Ehekky
New Member
Hello everyone, and welcome to my first thread on the RPF.
A few months ago I started with my first foam project and shared my work on the 405th Infantry Division, the Halo costuming community
A couple of years ago I had posted some Halo related projects on there, and it’s a great site, but I went and looked for a non-halo specific costume and prop community, and so here I am typing away on the RPF.
So, I’ll give a quick recap of the past few months and I will share some pics that I took and posted on the 405th.
Let’s get to the costume!
A couple of months ago, a friend asked if I wanted to go to a cosplay convention with her, I naturally said yes but then realized that I wasn’t going to be the a-hole not wearing a costume.
Long story short, we didn’t go to the convention, but it did get me back to costuming again.
After attempting a couple of pepakura projects in the past I decided that papercraft wasn’t really working for me, progress was slow and the right materials are hard to come by (here in the Netherlands). So I naturally thought to try something out of foam, mainly because foam is both sturdier and easier (imo) to work with.
I first wanted to simply try out something with my new found material, just to get the hang of it. I wanted something with flat areas, curved surfaces, straight edges, curved edges and a bit of detail.
So I thought to build an Iron Man helmet… after searching the web for it, I found the Sharkhead7854 model, unfolded by Dubean33. I liked it and immediately started with it:
I intended to just create the helmet and then move on to something entirely different. But after I created said helmet (pictured above), I liked it enough to just go ahead and create a full Iron Man Mk. IV suit.
The files I found consisted of several pieces, unfolded and modeled by a variety of people; jason02, balmung, lotechstark and robo3687, along with the previously mentioned Dubean33 and Sharkhead7854.
So that is why I’m now building an entire Iron Man Mk. IV, why the Mk. IV you might ask… Well, two reasons actually, I like it the best out of every MCU Iron Man suit (from I to XLII), as well as not seeing enough of them, there are a lot of Mk. III’s, Mk. VI’s and Mk. VII’s (and as of recently Mk. XLII’s) but not enough Mk. IV’s.
So, I completed my helmet, and went on to build the chest and back of the suit:
It's not that clear of an image but it'll do. I created the helmet, chest, back, brace and collar plates, after that I started thinking of ways to connect the pieces together before continuing with the rest of the suit, I used a variety of connection options including small plastic buckles, Velcro, and elastic bands. This means I could now pop in and out of my armor in a couple of seconds.
The torso now started to take shape a lot more, looking more like the actual Mk. IV:
Next up was the Codpiece, which was (and still is) a tight fit, because I made it out of a single part, without connectors:
Around this time, I found that my helmet was too big, it needed to be about 10% smaller. Not only that, but I wasn’t too pleased with the files I used* and started to notice differences between movie-suit and file-suit. So I started to edit them in 3ds max to more closely resemble the movie-suit. Now, of course there are even pretty significant changes between movie-Mk. IV and movie-Mk. IV a couple of scenes later in the same movie, but well, that’s life.
I didn’t want to rebuild the parts I had already finished, and they were still good enough for my own approval, so the only part needing replacement was still the helmet.
Now, I finished the abs and even made them slightly stretchy:
I added some other modifications to the suit, like straps to the cod/abs-piece similar to suspenders, making the suit a lot more comfortable and easy to wear.
I continued with the thighs after that:
And then only two weeks ago, I started with the Biceps:
The Biceps are finished now, and I have started work on the shoulders, printing the pep files out and cutting out the pattern from it. I already edited everything in 3ds max, so the only step needed before building a part is to unfold it again in pepakura.
I wanted the armor to be ready by February, and it looks like that's going to happen, though it'll probably be February 2015 (which makes me sad).
Why February, because we (me and the earlier mentioned friend) do want to go to an upcoming convention (forgot the name of it).
So… I might take a break from the Mk. IV after finishing the shoulders, to work on something else... maybe.
The Mk. IV won’t be finished in time for the convention, but I do want to go to said event in at least something of a costume, so I have ordered an outfit from ebay, I only need to make the gear that goes with it...
If any of you can guess what it's from, I'll be seriously impressed:
I'll give a small hint, it's an anime, I absolutely love that series C:
Please let me know what you think of it, and if you have some advice or tips I’ll gladly accept them.
Good Day!
p.s. If you want the full breakdown of everything I did, you should check my original thread at the 405th.
A few months ago I started with my first foam project and shared my work on the 405th Infantry Division, the Halo costuming community
A couple of years ago I had posted some Halo related projects on there, and it’s a great site, but I went and looked for a non-halo specific costume and prop community, and so here I am typing away on the RPF.
So, I’ll give a quick recap of the past few months and I will share some pics that I took and posted on the 405th.
Let’s get to the costume!
A couple of months ago, a friend asked if I wanted to go to a cosplay convention with her, I naturally said yes but then realized that I wasn’t going to be the a-hole not wearing a costume.
Long story short, we didn’t go to the convention, but it did get me back to costuming again.
After attempting a couple of pepakura projects in the past I decided that papercraft wasn’t really working for me, progress was slow and the right materials are hard to come by (here in the Netherlands). So I naturally thought to try something out of foam, mainly because foam is both sturdier and easier (imo) to work with.
I first wanted to simply try out something with my new found material, just to get the hang of it. I wanted something with flat areas, curved surfaces, straight edges, curved edges and a bit of detail.
So I thought to build an Iron Man helmet… after searching the web for it, I found the Sharkhead7854 model, unfolded by Dubean33. I liked it and immediately started with it:
I intended to just create the helmet and then move on to something entirely different. But after I created said helmet (pictured above), I liked it enough to just go ahead and create a full Iron Man Mk. IV suit.
The files I found consisted of several pieces, unfolded and modeled by a variety of people; jason02, balmung, lotechstark and robo3687, along with the previously mentioned Dubean33 and Sharkhead7854.
So that is why I’m now building an entire Iron Man Mk. IV, why the Mk. IV you might ask… Well, two reasons actually, I like it the best out of every MCU Iron Man suit (from I to XLII), as well as not seeing enough of them, there are a lot of Mk. III’s, Mk. VI’s and Mk. VII’s (and as of recently Mk. XLII’s) but not enough Mk. IV’s.
So, I completed my helmet, and went on to build the chest and back of the suit:
It's not that clear of an image but it'll do. I created the helmet, chest, back, brace and collar plates, after that I started thinking of ways to connect the pieces together before continuing with the rest of the suit, I used a variety of connection options including small plastic buckles, Velcro, and elastic bands. This means I could now pop in and out of my armor in a couple of seconds.
The torso now started to take shape a lot more, looking more like the actual Mk. IV:
Next up was the Codpiece, which was (and still is) a tight fit, because I made it out of a single part, without connectors:
Around this time, I found that my helmet was too big, it needed to be about 10% smaller. Not only that, but I wasn’t too pleased with the files I used* and started to notice differences between movie-suit and file-suit. So I started to edit them in 3ds max to more closely resemble the movie-suit. Now, of course there are even pretty significant changes between movie-Mk. IV and movie-Mk. IV a couple of scenes later in the same movie, but well, that’s life.
*I don't mean this in any disrespectful way to the original creators, their files are absolutely amazing, and without them I wouldn't even have started this project. I only meant to explain why it is a 'custom' Mk. IV.
I didn’t want to rebuild the parts I had already finished, and they were still good enough for my own approval, so the only part needing replacement was still the helmet.
Now, I finished the abs and even made them slightly stretchy:
I added some other modifications to the suit, like straps to the cod/abs-piece similar to suspenders, making the suit a lot more comfortable and easy to wear.
I continued with the thighs after that:
And then only two weeks ago, I started with the Biceps:
The Biceps are finished now, and I have started work on the shoulders, printing the pep files out and cutting out the pattern from it. I already edited everything in 3ds max, so the only step needed before building a part is to unfold it again in pepakura.
I wanted the armor to be ready by February, and it looks like that's going to happen, though it'll probably be February 2015 (which makes me sad).
Why February, because we (me and the earlier mentioned friend) do want to go to an upcoming convention (forgot the name of it).
So… I might take a break from the Mk. IV after finishing the shoulders, to work on something else... maybe.
The Mk. IV won’t be finished in time for the convention, but I do want to go to said event in at least something of a costume, so I have ordered an outfit from ebay, I only need to make the gear that goes with it...
If any of you can guess what it's from, I'll be seriously impressed:
I'll give a small hint, it's an anime, I absolutely love that series C:
Please let me know what you think of it, and if you have some advice or tips I’ll gladly accept them.
Good Day!
p.s. If you want the full breakdown of everything I did, you should check my original thread at the 405th.
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