and arms as well as build a strong back. i have been plague with back injuries for years, some quite serious and it pretty much all came from poor posture and a focus on training "mirror muscles" in college. one of the reasons i like the p90x program so much. it is quite well balanced in terms of training and places alot of focus on pull ups and back exercises, couple that with my the routines i have come up with for the gym as well as correcting my posture and i should be able to build a strong and powerful looking physique and hopefully fill the suit out pretty well.
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RPF Halloween costume contest addition
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I have decided to enter this costume into the RPF halloween costume contest, so as per the guidelines i am editing my first post to include some details. i have always been a lurker here on the rpf. never had the patience or skills to build something in the same league as some of the stuff on this site. aside from a diy superman returns costume i have never really done something from scratch. when i first got the file of carl,i was blown away, and from it came the samples you can see here in the first post. soon he produce the mkII version of the suit and it was this one that i modified. we spent a lot of time going back and forth over different things to try in order to achieve what i wanted. carl was so cool throughout the whole thing, never once telling me no.i told him my intentions of submitting this suit for the contest and he gave me his blessing. even though i spent alot of time in photoshop working on tweaking the file and then painting it all for days and days, none of it would be possible without the awesome file carl made.
as far as what i did to the suit, the first thing i did was add some shadow effects to the shield, to help sell the 3d illusion. then after some difficulty trying to puff paint the samples i realised that i would have to not only create a chainmail that contrasted the rest of the suit so i could see it and therefore puff paint it but also enhance the muscle shading on the suit so that it could be seen once the paint was applied. once i was finally happy with the paintable chainmail and the muscle shading i decided to modify the suit so a zipper could be added to the crotch, while perhaps not entirely screen accurate it will make things a hell of a lot easier.
after that it was only a matter of painting the suit. i want to thank mcl34n for his inspiration with his tasm suits and for taking the time to answer my questions. i didn't get a chance to use your silicone method for this as we originally talked about. unfortunately i ran out of time and funds. there is always the next time, superman/batman hits in 2015
more progress pics to follow
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as i said before guys please chime in and contribute to the fitness stuff and any comments on the test prints
*****************************************************************************************************
contest proof pic...
here are some sample photos, the first without flash
the second with flash
overall its not bad, but not great. it actually looks ok in photographs but in real life the print seems overly dark, the shadows are almost black and really washes out the chainmail effect to the point were it is all blurred together and has a bit of a red hue and the detail on the \s/ is almost invisible. i doubt this is a fault of carls file. its very detailed and looks very good, and the photos of his print show up the detail pretty well. so i think it might just be a bad test print. still waiting on another sample, they said it would probably be mid January before it is ready.
my plan is to puff paint the suit and maybe use some sort of silicon for the raised waist, wrist and leg sections. MCL34N used something similar on his amazing spider-man suit and on a test batman beyond suit and it looked awesome so if anyone knows how he did it or of the man himself wants to chime in please do. i have an idea of something i want to try from smooth on having used it in the past but its whether or not it will react well to the fabric remains to be seen. i will keep you all updated.
apart from work on the suit i am also planning on working on my body. there has been alot of great work by guys working on their fitness for tasm suits here on the forum and it has been a big inspiration so i figured i would keep track of my progress here in my thread and maybe even start a blog about it were others can see how im coming along and maybe inspire and share tips on how to achieve a man of steel body for others wanting to look just as good as henry cavill in the suit.
so please chime in and let me know what you all think about the test print and any fitness stuff.
my basic routine will be following a modified p90x routine, i really like the p90x program and i have gotten good results with it in the past, plus working out at home saves time and money. along with that some gym jones inspired functional lifting and circuit stuff in my local gym as well as some stuff to correct my posture. no point getting big and strong if your foundation is poor.
diet wise i follow an intermittent fasting lifestyle. check out brad pilons "eat stop eat" or martin berkhan on "leangains.com" for more information on it. i follow a leangains protocol myself typically fasting 16 hours a day with an 8 hour eating window. it has help shave a couple of inches of my waist and keep it off and thats with minimal exercise. so i imagine when i step up the activity i should see even better results. my overall goal body wise is to increase the muscle mass on my shoulders and arms as well as build a strong back. i have been plague with back injuries for years, some quite serious and it pretty much all came from poor posture and a focus on training "mirror muscles" in college. one of the reasons i like the p90x program so much. it is quite well balanced in terms of training and places alot of focus on pull ups and back exercises, couple that with my the routines i have come up with for the gym as well as correcting my posture and i should be able to build a strong and powerful looking physique and hopefully fill the suit out pretty well.
*****************************************************************************************************
RPF Halloween costume contest addition
*****************************************************************************************************
I have decided to enter this costume into the RPF halloween costume contest, so as per the guidelines i am editing my first post to include some details. i have always been a lurker here on the rpf. never had the patience or skills to build something in the same league as some of the stuff on this site. aside from a diy superman returns costume i have never really done something from scratch. when i first got the file of carl,i was blown away, and from it came the samples you can see here in the first post. soon he produce the mkII version of the suit and it was this one that i modified. we spent a lot of time going back and forth over different things to try in order to achieve what i wanted. carl was so cool throughout the whole thing, never once telling me no.i told him my intentions of submitting this suit for the contest and he gave me his blessing. even though i spent alot of time in photoshop working on tweaking the file and then painting it all for days and days, none of it would be possible without the awesome file carl made.
as far as what i did to the suit, the first thing i did was add some shadow effects to the shield, to help sell the 3d illusion. then after some difficulty trying to puff paint the samples i realised that i would have to not only create a chainmail that contrasted the rest of the suit so i could see it and therefore puff paint it but also enhance the muscle shading on the suit so that it could be seen once the paint was applied. once i was finally happy with the paintable chainmail and the muscle shading i decided to modify the suit so a zipper could be added to the crotch, while perhaps not entirely screen accurate it will make things a hell of a lot easier.
after that it was only a matter of painting the suit. i want to thank mcl34n for his inspiration with his tasm suits and for taking the time to answer my questions. i didn't get a chance to use your silicone method for this as we originally talked about. unfortunately i ran out of time and funds. there is always the next time, superman/batman hits in 2015
more progress pics to follow
*****************************************************************************************************
as i said before guys please chime in and contribute to the fitness stuff and any comments on the test prints
*****************************************************************************************************
contest proof pic...
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