WIP first Iron Man Mark III (plastic-coated) foam build: Getting a bit pic heavy

[Kurtis876]

What's up guys and gals?

This is going to be yet another RPF Iron Man foam build, my first, of the Mark iii. I have been on this site since May, gathering a ton of knowledge. Before I joined I was thinking about building an Iron Man costume, probably within 48 hrs of seeing the Avengers, after considering what I wanted to be for halloween (32 years old...).


I basically said aloud one day "dude, why do all of these costumes on amazon.com suck so bad? I'll just make my own..." and of course came across the rpf. I then trolled around for a month or so looking into all of the basic materials/ methods of building...sintra, foam, plastics, thermoforming, fiberglassing, etc.

I've definitely spent my hours going through a ton of material, but ultimately settled on a foam suit. I used Dancing Fools' pepakura Mk iii, and JF custom and Stealth's edits of them. So thank you three the most for the great templates, and thanks to them for their hard work! And everyone else on here. I had no idea it would be such a project :thumbsup

Long story short, I never planned to start a thread about my build.........but suddenly kind of felt like it. I'm not necessarily breaking a ton of new ground here, but there are a few basic techniques and tips I've settled on that I wanted to pass along that hopefully will help some noobs get through a foam build! So maybe that's what the theme here might be. So here we go thumbsup:thumbsup

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

First off, some pics regarding the basic cutting ideas I've settled on that seem to have been successful by the end of my build. Feel free to jump in if you want to share your preferences, think I'm nuts, etc.

1. XACTO, and the flat-ish knife hold.

I used 6mm foam from wandy-foam on ebay, as well as 6mm Darice foamies, for the majority of the build. There is definitely a difference between manufacturers, but found the wandy foam to cut the cleanest.

I settled on the XACTO. ultimately Cut the cleanest, quickest, etc. Be sure to buy about 40 blades at least. Anyway... I found this angle and hold to be the best for the majority of straight cuts. You have to move nice and steady, probably even slow, for most cuts. IT DOES make a difference later, how clean you cut. After pressing down into the foam, with medium-firm pressure, drag toward you, letting your pinky and ring finger steady your hand. Keep your hand and fingers still, let the cut sort of cut itself if that makes sense. your hand should almost move like a machine... makes sense huh? Keeping the butt of the blade relatively close to the foam helps you use the length of the blade to follow your edge.

2. Sorry, this should have been first. Your cutting plan...

I traced my templates (JF, DF, Stealth-made) with a ballpoint. On lighter colored foam, it is easier to see what you will be cutting. So I drew them out, and visualized which edges get which type of cut. I drew a U facing inward if there needed a bevel cut in that direction, and a U facing outward if the edge needed to go that direction. I drew an l on edges that get straight cuts. This was very helpful for later.

3. The bevel cutter

This was a great little tool for 45 degree angled cuts... as long as the curve isn't too tight. It is a FoamWerks bevel cutter, it allows for different depths of cuts at 45 degrees as well as straight. Amazon.com. This sped up my edges alot, and usually gets decent results if you have the blade deep enough.

again, press fairly firm, dragging toward you with your hand stationary

4. Some cuts:

The "cut underneath and opposing shallow 45 degree and fill with hot glue and hold to make curves on the outside" technique

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

Above: some of the most basic ideas I searched for on the RPF, but nice to talk about.

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

Random pieces:

The shins are scaled pretty snug, I started with them, but kind of wish I scaled them about 5% bigger. Yet not too bad. SCALE with paper or cardstock BEFORE you cut FOAM.

again not too bad. You will notice that I have at least 4 different colors of foam. Took quite a bit more than I ever imagined. The bicep is DF's foam edit. This one wasn't very fun to build, gotta admit. the fit is again a tad snug, but as I'm not small, I didn't want to be huge Iron Man. :thumbsup

This was about a week ago, I have since cleaned up the glue, and finished these up better. Wish I heat formed the Calves a little better, but I do not want to go back into building. JFcustom's DF speed build edit

Hah this too looks better now than in this pic I promise. The first glimpse of my dreaded (but kind of cool ultimately) Scratch build on the abs and lower back...

More soon

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

ok, few more parts!

like I said, I do wish I got a little more curve out of the calf, but when it's on, it isn't so bad. SCALE SCALE SCALE. I wanted to make the suit fitted to me, it ended up being just a hair small, but still decent. I can still move fairly well, and now I know what to do better for next time. Did the hip pods from scratch, just wanted a clean simple piece... perhaps should connect to the codpiece instead?

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

When I finished my roll of masking tape, took the cardboard and covered with electrical tape to support the upcoming arc reactor (chest repulsor? what's the name?) anyway, so...

If you can see, I included a sort of "shelf" that holds the tap light I will be using, nice and snug but makes the light easily removable. I have another pic of the shelf I'll put up. It also serves to round the chest away from me.

Using a hotknife, I cut and burnished the white screws for the upper chestplate. kind of cool, I will ultimately do that for more details.

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

the abs/lower back. For whatever insane reason, I decided I wanted to do the the abs and lower back from scratch, using a 3mm layer on top of a 4mm layer. measured with a flexicurve to my body. Total pain in the butt but I dig the results (They look better in upcoming shots and in person). I have velcro lining the right (lovehandle) side on the abs, and two fasteners within the codpiece that I connect to suit up. clearly I decided to attach the abs to the cod, which turned out not bad.

About that cod... If you're using JFcustoms DF edits, you will want to make a v cut along the inner 3/4 inch of the cod, and glue an angle of the top ridge of the cod toward the abs. Do this before you attach the cod to the abs trust me

Sorry for the blurry shot. Again, from scratch...I kept the spine separate, which you will see later after I get over the fact that I never made the back flaps. The spine is hot glued to the upper back, I then put a plastic fastener on the tailbone of the spine, which feeds into a female connector I installed hidden just in the top part of the codpiece. I'll explain more later:thumbsup

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

The neck.

kind of proud of this little buddy. 2mm darice foamies, with a velcro seam on the inner right side. By the way using 2 inch velcro is way stronger than 1inch or 3/4 inch. Duh.

I'm hoping the PVA will reinforce it a bit, but so far seems fairly strong, and oh comfortable. I hotglued only the ends of each horizontal piece to some vertical inner strips, I guess the idea was mobility... we'll see how it holds up. included approximately 3m flap on the bottom of each horizontal piece to stabilize the shape. nice

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

one tough part for me was the lower forearm. I'm for now settling on a pair that is slightly snug, and the outer-upper-hand-shield thing I just did from scratch to avoid busting the windows pc out again to print more pep files. I made them intentionally a bit small for now so I could move my hands well. May change that later.

 

[Venjix]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

Wow dude, it looks very very clean! You must have a steady hand

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

Wow dude, it looks very very clean! You must have a steady hand

Thanks man I appreciate it! let's hope that comes in handy in my career as a nurse (not kidding) thumbsup:thumbsup patience is a virtue

I definitely had a few parts I wrestled with, but overall happy. more pics soon! thank you!

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

93% done building. It has taken 15 days out of 3 weeks, at probably 4 hours per session. Just need the elbows, finish gloves, and the different joint covers, etc. and do some fastening. eh?? eh??

pretty pumped. thumbsup:thumbsup

I'm going to go ahead and again thank Dancing Fool, JFCustom, and Stealth. and of course everyone else.

 

[rodimus184]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

That's looking great for a first time build Keep up the awesome work, best of luck!

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

That looks cool...

Thank you! cool that one of your first posts is on my thread

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

That's looking great for a first time build Keep up the awesome work, best of luck!

Thanks man I appreciate it!!! I will be painting soon, and am looking for tips on what will work with EVA foam. I have started the process of coating the suit in PVA glue, and will plasticize some parts that I want to be rigid. Then prime and paint. if you know of what types of paint can and can't be used on foam, please let me know! I have limited funds, so will probably stick with krylon or rustoleum unless I hear otherwise. Not sure if you can use auto grade paints on foam. Thanks again!

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

here she is, My first (pretty much) complete suit up. Sorry for the slight blur, my father isn't used to smartphones. The legs also look bigger in real life, This shot seems to have that weird angle you see in red carpet shoots that give people big heads and tiny ankles. fresh.

thumbsupthumbsup:thumbsup

EDIT: just realized my inspiration for this pose... Dancing Fool's Mark iii render! hahaa
(hope it's ok for me to repost this pic DF! Let me know if you see this)

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

A close-up of the ONYX IM lid straight from Pannaus Props. So fresh and so clean. Also have a Finhead in the mail from TJack for this and hopefully future builds. I wanted to get this thing at least built by the 28th, when I start nursing school again for the fall. Hopefully it won't take all year to paint.

 

[Kurtis876]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

By the way I'm a moron... also thanks very much to XRobots for your input as well, he was one of the first builders I saw. Excellent

 

[Deelite]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

very nice and clean. thanks for sharing

 

[MrBibou]

Re: WIP first Iron Man foam build+knowledge share

This is looking really great mate !
Can't wait to see it painted.