FerrariF430
New Member
I had to enter the contest, just to represent for Iron Man Mark VI.
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At the end of this thread will be my post from last October, an excerpt from the original build last year in under two weeks, and olympic build at its best, my first foam anything.
I stored my costume in the attic through the summer, brilliant
I live in Melbourne FL and the heat in the attic exceeded the bonding temp of the hot glue and I found a pile of foam. It was a sticky, nasty, mess. Stupid. I wish I had snapped a pic of the pile.
I re-glued it back together at a cost of 1 full day, not too bad. It needed a repaint from last year since I wore it out twice, once was a party night and an extra bear hug from a friend pretty much destroyed the chest piece.
Updates:
1. I ordered a Aluminum sheet from Amazon *$10 USD delivered, love amazon prime. : Aluminum 6061-T6 Sheet, ASTM B209, AMS 4025, 0.02" Thick, 24" Width, 24" Length. I cut out three pieces, adding many of the Mark 6 chest pieces into a single sheet just look at images). Then painted and glued to the destroyed chest piece, and it looks great! It took all of an hour and a half to cut, sand, paint, and glue. Time well spent. I understand that some of of the benefits of a foamie, is the flexibility and light weight. A few thin aluminum plates in non-flex points works and adds no weight really.
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2. I ordered a pair of 6" costume platform boots/shoes and added another 1" of inserts (shoe was too lose). Then I scaled up the pep boots by 1.3 (aka +30%), and they fit over the boots. In my opinion they look "ominous". I also added LED headlights (police strobes, that dont blink in my application) to the front of the boot as headlights. One of the halloween nights has 6K people and its really crowded. Keeping from running into people hard is difficult with limited visibility and lack of mobility, so the headlights will let them see ME.
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3. I switches from EL lighting in the eyes, chest, and repulser to LED. This was mainly to make them very bright. The EL was awesome at home, in the street, but in a street party, club, or on stage the lighting overpowered them and it was not bright enough. My new chest triangle has 39 LEDs (5050s) and its VERY bright, you cant even look directly at it! The new repulsers are so bright you see spots afterwards even during the day! (I supercharged the repulsers by using a 3.7v 850mAh liPo from spark fun and circumvented the 10k ohm) I sourced my repulser from TheRealStark in the Junkyard. The eyes and chest piece I used a strand of 12v 5050s I had laying around, got them from ebay likely for cheap. They are an automotive brightness and voltage. So I had to use a 12v system consisting of 8x AA Energizer L91 batteries (3000mAh each!) and they are lithium (non rechargeable) but are very light weight as a bonus.
View attachment 120207
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View attachment 120296
4. I switched from a troubled and mostly non working servo face shield system to a linear actuator. In hindsight, I would have bought two, one for each side. They were $65 each, spend the extra money IMO.
View attachment 120195
Video: Iron man mask opening with linear actuator - YouTube
5. I changed from a button+delay for open and close, so it looked automatic, to a RF button, so it is really automatic (remote control from glove). The RF system is from eBay and designed to control automotive LED lighting.
View attachment 120210
6. Audio: The original system was a voice changer in-helmet with small speaker in helmet. This was great in the living room, but outdoors it was not loud enough, and at a street party, contest, club it could not be heard. try screaming in a mask all night. So I added an external amplifier for the second outing of 2011, using a Danelectro N10B Honey Tone Mini Amp $19 on amazon. I also added a wireless mic so I id not need wires from helmet to chest piece where the amp resided. For 2012 I added a second amp, also Honey Tone in the chest piece and a new voice changer. I recommend buying the Optimus Prime helmet from walmart or amazon for ~$25 and using that voice changer. Its fabulous! So now I have 2x very loud amplifiers, wireless mic in helmet and everything else ticked in chest piece. The batteries should last 12 hours by my calculation, not bad for such power. Everyone will hear me Being loud and a little robotic is part of the effect.
7. Inner flex coverage. I purchased thin rubber floor mats from walmart $19 and cut out interesting patterns for the rear leg openings. Might also use in a few other areas. The mats paint well and are just flexible enough.
View attachment 120211
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Summary: I went from a 6' to a 6'7" Iron Man Mark VI, with headlight blinding chest and repulser with earth shaking audio power. A large upgrade, even if on the outside it looks quite similar. Total time including repaint (party damage) was 40-50 hrs. Note that the original build and paint was ~200 hrs. Total $ is around $1300. Much wasted in EL lighting, and other things I did not need or use. The cod piece is still to be painted, so you will have to wait for the full suit image for closer to halloween.
*My cod piece will be the right way around this year. It was backwards last year, I was in such a rush to finish, i did not look at the pics to determine orientation.
**You have to be a friking electrical engineer to create an integrated system that controls the lights, face shield and audio in a harmonious fashion. I would say that 30-40% of the time was creating custom circuits and systems integration. I have created 3x PCBs, although only two of mine will make it to halloween. The market is small, but if someone sold an integrated system that controls; LED lights, face shield, audio, voice changer, with RF control it would save much time.
=== Start: Excerpt from Oct 2011 ===
This was my first attempt at Pepakura, my first time working with EVA foam, and my first obsession of 2011. I was inspired, like many, by Stealth's Iron Man tutorial videos. A big thanks to Stealth and Robo3687 for the pepakura files.
I started this build on 10/16/2011 and completed it 10 minutes before we left or the big halloween street party last night 10/29/2011. It was non-stop 14-16hr work days rarely eating and doing little else. I estimate it took about 200 hours including; cutting, assembly, prep, paint, and electrical bits. About 20hours of it ~10% was research and ordering products.
The total cost has not been tallied and maybe I wont complete that task for fear of it being quite expensive. I will estimate it at $1K+. This includes EVA foam, Xacto products, paint, paint, paint, mod podge, EL Film and drivers, voice box, amp, wireless mic, etc etc. The paint was the killer at 14 cans of red (not all used), 4 cans of gold, 9 cans of primer, 5 cans of mod podge aerosol, 6 cans of clear. Yes $300-400 in paint. I used a 4 step process [ mod podge to seal the EVA foam, Primer, Color coat, clear ]. I should have just sourced the correct color and sprayed it since I have the skill and hardware to spray. This would have saved 50% of the painting cost. The killer was spending about $100 / day on this and that from velcro, mounting hardware, and lots of tools and stuff I did not actually need, or that came in a 10 pack and I needed 1.
Helmet; I went a bit crazy and decided to have a computer controlled helmet, so I grabbed a microchip PIC16F819 and threw together a PCB with all the needed hardware to control a stepper motor, EL lighting control, Voice box control (just ON/OFF of a voice changer). Its a lot to cram in the helmet and I think I should have spent the time on other details. The hinge system I used was a copy of some images from this forum I think (gold helmet with red hinge pictorial). Driving a servo requires a PWM signal with a duty cycle from 1-2mS, so a micro-controller was necessary and allowed easy control of the EL strip, voice, and servo; i.e. the EL would turn off with the helmet open. Full disclosure; the servo system cable / pulley failed and honestly was not working well just before departing for the show, so the face was manual after all that work . I wrote the software in C and compiled using the PICC C compiler and Microchip IDE (for those with pocket protectors). *I am not interested in selling these modules, software or anything else for that matter.
The finished product looked pretty good, I give it 80%. Better painting, more reinforcements, a few more weeks of detail work; airbrush detail, more small EVA parts, etc, and it would have been 95%.
The response from everyone was positive. I was a rock star. The street party had 5K people and my girl and I could not walk more than 10 feet without someone stopping us for a pic. It took 30min to make it to the first drink tent. I posed for no less than 200 pics! It was crazy, almost annoying. I got many comments about it being the "best" costume, but I am sure they tell all the guys that
General Comments:
PAINT:
Red = Duplicolor BGM0509 aka Dark Cherry Metallic (tends to crack, wish it was more flexible)
Gold = Duplicolor BFM0351 aka Sunburst Gold
Source: Ordered from Napa, picked up in store.
Clear = Rustoleum Automotive Clear : Source = Walmart
Primer : I used Duplicolor dark grey (primer color affects top coat color, so if you want a deep red, use a darker primer). I got it at a local autoparts store, just call areound and ask if they carry duplicoolor primer.
LIGHTING:
EL Panel for Chest, strips for eye, and strip for hand. Glowhut had a good selection+service, but you can get this stuff on ebay or anywhere.
EVA Foam:
6mm (9x12") Red or Black : Source : JoAnns or ConsumerCrafts.com. Stick with Foamies brand, the tag is not a sticker so it just rips off. The Michaels 6mm foam has a sticker on each side of the foam that will not easily come off.
3mm sheets (11x17") red+black for neck, abs, strapping and support.
2mm multicolor sheet pack from WalMart for misc stuff
MOD PODGE:
Walmart has it in jar or spray
XACTO PRODUCTS:
2x packs of 15 blades (change blades often)
2x xacto knifes
45 degree xacto cutter (michaels)
JoAnns or Michaels
MISC:
-Voice changer (a must) from Amazon (get the one with 10+ voices), it was like $10
-Glue Gun: Get TWO!! One large and one small and I used 60 large glue sticks (multi-temp). Buy a nice glue gun, one with an on-off switch. You need two guns so you can have one that can reach small places and/or excrete small amounts of glue.
-Clear cover for the triangle : Ace hardware, had to buy a 6ft x 4ft sheet for a 6" triangle
-Erector set for the parts to make the hinges, money well spent. package up the remaining parts and regift I paid like $18. If you try and buy this stuff at lowes or home depot in the screw isle it would be $100+
=== end - excerpt from Oct 2011 ===
***Images and post from last year can be found here:
http://www.therpf.com/f24/robo3687-iron-man-mark-4-6-pepakura-128147/index12.html#post1972250
View attachment 124439
View attachment 124440
At the end of this thread will be my post from last October, an excerpt from the original build last year in under two weeks, and olympic build at its best, my first foam anything.
I stored my costume in the attic through the summer, brilliant
I live in Melbourne FL and the heat in the attic exceeded the bonding temp of the hot glue and I found a pile of foam. It was a sticky, nasty, mess. Stupid. I wish I had snapped a pic of the pile.I re-glued it back together at a cost of 1 full day, not too bad. It needed a repaint from last year since I wore it out twice, once was a party night and an extra bear hug from a friend pretty much destroyed the chest piece.
Updates:
1. I ordered a Aluminum sheet from Amazon *$10 USD delivered, love amazon prime. : Aluminum 6061-T6 Sheet, ASTM B209, AMS 4025, 0.02" Thick, 24" Width, 24" Length. I cut out three pieces, adding many of the Mark 6 chest pieces into a single sheet just look at images). Then painted and glued to the destroyed chest piece, and it looks great! It took all of an hour and a half to cut, sand, paint, and glue. Time well spent. I understand that some of of the benefits of a foamie, is the flexibility and light weight. A few thin aluminum plates in non-flex points works and adds no weight really.
View attachment 120190
View attachment 120191
View attachment 120192
View attachment 120193
View attachment 120194
2. I ordered a pair of 6" costume platform boots/shoes and added another 1" of inserts (shoe was too lose). Then I scaled up the pep boots by 1.3 (aka +30%), and they fit over the boots. In my opinion they look "ominous". I also added LED headlights (police strobes, that dont blink in my application) to the front of the boot as headlights. One of the halloween nights has 6K people and its really crowded. Keeping from running into people hard is difficult with limited visibility and lack of mobility, so the headlights will let them see ME.
View attachment 120196
View attachment 120197
View attachment 120198
View attachment 120202
View attachment 120203
View attachment 120204
View attachment 120205
View attachment 120206
3. I switches from EL lighting in the eyes, chest, and repulser to LED. This was mainly to make them very bright. The EL was awesome at home, in the street, but in a street party, club, or on stage the lighting overpowered them and it was not bright enough. My new chest triangle has 39 LEDs (5050s) and its VERY bright, you cant even look directly at it! The new repulsers are so bright you see spots afterwards even during the day! (I supercharged the repulsers by using a 3.7v 850mAh liPo from spark fun and circumvented the 10k ohm) I sourced my repulser from TheRealStark in the Junkyard. The eyes and chest piece I used a strand of 12v 5050s I had laying around, got them from ebay likely for cheap. They are an automotive brightness and voltage. So I had to use a 12v system consisting of 8x AA Energizer L91 batteries (3000mAh each!) and they are lithium (non rechargeable) but are very light weight as a bonus.
View attachment 120207
View attachment 120208
View attachment 120296
4. I switched from a troubled and mostly non working servo face shield system to a linear actuator. In hindsight, I would have bought two, one for each side. They were $65 each, spend the extra money IMO.
View attachment 120195
Video: Iron man mask opening with linear actuator - YouTube
5. I changed from a button+delay for open and close, so it looked automatic, to a RF button, so it is really automatic (remote control from glove). The RF system is from eBay and designed to control automotive LED lighting.
View attachment 120210
6. Audio: The original system was a voice changer in-helmet with small speaker in helmet. This was great in the living room, but outdoors it was not loud enough, and at a street party, contest, club it could not be heard. try screaming in a mask all night. So I added an external amplifier for the second outing of 2011, using a Danelectro N10B Honey Tone Mini Amp $19 on amazon. I also added a wireless mic so I id not need wires from helmet to chest piece where the amp resided. For 2012 I added a second amp, also Honey Tone in the chest piece and a new voice changer. I recommend buying the Optimus Prime helmet from walmart or amazon for ~$25 and using that voice changer. Its fabulous! So now I have 2x very loud amplifiers, wireless mic in helmet and everything else ticked in chest piece. The batteries should last 12 hours by my calculation, not bad for such power. Everyone will hear me
Being loud and a little robotic is part of the effect.7. Inner flex coverage. I purchased thin rubber floor mats from walmart $19 and cut out interesting patterns for the rear leg openings. Might also use in a few other areas. The mats paint well and are just flexible enough.
View attachment 120211
View attachment 120297
View attachment 120298
View attachment 120299
Summary: I went from a 6' to a 6'7" Iron Man Mark VI, with headlight blinding chest and repulser with earth shaking audio power. A large upgrade, even if on the outside it looks quite similar. Total time including repaint (party damage) was 40-50 hrs. Note that the original build and paint was ~200 hrs. Total $ is around $1300. Much wasted in EL lighting, and other things I did not need or use. The cod piece is still to be painted, so you will have to wait for the full suit image for closer to halloween.
*My cod piece will be the right way around this year. It was backwards last year, I was in such a rush to finish, i did not look at the pics to determine orientation.
**You have to be a friking electrical engineer to create an integrated system that controls the lights, face shield and audio in a harmonious fashion. I would say that 30-40% of the time was creating custom circuits and systems integration. I have created 3x PCBs, although only two of mine will make it to halloween. The market is small, but if someone sold an integrated system that controls; LED lights, face shield, audio, voice changer, with RF control it would save much time.
=== Start: Excerpt from Oct 2011 ===
This was my first attempt at Pepakura, my first time working with EVA foam, and my first obsession of 2011. I was inspired, like many, by Stealth's Iron Man tutorial videos. A big thanks to Stealth and Robo3687 for the pepakura files.
I started this build on 10/16/2011 and completed it 10 minutes before we left or the big halloween street party last night 10/29/2011. It was non-stop 14-16hr work days rarely eating and doing little else. I estimate it took about 200 hours including; cutting, assembly, prep, paint, and electrical bits. About 20hours of it ~10% was research and ordering products.
The total cost has not been tallied and maybe I wont complete that task for fear of it being quite expensive. I will estimate it at $1K+. This includes EVA foam, Xacto products, paint, paint, paint, mod podge, EL Film and drivers, voice box, amp, wireless mic, etc etc. The paint was the killer at 14 cans of red (not all used), 4 cans of gold, 9 cans of primer, 5 cans of mod podge aerosol, 6 cans of clear. Yes $300-400 in paint. I used a 4 step process [ mod podge to seal the EVA foam, Primer, Color coat, clear ]. I should have just sourced the correct color and sprayed it since I have the skill and hardware to spray. This would have saved 50% of the painting cost. The killer was spending about $100 / day on this and that from velcro, mounting hardware, and lots of tools and stuff I did not actually need, or that came in a 10 pack and I needed 1.
Helmet; I went a bit crazy and decided to have a computer controlled helmet, so I grabbed a microchip PIC16F819 and threw together a PCB with all the needed hardware to control a stepper motor, EL lighting control, Voice box control (just ON/OFF of a voice changer). Its a lot to cram in the helmet and I think I should have spent the time on other details. The hinge system I used was a copy of some images from this forum I think (gold helmet with red hinge pictorial). Driving a servo requires a PWM signal with a duty cycle from 1-2mS, so a micro-controller was necessary and allowed easy control of the EL strip, voice, and servo; i.e. the EL would turn off with the helmet open. Full disclosure; the servo system cable / pulley failed and honestly was not working well just before departing for the show, so the face was manual after all that work . I wrote the software in C and compiled using the PICC C compiler and Microchip IDE (for those with pocket protectors). *I am not interested in selling these modules, software or anything else for that matter.
The finished product looked pretty good, I give it 80%. Better painting, more reinforcements, a few more weeks of detail work; airbrush detail, more small EVA parts, etc, and it would have been 95%.
The response from everyone was positive. I was a rock star. The street party had 5K people and my girl and I could not walk more than 10 feet without someone stopping us for a pic. It took 30min to make it to the first drink tent. I posed for no less than 200 pics! It was crazy, almost annoying. I got many comments about it being the "best" costume, but I am sure they tell all the guys that
General Comments:
PAINT:
Red = Duplicolor BGM0509 aka Dark Cherry Metallic (tends to crack, wish it was more flexible)
Gold = Duplicolor BFM0351 aka Sunburst Gold
Source: Ordered from Napa, picked up in store.
Clear = Rustoleum Automotive Clear : Source = Walmart
Primer : I used Duplicolor dark grey (primer color affects top coat color, so if you want a deep red, use a darker primer). I got it at a local autoparts store, just call areound and ask if they carry duplicoolor primer.
LIGHTING:
EL Panel for Chest, strips for eye, and strip for hand. Glowhut had a good selection+service, but you can get this stuff on ebay or anywhere.
EVA Foam:
6mm (9x12") Red or Black : Source : JoAnns or ConsumerCrafts.com. Stick with Foamies brand, the tag is not a sticker so it just rips off. The Michaels 6mm foam has a sticker on each side of the foam that will not easily come off.
3mm sheets (11x17") red+black for neck, abs, strapping and support.
2mm multicolor sheet pack from WalMart for misc stuff
MOD PODGE:
Walmart has it in jar or spray
XACTO PRODUCTS:
2x packs of 15 blades (change blades often)
2x xacto knifes
45 degree xacto cutter (michaels)
JoAnns or Michaels
MISC:
-Voice changer (a must) from Amazon (get the one with 10+ voices), it was like $10
-Glue Gun: Get TWO!! One large and one small and I used 60 large glue sticks (multi-temp). Buy a nice glue gun, one with an on-off switch. You need two guns so you can have one that can reach small places and/or excrete small amounts of glue.
-Clear cover for the triangle : Ace hardware, had to buy a 6ft x 4ft sheet for a 6" triangle
-Erector set for the parts to make the hinges, money well spent. package up the remaining parts and regift I paid like $18. If you try and buy this stuff at lowes or home depot in the screw isle it would be $100+
=== end - excerpt from Oct 2011 ===
***Images and post from last year can be found here:
http://www.therpf.com/f24/robo3687-iron-man-mark-4-6-pepakura-128147/index12.html#post1972250
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