NOOb father looking for help getting started.

[surfjester20]

I'm very new to prop and costume building. Would anyone be will willing to impart wisdom or advice on how to start my first Ironman suit? I have no clue on where to get designs or what material to use or print the design onto? Do I use regular printer paper, or cardstock?

Thank you for any help you can offer me.

Surfjester20

 

[Daniel Nelms]

There are lots of pepakura sites out there so it wont be hard to find a model. Use cardstock. And I hope you have a lot of time on your hands because pep is very time consuming.

 

[zorprime]

Yes, Cardstock to print your patterns out on and then I would suggest using foam as your medium to build in (transfer the patterns that you print out and trace them onto card stock)
these are the ones I used when I made my first Ironman suit (the kind from Harbor freights ) They are perfect for your first time in making a suit and a cheap and easy to work with. Also, good luck, expect to mess up a lot, but just keep going it's a learning process

 

[Finbarr]

Yes definitely do foam for your first time. You can use Pepakura as a pattern for your foam just make sure that you cut off the tabs that you would normally fold over. I started using hot glue and making my foam armor with that. I would highly recommend that use contact cement (Barge) it gets a very clean and sturdy seam. Two youtube channels that I would highly recommend you check out are: Evil Ted Smith, and Bill Doran. Good luck!!!

 

[surfjester20]

Thank you very much!

 

[surfjester20]

What material do you use after foam that I keep seeing everyone use? Is it card stock coated in a type of epoxy or resin?

 

[Ikras]

Seeing as no one has linked this to you, if you are continuing with foam, have a look through here. There's a lot of really useful information in the first post:
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=148889

What material do you use after foam that I keep seeing everyone use? Is it card stock coated in a type of epoxy or resin?

If you mean the other build type, then what you're seeing is most likely card stock, hardened with resin (think fibreglass goes in there often as well) then the detail built up with Bondo (car body filler). Not tried it myself but gives a lot of detail from what I've seen. More toxic than foam as well from what I've picked up.

 

[surfjester20]

So I'll need some sort of respirator to use when sanding it?

 

[Ikras]

So I'll need some sort of respirator to use when sanding it?

With resin, I think you'd need an organic respirator while using it to be on the safe side, some of them have some pretty toxic solvents in there that you don't particularly want to be breathing in.

I think when sanding stuff you'd probably want something dust oriented. Not too sure what's in bondo but I wouldn't have thought you'd want to breathe it in at all