Re: TMP Iron Man Costume. NEW 2009 armor update 10 sept.2009 page 114
Got my suit ready in time for Dragon Con 2009. I picked up Hopkinator's suit off him he got back in the spring and he hadn't done anything with it except inspect the pieces as they were shipped to him. Never even tried the whole thing on, he said. I only had a few weeks to spare before D*C so I had to cut the hands out, figure out eye lights, adjust sizing to myself, order a chest light (guy sells them on Ebay all the time), all that good stuff.
I did widen the eye holes like others here have done and put clear acrylic behind it and figured out eye lights (youtube). It took me like 6 hours because I never do anything with soldering or wiring or such, but I really wanted lighted eyes. I didn't figure out hand lights yet, so I took scrap plastic and covered it in chrome Cylon tape, and hotglued that inside the holes for the hand lights so at least something was there. That's a future project. I attached the fingers to gardening gloves for now (thank you, Decaturvader).
I also cut out the black areas of the cheeks and installed speaker grill for ventillation like others here have done.
The neck is still just a front and back. I haven't cut it out and riveted it to material like others have done. That's another future project.
I really didn't want to use the black Stormtrooper leotard like most everyone I've seen do for Iron Man suits. I wanted something closer to the movie look. So I had my mother-in-law sew tubes of a burgandy/wine colored headliner material from JoAnn Fabrics with the little black lines, then she ran over the sew lines with black Sharpie marker to bring out more definition. She attached these tubes to the bottoms of some old exercise shorts to cover the opening between the thigh and shin armor and made a fake "diaper" of the same material to cover the openings seen in the groin/inner thigh area. She didn't realize those areas were supposed to have lines on them as well, so we'll have to add that later on.
She made another set of tubes that were sewn onto the elbow area of one of those cheesy halloween muscle shirts to cover the elbow opening.
( For those that know me in person, I'm one of those genetic freaks that can't seem to gain weight no matter what. I'm 6 feet tall and weigh 130-135 pounds and use those cheesy halloween muscle shirts under my Predator costume, my Jason Voorhees costume, and now my Iron Man costume. How skinny am I? Well I can slide the TMP shin armor up over my thigh. Costuming is a nice illusion for me.

)
To hide the rest of the chest, I put a burgandy T-shirt over the muscle chest shirt to blend in what you see under the arms/side of chest. The real suits had the undersuit being a darker colored material than the armor, and doing what I did matches very well to that look more than using black material of the Stormtrooper undersuits. Someday I'll figure out an even better method using the tubing and such to look more like the real suits. heehee
I used my platform boots off my Jason Voorhees costume and the TMP shoe armor pieces dropped over them nicely without any mods. I just had to figure out how to balance the ankle piece in a good location. I didn't have to trim anything off the leg armor pieces using these boots and walking was no problem at all. :thumbsup Actually movement overall was about what I expected. I knew the joints wouldn't allow awesome mobility, but it moves about like a Stormtrooper armor seems to move (complete with the trooper squeeks), but it is kind of creepy being the only costume I've ever owned where I cannot physically reach my own head to take my helmet off if I had to. :lol
My wife (Cutest Sandgirl here on the RPF) threw together a Pepper Potts costume to walk around with me. I did an hour and a half in the suit Friday night at the Marriott during Dragon Con as my first test run of the suit. People did indeed like it. I'll be wearing it quite a bit more in the future. :cool
Here's some pics from my first time fully suited up. Maybe not the best pics, but ones we had. I'll take better ones sometime to post up:
Riding the elevator.....
.....and a great pic I found online after the convention.....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/radlein/3905772001/
I tell you what, taking pictures with the flash off makes the suit look way better than with the flash on. With the flash on, you don't see the lights all lit up cool looking! :lol
Awesome convention photographer Bryan Humphrey took some high quality photos he just posted:
http://bryanhumphrey.zenfolio.com/p670217089/h13b9d7ec#h13b9d7ec
Click on pic for high res version. His pictures rock !!!