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.
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.