zorprime
Active Member
Ironman Mark VII and Metalhead Teenage Mutant Ninja 2013 Halloween Costume Contest Entry and build story.
Pic and text heavy
First off, sorry for the wall of text and pics, but… enjoy J
This is my first attempt at making an Ironman suit and then free hand building a Metalhead suit for my daughter. I would like to thank Stealth, darkside501st, Zabana's, Sharkmark and everyone under the sun at the RPF site for all the amazing Ironman pep files build process, how to, guides, and pictures. And I would like to thank Ocifer Q for his initial build project of Metalhead that gave me some ideas on how to make this suit for my daughter.
To start off with I will go over my build for my Ironman Mark VII suit. I started with just looking for some pep files to make a small figure as a model and that lead me to this site (The RPF). Once I saw how everyone had done an amazing job at building their suits I decided I wanted to give it a try (this all started in January of 2013). By Febuary I had figured out that I wanted to use foam and I started my first of many trips to Harbor Freights to buy their stress foam mats (man I love that place now).
This first piece I built in about an hour just as a proof of concept, that I could actually do it. I was so excited I wanted to start working on the rest of the suit then
I got all the files sized roughly to where I needed them and started cutting out sections of the suit at a time. I initially created a chest and back piece that I later scrapped and went back and rebuilt to make it look better.
Over the entire time I was working on my suit (February to around August) I probably built most sections of it at least twice if not 3 times to make it look better each time. It was a major learning curve but I enjoyed the results.
I built the whole suit out of the foam that got from Harbor Freights, I learned a lot about heating and bending with the heat guns, and some of the seams I cut into the back of the foam an folded it over to give is a smoother finish.
Painting the suit I used Red Colonial Krylon and gold paint as my colors. For the base I did a mixture of mod pog on the chest, then later changed out to using Plasdip spray. The plasdip I loved, easier to put a coat or two on and hit it with primer and then color. The only problem that I really had was with the chest where I used the glue coating method of half water half glue, it was more likely to crack than where I used the plasdip spray and had painted over it
I finally had the about 90 percent of the suit done by August so I decided to take it out for a test spin at a group event we were having at work, the number of people that wanted their picture with me and loved the suit blew me away. Keep in mind this is just made an arc reactor following stealths coffee cup lid design (love it and it’s so simple)
no eyes or hands done yet either.
Well since it got a huge response I decided to add a few more light tricks to it and take it to DragonCon 2013 this year. At DragonCon my wife and I just decided to drive over for Friday and Saturday (only a 2 and half hour drive from home) and I brought my suit with me on Saturday. Needless to say changing in the back seat of a Nissan Altima into a body suit then Iron Diaper was… interestingJ. I got changed and we were just going to do a quick walk the through the hotels and back and head home this was at 2:00 pm. Well we got back to start about 4 and half hours later and I must say that was the most fun 4 and half hours I have ever spent in a hot costume with limited visibility. I had a ton of pictures taken and according to my wife an ton of “hot chicks” that wanted their picture with me as well (I couldn’t see much of anything do to the small slit I had left myself to look out of the helmet from). Either way this blew both of us away and now we plan on going back in about 2 years with a completed Warmachine suit for her and an updated Ironman suit for me.
After DragonCon my daughter decided that her costume this year was going to be Metalhead from the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had seen a partial build before on the RPF site (see http://www.therpf.com/f24/tmnt-metalhead-foam-build-booyakasha-wip-178241/ )that made me want to make one anyway and I had picked up some tricks from making my own suit I decided to give it a shot. I started out by making a rough outline for how I wanted the helmet to look and get it sized on some card stock. I cut it out and made a quick helmet, which turned out to be to small
So I went back made it bigger… just to big, So I made my third helmet and the size turned out right.
I took some of the stand out piece (hands, feet, knees, elbows, shoulders, waist and shell) and made this as the hard parts of the suit (using foam just for bulk and light weight) and a black body suit as the underlining of the outfit.
I made a free hand cut of the chest and shoulder pads, attached it to some foam sheets that I had and added Velcro to the back of it to make a type of chest shirt to go over everything
I then made a waist piece using foam cut outs glued to a nylon straps with buckles (to make it adjustable) The elbow and knee pads where just a simple piece of cutting foam in the approximate shape of what I wanted them to be and I added Velcro to the knee pads to attach them, and straps to the elbow pads to hold them on
The hands I just built using the same process as making Ironman gloves (palm and extra wide 3 fingers to fit all the fingers in) I went back and added an LED light to the right palm to simulate the blaster.
The feet is took an old pair of shoes put Velcro attach points at the toe and heel and made a large foam tube to go around them to give her the big stompy foot appearance but being able to walk normally in shoes
The shell I made a rough circle and then went back and traced out a simplified pattern of a sewer lid and cut those pieces out and raised them to give it a 3d effect. I also attached Velcro points to the back of the chest piece and shell so she can take it off to get in and out of the car
Putting the whole suit together was a lot of fun and challenging, in that I had no working templets or pep files to go off of like my Ironman suit, so I had to make all of it by feel and look. It may not be as good as I want it to be, but my daughter is thrilled with it and can’t wait to go out and get her candy loot for Halloween J.
Ironman build pics all:
https://imageshack.com/a/Elsb/1
Ironman final pics all:
https://imageshack.com/a/rlsb/1
Metalhead build pics all:
https://imageshack.com/a/Qlsb/1
Sorry for the long info dump and pics but I wanted to get most of my story out there and some of the building that I did behind everything. I am working on a new Ironman helmet for myself right now using card board as a base and then fiber glassing and bonding it to give it that awesome move style edge. As well as loading it up with all the goodies that I’ve seen and learned about from the RPF site servo opening and closing faceplate and light up eyes . Thanks for reading.
RPF Logo photo coming on Saturday
Proof, logo pic
Pic and text heavy
First off, sorry for the wall of text and pics, but… enjoy J
This is my first attempt at making an Ironman suit and then free hand building a Metalhead suit for my daughter. I would like to thank Stealth, darkside501st, Zabana's, Sharkmark and everyone under the sun at the RPF site for all the amazing Ironman pep files build process, how to, guides, and pictures. And I would like to thank Ocifer Q for his initial build project of Metalhead that gave me some ideas on how to make this suit for my daughter.
To start off with I will go over my build for my Ironman Mark VII suit. I started with just looking for some pep files to make a small figure as a model and that lead me to this site (The RPF). Once I saw how everyone had done an amazing job at building their suits I decided I wanted to give it a try (this all started in January of 2013). By Febuary I had figured out that I wanted to use foam and I started my first of many trips to Harbor Freights to buy their stress foam mats (man I love that place now).
This first piece I built in about an hour just as a proof of concept, that I could actually do it. I was so excited I wanted to start working on the rest of the suit then
I got all the files sized roughly to where I needed them and started cutting out sections of the suit at a time. I initially created a chest and back piece that I later scrapped and went back and rebuilt to make it look better.
Over the entire time I was working on my suit (February to around August) I probably built most sections of it at least twice if not 3 times to make it look better each time. It was a major learning curve but I enjoyed the results.
I built the whole suit out of the foam that got from Harbor Freights, I learned a lot about heating and bending with the heat guns, and some of the seams I cut into the back of the foam an folded it over to give is a smoother finish.
Painting the suit I used Red Colonial Krylon and gold paint as my colors. For the base I did a mixture of mod pog on the chest, then later changed out to using Plasdip spray. The plasdip I loved, easier to put a coat or two on and hit it with primer and then color. The only problem that I really had was with the chest where I used the glue coating method of half water half glue, it was more likely to crack than where I used the plasdip spray and had painted over it
I finally had the about 90 percent of the suit done by August so I decided to take it out for a test spin at a group event we were having at work, the number of people that wanted their picture with me and loved the suit blew me away. Keep in mind this is just made an arc reactor following stealths coffee cup lid design (love it and it’s so simple)
no eyes or hands done yet either.
Well since it got a huge response I decided to add a few more light tricks to it and take it to DragonCon 2013 this year. At DragonCon my wife and I just decided to drive over for Friday and Saturday (only a 2 and half hour drive from home) and I brought my suit with me on Saturday. Needless to say changing in the back seat of a Nissan Altima into a body suit then Iron Diaper was… interestingJ. I got changed and we were just going to do a quick walk the through the hotels and back and head home this was at 2:00 pm. Well we got back to start about 4 and half hours later and I must say that was the most fun 4 and half hours I have ever spent in a hot costume with limited visibility. I had a ton of pictures taken and according to my wife an ton of “hot chicks” that wanted their picture with me as well (I couldn’t see much of anything do to the small slit I had left myself to look out of the helmet from). Either way this blew both of us away and now we plan on going back in about 2 years with a completed Warmachine suit for her and an updated Ironman suit for me.
After DragonCon my daughter decided that her costume this year was going to be Metalhead from the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had seen a partial build before on the RPF site (see http://www.therpf.com/f24/tmnt-metalhead-foam-build-booyakasha-wip-178241/ )that made me want to make one anyway and I had picked up some tricks from making my own suit I decided to give it a shot. I started out by making a rough outline for how I wanted the helmet to look and get it sized on some card stock. I cut it out and made a quick helmet, which turned out to be to small
So I went back made it bigger… just to big, So I made my third helmet and the size turned out right.
I took some of the stand out piece (hands, feet, knees, elbows, shoulders, waist and shell) and made this as the hard parts of the suit (using foam just for bulk and light weight) and a black body suit as the underlining of the outfit.
I made a free hand cut of the chest and shoulder pads, attached it to some foam sheets that I had and added Velcro to the back of it to make a type of chest shirt to go over everything
I then made a waist piece using foam cut outs glued to a nylon straps with buckles (to make it adjustable) The elbow and knee pads where just a simple piece of cutting foam in the approximate shape of what I wanted them to be and I added Velcro to the knee pads to attach them, and straps to the elbow pads to hold them on
The hands I just built using the same process as making Ironman gloves (palm and extra wide 3 fingers to fit all the fingers in) I went back and added an LED light to the right palm to simulate the blaster.
The feet is took an old pair of shoes put Velcro attach points at the toe and heel and made a large foam tube to go around them to give her the big stompy foot appearance but being able to walk normally in shoes
The shell I made a rough circle and then went back and traced out a simplified pattern of a sewer lid and cut those pieces out and raised them to give it a 3d effect. I also attached Velcro points to the back of the chest piece and shell so she can take it off to get in and out of the car
Putting the whole suit together was a lot of fun and challenging, in that I had no working templets or pep files to go off of like my Ironman suit, so I had to make all of it by feel and look. It may not be as good as I want it to be, but my daughter is thrilled with it and can’t wait to go out and get her candy loot for Halloween J.
Ironman build pics all:
https://imageshack.com/a/Elsb/1
Ironman final pics all:
https://imageshack.com/a/rlsb/1
Metalhead build pics all:
https://imageshack.com/a/Qlsb/1
Sorry for the long info dump and pics but I wanted to get most of my story out there and some of the building that I did behind everything. I am working on a new Ironman helmet for myself right now using card board as a base and then fiber glassing and bonding it to give it that awesome move style edge. As well as loading it up with all the goodies that I’ve seen and learned about from the RPF site servo opening and closing faceplate and light up eyes . Thanks for reading.
RPF Logo photo coming on Saturday
Proof, logo pic
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