Iron Man Mark 85 - My own Endgame

Gaz

Active Member
Hi all,

It’s been a long while since I’ve been on here. Some may recall me from a few years ago having completed some foam builds of Iron Man Mark 7 and Mark 42, a female variant of the Mark 42, and finally a Mass Effect N7 mash up with the 42. The builds gave me real pleasure, more than the walking around Comic Cons in the suits for hours anyway.

Long story short, I hit some personal tragedy in late 2015 and it felt like I needed to let go of cosplay crafting as a consequence. Everything ended up in thrown into a skip when I moved house, apart from the first arc reactor I built in the first few days of crafting, along with the gauntlet for my first Mark 7.
It’s been almost four years now, and the itch for the craft is back. Endgame was quite emotional for me, and it seemed poignant that I should make my last, big attempt at an Iron Man armour to be Tony’s last.

I’m lucky to have an entire garage to call my personal workshop this time as opposed to small room in my old house, and I’ve a little more disposable cash to throw at the budget now too.

I’ve always crafted in foam (plastazote LD45) and paper/fibreglass for the helmet. Back in 2015, some wealthy creative folk were just starting to talk about 3D printing. Now I come back to the forums and it seems like I’m in the old school, and 3D printing is almost the norm.

Irrespective of changing trends, I’m sticking with foam, but with a determination to perfect my methods. I’ve just learned about epsilon resin - something else new and exciting since 2015 - and so a gallon bottle is now in my workshop. Hopefully it will deliver a more robust product and a surface I can sand to a good polish for painting well.
If anybody wants to offer any advice on epsilon application in this scenario I’d be grateful, as the forums seem a bit lacking after a quick search.

I’ve picked up on the other active forum post that exists, and it seems like a few others are just starting out on the planning phases. I myself have taken the Dark Master pep templates available for free online and have made a start. I’ll post some photos of the early build so far; I’ve just built the chest plate and plan to have the back and abs built over the next week.

In terms of the templates, I’ve been comparing them to Endgame screen grabs and I’ve picked up on some minor differences, but I’ve taken the time to freehand the modifications to increase the accuracy as much as I can. The main “errors” on the torso parts are on the silver elements on the abs as well as the central section of the backplate. Sadly I have no skills in editing pep files to help out.

Electrics wise, I’ll be adding all the necessary suit lights (not sure if using EL strips or LEDs yet) and hopefully working out a decent method of building some glowing infinity stones to build a substitute gauntlet.

If I’m feeling confident or have the time, I’ll be building whatever the term is for the wings Tony deploys out of the back of the suit. These will clip on optionally. Lights too, obviously.

In terms of the helmet, it will be lit and hinged, but I haven’t the skill set to add motors etc.
I don’t expect to get this build done any time soon as it’s very much a case of grabbing about an hour a day around my usual commitments. However, I do hope to do the project justice and get some degree of closure on this little chapter of my life.

Thanks for reading.
 
Glad to have you back and happy for you that you got the crafting bug again :cool:
Looking forward to your project
 
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First weekend of building and I’m got a large chunk of the body built. The 85 is a lot more challenging than the mark 7 and mark 42, mainly down the panel detailing and the more organic curves throughout vs the more boxy panelling on the previous iterations. As you can see, I’m still freehanding the ab sections which were flawed on the pep files.

Hoping to get the cod and shoulders finished this week, maybe the neck piece for a quickie too.

Think I’ll pause then and do some material testing with the epsilon resin to see how it applies and sands etc.
 
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I managed to squeeze some extra hours in over the weekend to complete this week's objectives. Hopefully get the legs and boots constructed this week, leaving me the helmet to build the week after.

Getting rather anxious to get all the parts resin coated to I can start to rectify the obvious visual defects and rough edges that inherently plague foam construction. Don't want to get messy with that stuff until I have everything built mind you, as I foresee that being a stage I probably don't want to prolong or repeat.

My tactic this time is to build everything as one unit - for example, I've glued the chest, back, abs and cod pieces all together. My working theory is that if I cut them apart after they have hardened with the resin coating (and then repair the cut edges), the parts should fit more consistently together (hopefully as neatly as they do now). Often I find that foam armour builds, or indeed a lot of pep builds in general, look like a series of combined parts as opposed to one piece of armour. My first mark 7 looked like that, and to a lesser extent the 42s did too. My division of parts may differ from the traditional too - I might just slice the entire body unit down the sides vs each component.
 
If you choose to make the torso as one piece,might I suggest you make a vertical cut from armpit to hip and add velcro on the inside.For your consideration.
Awesome progress !
 
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Forgotten how tricky/annoying legs were to build. Took a bit longer than hoped due to other commitments, but the body is now complete.

I scaled the suit to 6’2” tall including boots and helmet, as I’m 6’0”. Yet to try the body piece on, but the legs do seem to be a bit big and may need some tactful trimming to make them work out.

I’ve decided to try and build the helmet out of foam, just to see how accurate I can build it. I’m having flashbacks to taking hours building the last helmet out of card pep and fibreglassing it, and hoping that resin coating the foam will achieve the same finished article in a lot less time.

I’ve managed to get hold of some foam pep files for the wings, as I’ve sketched out some ideas for the framework I’m going to build to both clip them on and off the back, as well as provide rigidity. Looking forward to building this, as I think I’ve come up with a clever idea, but I’ll wait to try it before I reveal any more.
 
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Got lucky with the scaling on my foam helmet build. I’m quite happy with the rough shape, so I’m hoping I can refine it to a better look post-resin. Only took 3 hours vs probably 10 to get the same stage with card (at least at my pace) so I’m happy.

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This is the skeleton for the wings. The diagram to the right is a quick drawing I made of the actual angles of each of the six wings and how they intersect based on screenshots. I’ve then used PVC 22mm pipe and cabinet brackets (bent to the correct angles) to construct an internal skeleton that I will cover with the foam build next week.

The bit I was pleased about was the idea to use the connection points off an old dyson vacuum cleaner accessory to allow the wings to clip on and off the body in a secure, well-engineered manner. I’m happy with the result. I’ll be building a cover panel for the suit to hide the connector in due course.

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What files are you using?
Free files from Dark Master, which came up on a quick google search. DM doesn’t include wings, so I’ve acquired them from MaxCrft on Etsy.

As I mentioned earlier, they aren’t super accurate, so I’m typically sat staring at numerous reference photos and movie screenshots trying to freehand my corrections.
I’ve noticed (now I have a phd in staring at the Mark 85) that most pep files and 3D print files available are at best 90% accurate, even the very expensive ones. I can completely sympathise that it must be tough to build them mind you.

Good luck if you’re having a go too!
 
Wings have been trickier than I hoped, mainly down to the foam files I obtained being somewhat lacking in detail, especially how each of the six wings actually intersect with one another in the centre. Working off some other render images at the moment, trying to add the correct details were required. Not entirely sure just yet how I’m going to be lighting this thing, but it’s still Plan A to have the central core and each wing lit up if possible...

Sadly the rig doesn’t hang very well on the empty suit, but I know that the (foam wrapped) metalwork inside the back piece will press against my own back and keep the wings properly vertical, so I’m happy.

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As an aside, I’ve also found the benefit in having two different tones of foam, allows much easier visualisation of the final product in terms of the layers and detailing. I’d highly recommend doing similar.

This week I’m going to ease off a bit and work on final foam details, then I’ve got to bite the bullet and cut the suit open to finalise the sizing. Week after that it’ll be the resin coating.
 
Thought I’d add an interim update whilst I’m in the midst of the resin stage. Still very much going at it, just with a bit less time each evening to do too much for the last week or so.

So the Epsilon resin is pretty good. I’m pleased to say that it coats Plastazote LD45 fine (was a bit nervous as everyone else was using EVA on the examples I’d seen). Following the 1:5 ratio mix buys about 15 minutes before the mix gets too thick to handle, so I’ve been working with small (120g) measures, which does about two small foam pieces for one coat (ie, two forearms).

It definitely goes on thicker than I imagined, certainly thicker than PVA glue. Somebody online mentioned they applied four thin coats. The first coat has had a patchy result, but two coats will certainly do it. I have had a lot of runs and build up in places, so I’m hoping that it’s credentials for being sanding-friendly stack up.

Over the weekend I need to dremel cut the faceplate out of the helmet build, and likewise cut the elbow pieces off the forearms, both of which I thought it was best to keep attached to maintain the right shape before the resin “locked” it into shape.

I added magnets down the side of the body piece and spent a few hours carefully tailoring the body to fit me better. The abs and cod seemed to fit perfectly but the chest and back felt huge, so a few inches have been tactfully trimmed from here and there that won’t be noticed.

I’ll post photos once I’m done with the second coat of resin and the garage becomes less of a hazard to take expensive things into.
 
Sorry for ghosting for what I only now realise has been some time. The house has needed attention over the summer, getting some home improvements finished before the colder months kicked in. Now that’s all done I’m allowed back into the garage. Will post some photos this week.
 
So, just reading back through how far I got on my last post, I mentioned that I was having to sand down the epsilon resin. That has turned out to be a real double-edged sword.
The guides I read online suggested using disposable foam brushes to try and get a streak free, smooth coat. I did this, but the foam brushes were so flimsy that I lacked any real control with spreading the resin evenly. So, I ended up with lumps and bumps and all the usual horrible stuff. The resin is rock hard, which is great in terms of the durability of everything, but anything less than 80 grit on my power sander doesn’t event dent the resin.
I should probably just wrap this up by saying “I’m getting there” with the sanding, filling and repair work. I’ve decided to focus on getting the torso and shoulder pads up to scratch in order to motivate me to continue (sanding does depress you after a while!).
Having primed the torso (and done a bit of metallic paint testing) I’ve decided to cut into the shell with my dremel in order to make sure the panel pieces are well defined. The cutting was done tonight and needs tidying up, but this is where we are at:

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In conclusion for this update, I’d say the suffering I’ve gone through with battling the resin has been a price worth paying. Having handled PVA sealed foam armours before, this is leagues ahead in terms of durability, and I’d be very confident taking this to a Con and not worrying about tears etc.
 
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