Iron Age Iron Man Build

[b00mdr1ve8y]

I am a mask maker and recently made a batch of Iron Age inspired Iron Man masks and others. (see below)


A lot of inspiration and reference came from the ever popular Skyrim video game. Due to the popularity of them on my FB page, I decided it was time to make a suit of armor to go with them for a local con next month (Em-Con) based in Nottingham UK.

After soaking up much knowledge on the world of EVA Foam Armour smithing and reading and watching videos of builders such as Bill Doran of "Punished Props" I have now set out on my very first foam journey into Armor construction.

I decided I would take inspiration from the basic Male Iron Armor set in Skyrim. Then throw in some Iron Man mash up goodness by integrating his central chest piece complete with LED lighting and see where we go from there. Here are a couple reference images (not mine) I am using currently just to get the idea's flowing:




I have made a start to the armor already. I decided to start with a nice set of gauntlets from some spare foam matting that was lying around and begging to be turned into something cool

I have attached below a set of progress shots of the gauntlets which represents a few hours work from construction to the start of the paint job. Enjoy!



I am now at the stage of getting into some serious dry brushing. Going with some nice metallic silvers and bronze to bring out a bit of a metallic look. Then I will go in and make sure they get weathered nicely. This represents where I am now at. Base coat of metal colouring and the leather straps left to paint and get the other gauntlet done too! Will make sure I keep you guys updated on the build as it progress's. I welcome critique and comments as I am a new builder and this is my first time. Go easy on me

 

[George]

Looks awesome already :cool keep the photos coming

 

[laxman09]

nice, i love the finish of the arm guard! mind sharing your process for that paint job, as well as that beautiful wood finish? i'm looking forward to seeing more, this has great potential!

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

Managed to get the leather straps all painted up last night making these about 90% done! I might weather the gauntlets a little more and maybe add some rust? Then all I need is to line them with a nice faux fur for the insides. Here are some progress pictures of them so far! They fit great!


- - - Updated - - -

Thank you so much! I certainly will! This will no doubt fall under the "pic heavy" category"

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

Thank you! The foam was painted with a flat black base coat to start followed by several passes of dry brushing a nice metallic silver acrylic. To add to the effect I also dry brushed some subtle hints of brass and gold just to add to a more varied texture on the gauntlet!

The wood for some of my previous masks was achieved with a varied light wood tone base with acrylic paint. I then painted in some of the knots and other wooden details by hand. As for the graining of the wood itself I actually wash over the paint with a darker brown tone and then run a custom cut eraser through it. The cuts in the eraser leave the lines behind and cut through the wash top layer. This results in a nice wood grain finish! I'll probably do a small tutorial on it here at some point! There's a little more of this on my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FearlessFacade Thanks for your question!

 

[George]

Forgive the newb question,but what does "pic heavy" mean?

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

I've seen a lot of threads on here often titled "pic heavy" which insinuates their build on the forum is packed with pictures for people to look at This will no doubt be the case with mine as I am rather snap happy with the old progress pics!

 

[HammyDribbler]

Pic Heavy for the WIN!!!!

Love the originality in this build. Can't wait till you get to all the fur and skins. How are you finding working with the 12mm (1/2") mats? I just finished a set of legs (my first EVA stuff) and they are chunky as hell. Doing the arms soon but can't help but feel they are going to come out bulky.

Ham out!

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

Hey thanks! Yeah, I'm a first time foam'er and to be honest for what I'm building its kinda perfect and I wish I had used the material much sooner. I can imagine for smaller detailed parts it just would not be suitable. I hear L200 foam is supposed to be a nice mid sized foam with all the benefits of the mats but it slightly less chunky? Not sure if you had used that before, but if not you should totally check it out!

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

So I started work on the shoulder pieces last night. Taking reference and inspiration from the Banded Iron Shoulder sections of the Skyrim Armour images I am using. I did come into a little trouble initially. As this is very much my cherry popping experience into the world of foam I figured that foam pieces of the same size would simply fit under one another and everything line up nicely. This was not the case as I soon learned.

Above you can see my problem. Each piece I made had to become smaller than the last in order to keep alignment with the above section. The result was less than pleasing and not what I was aiming to achieve. This was due to the curve I had bent into the top shoulder pad. Too much of a cone which pointed all subsequent layers into smaller and smaller shapes. As such, these sections were discarded and I set out starting again.


Starting again with my template I chose to keep all layers the same size this time and see how that impacted the overall look. I also added less curvature to the initial top shoulder piece. Although the alignment was not perfect it looked much closer to the reference image. Happy with it, I started with the detail foam work with the much thinner white craft foam.

Above you can see the build up of detail edging on the sections including the leather threads which fit nicely through the slots towards the top of the shoulder pad.

This represents where I am now at. A few more details need to be worked out on the shoulder such as the studs etc and then onto paint! I also added an image including the gauntlets for a size comparison. More to come watch this space!

 

[Ikras]

This is looking great. Very interesting concept and coming together really nicely. Looking forward to further updates.

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

Managed to get the gauntlets all finished up this past weekend. Sourced some fur and leather to aid the look of the build. For attaching the gauntlets I opted for Velcro strapping which was glued into the gauntlets and then lined with fur over the top. The fur wrappings cover the whole of my arm on both sides and the Velcro straps round it all nicely. They look and fit great with the added bonus of being warm for those winter cons!

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

I also made forward progress on the shoulder armour. Essentially managed to make the left shoulder pad using the same template and technique that was applied to the first. Kept it quite basic just as the Banded Iron Armour is in the game. The larger challenge happened to be the spike/studs that adorn the larger shoulder pad. After some thought I decided to make and bake these with FIMO clay. This is probably the first and last time I will use FIMO clay as it was personally horrible to work with and had to be kept VERY warm. I managed to scramble together a few studs for the shoulder pad. I didn't want them to look perfect as they will have an aged metal finish anyways so they worked out.


A nice surprise however was that you can in fact sand FIMO clay once baked to achieve a much smoother finish which I was happy about. So after a little sanding I finally glued them down onto the shoulder piece. They turned out ok and I'm happy with them for my needs. (They will all be painted the same colour)

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

Got both the shoulder pads primed in a flat black ready to receive a heavy dose of metallic goodness. Once these were dry I started the gradual build up process of drybrushing several layers of silver chrome, brass and tones of gold too. I find a varied approach to metal colouring really gives it more depth and adds to the realism of the piece.

Above you can see the gradual build up of the different metal colours. Scratches were also added using the chrome metallic on a piece of metal sponge scourer. These certainly give it a bit more of a story and looks as if it's been used at least once You can see I also decided to play around with some orange tones to add rust to certain area's such as the rivets and the edging of the shoulder piece.

And this is where I am now at. I also painted in the leather wrappings near the top of the pad in the white-ish colour as seen in the in-game assets. I pondered painting these brown as with the gauntlets, but I'm happy with the overall look. I intend to finish the larger shoulder pad off this evening and post some images for you guys of that piece also. It's coming along nicely and I'm slowly running out of time until Em-Con this month!

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

As promised I managed to get the large shoulder armour all painted up shiny last night. I essentially used the same painting and weathering process as the one before it. Below you can see the build up of the layers of metallics and onto the rust detail also. The FIMO clay spikes/studs turned out not too shabby either once given a coat of paint!


Below is the finished shoulder pad along with the complete set of what I've made so far. Damn my desk looks cool. Starting to look like a merchant in Skyrim already!

 

[Ikras]

All looking really nice and progress looks swift. Did you seal the foam at all before you painted it? Interested to pick up peoples experiences with paint types etc. as I'm starting to look that way myself.

Looking forward to seeing what comes next.

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

Hey thanks alot! I certainly did seal the foam prior to paint! Whilst shaping the foam with a heat gun, this provides an intial seal and you can see it happen when the foam turns a nice even dark colour. Then, once ready I use a PVA sealant to prep it for paint. My particular brand is actually a household PVA sealant product from Wilko. Its a regular PVA with some extra added sealants within. Its really effective and you only need 1 - 2 coats of the stuff. Worth checking out for sure!

 

[Ikras]

Hey thanks alot! I certainly did seal the foam prior to paint! Whilst shaping the foam with a heat gun, this provides an intial seal and you can see it happen when the foam turns a nice even dark colour. Then, once ready I use a PVA sealant to prep it for paint. My particular brand is actually a household PVA sealant product from Wilko. Its a regular PVA with some extra added sealants within. Its really effective and you only need 1 - 2 coats of the stuff. Worth checking out for sure!

Cheers for the reply. I've seen what you mean with the heatgun when I've been shaping parts myself so it's good to know it's useful. I've picked up some PVA but it's just craft stuff so I might take a look into the sealant version. Do you dilute it at all?

Did you get your paints from Wilko as well or were they sourced elsewhere?

Sorry for all the questions but it's great finding someone else UK based to get an idea of brands and sources.

 

[b00mdr1ve8y]

Yeah you can dilute it if you want. I believe that is the intended use for it when applying it to household needs. However, on that last shoulder piece, I actually only used one undiluted layer of the sealant and it worked great. Its a little thicker that way and it still goes on smooth and dries clear, so you never know its there anyways. The metallic paints you can indeed purchase at wilko also! They have a great range of little pots in the DIY section. You should certainly check them out, usually only about £2.99 a go I think, I've had mine ages and I'm a long way off running out I've attached a picture of the sealant I use.

 

[Ikras]

I'll have a look into this stuff, looks like I can pick some up online so I'll give it a try and see how the results turn out for me. I'll need to find a nearby branch at some time and take a look round. Cheers for the info.

Looking forward to further updates on this. Hope your progress is still going well.