I thought with all of the Iron Man suits I have seen on the boards, I would share a suit we made a couple of years ago for a private client / company.
The task was to create a suit, similar to "Iron Man" but it needed to be comfortable, fully wearable at live events.
Now, "fully wearable"; I have seen many people claiming they have for sale a "wearable" suit of armor, and I'd like to point out, a cardboard box is "wearable", if you cut holes in the right spots. But, can you move in it naturally, fluidly, and not have it looking "embarrassed", meaning, are all the parts moving in unison and always staying where they should in respect to their neighboring plates.
The job came to us because of my years of experience with medieval / Renaissance armour, along with experience with a wide range of materials, and metal forming.
The suit we built is comprised of hand shaped / fabricated metal parts, carbon fiber parts, fiberglass, vacuumformed and cast urethane parts. This was built using traditional techniques of sculpting, molding, and hand fabrication. We opted not to use 3d printing. (cost, durability, among others)
The finished suit had it's own wireless communications & PA system, voice synth, wi-fi hotspot, effects lighting, video projection and cooling system.
Originally called "Solar Avenger" it's story line was that it was powered by the sun. In the chest was a video of our sun shot from a solar observatory.
We did not choose the colors, and had wanted a different paint scheme, but here it is.
This screen grab from a promo video that was made, shows the lighting in the chest, which pulsed and fluctuated in sync with the sun in the chest, and light up details on the hips.
Unfortunately, the project didn't get past the building of the suit for issues within the company it was built for. As a result, the photo and video shoot never happened and we only have video and some photos we took during tests.
Here is a video of one of the early suit tests
On a side note:
This is not a suit I built, but here is an example of a proper medieval armour. This is all hand made from hardened spring steel. (These photos were taken after a couple of years of full contact jousting to give you an idea of how tough it is)
Here is a video of the owner running in this suit-
The task was to create a suit, similar to "Iron Man" but it needed to be comfortable, fully wearable at live events.
Now, "fully wearable"; I have seen many people claiming they have for sale a "wearable" suit of armor, and I'd like to point out, a cardboard box is "wearable", if you cut holes in the right spots. But, can you move in it naturally, fluidly, and not have it looking "embarrassed", meaning, are all the parts moving in unison and always staying where they should in respect to their neighboring plates.
The job came to us because of my years of experience with medieval / Renaissance armour, along with experience with a wide range of materials, and metal forming.
The suit we built is comprised of hand shaped / fabricated metal parts, carbon fiber parts, fiberglass, vacuumformed and cast urethane parts. This was built using traditional techniques of sculpting, molding, and hand fabrication. We opted not to use 3d printing. (cost, durability, among others)
The finished suit had it's own wireless communications & PA system, voice synth, wi-fi hotspot, effects lighting, video projection and cooling system.
Originally called "Solar Avenger" it's story line was that it was powered by the sun. In the chest was a video of our sun shot from a solar observatory.
We did not choose the colors, and had wanted a different paint scheme, but here it is.
This screen grab from a promo video that was made, shows the lighting in the chest, which pulsed and fluctuated in sync with the sun in the chest, and light up details on the hips.
Unfortunately, the project didn't get past the building of the suit for issues within the company it was built for. As a result, the photo and video shoot never happened and we only have video and some photos we took during tests.
Here is a video of one of the early suit tests
On a side note:
This is not a suit I built, but here is an example of a proper medieval armour. This is all hand made from hardened spring steel. (These photos were taken after a couple of years of full contact jousting to give you an idea of how tough it is)
Here is a video of the owner running in this suit-
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