Iron Man IV Foam Build by Newbie Using Xrobot's, Stealth's & JFcustom's Info

Hey folks. I'm introducing myself and starting my build thread at the same time. I've done very legit Captain Jack Sparrow, Witchking of Angmar, chain mail armor costumes, so I thought I'd give Iron Man a shot. I first found out about this by surfing Youtube and finding Xrobot's tutorials, which blew me away. I then found this awesome forum with so many talented people sharing their efforts and skills. I immediately wanted to start asking newbie questions, but intead settled down and starting reading every single IM/WM thread I could find. Funny, almost all of my questions were answered somewhere. I of course have watched all of Stealth's videos also. I downloaded all of JFcustom's foam pepakura files, ran to the craft store, etc. So now I'm ready to start building, trying to take advantage of everyone's techniques and input.

My plan is to build an IM IV out of foam, then possibly reinforce it with rotocasting plastic. I had some neighbors when I lived in TX that had a special effects studio in their garage, so I've got some experience helping them with molding/casting. I even have a life-sized bust of myself, which should come in handy. I also have experience with AutoCAD and CNC machining, so might be able to make some custom parts.

Here's my plan of attack: I've taken Xrobot's cue to bend the foam intead of using the pepakura slots to make the foam parts as smooth as possible. With the understanding that my skills will increase during the build, I'm starting with the most important part, the helmet. That way, I'll be able to see the worst-case-scenario on the part that will show any mistakes that will be glaringly obvious to everyone. Then I can develop my skills as I work down the rest of the costume. If the boots end up being considerably better than the original helmet, I'll rebuild it, knowing that it'll be much better. Once I get all of the scaling issues ironed out (pun intended), I'll build an arc reactor to fit the properly sized chest piece.

I'm a 43 year-old Mechanical Engineer, so I'm not afraid any of the technical aspects of this build. Although I have this idea of using spring loaded shocks that catch and release when pressed, so it's a considerably simpler mechanical mechanism instead of having to worry about wiring up something that requires batteries and switches.

So, with the concept in mind that pics are very important to a forum like this, I thought I'd post my first baby steps. I cut out the pepakura model of the back of the helmet (left), since it's one of the most curved pieces of the helmet. I then cut it out of foam exactly as described by the pep model and hot glued it together (middle). I was blown away by how difficult it was to get a good seam on the folds, so kudos to you guys that have pulled off that miracle. I then followed Xrobot's advise and taped the card stock pep model together and using a heat gun, heated up an oversized piece of foam and pushed it into the card stock as a form to mold the foam. Once it had roughly attained the right shape of the pep model, I let it cool, then traced and cut it out (right). As you can see, it's a much more attractive and smooth version, and that was just my very first piece. The rest of the helmet will hopefully go together as well and I'll have something to keep me jazzed about progressing on a project of this magnitude. Of course, I'd like to be able to have this available by Halloween, but if not, I've got the aforementioned costumes to wear to the yacht club party.

I'll post my progress and answer any questions that might pop up to the best of my ability. I believe in giving back to forums like this to in some small way pay back for the information that I've benefitted from.

BTW, the foam is 6mm EVA craft foam from Michael's for $0.99 per 8-1/2" x 11" sheet. I may buy some larger sheets from www.foamorder.com to allow for larger parts cutout in a single piece (e.g. chest).

Hi and welcome. Well by now it seems you're on the good way, even if the work is 0,02% complete. And such a pleasure to read for once something like

CaptainSkully said:

I immediately wanted to start asking newbie questions, but intead settled down and starting reading every single IM/WM thread I could find. Funny, almost all of my questions were answered somewhere. I of course have watched all of Stealth's videos also.

Click to expand...

instead of the sempiternal "I've been told I could make an Iron Man suit here, but can't open the pdo files... Pepakura ? ah ok. Printed. And now ? ..."

Update your thread often, I've the feeling we will soon learn from you.

The purpose of this thread is to help others and have others point out any of my glaring mistakes.

First of all, let me thank JFCustom for all of the work he’s done on Robo3687’s pep file for the foam format. As a newbie, this has been a very intimidating and daunting project, but then you just dive in, make mistakes and improvements and move on with the rest of the build. With that being said, there were a few modifications I had to make to the files. For one thing, most of the parts that are on the files don’t really need to be connected and therefore require much larger pieces of foam or multiple pieces connected. For example, the bottom collar of the bicep is shows as one long piece that spans multiple 9” x 12” pieces of foam. When you’re building the bicep, it’s actually easier if this is multiple pieces, especially when you factor in the fact that you’ve got to cut the chamfers on the edges to get the crisp mechanical corners. As you can see in the two attached screen shots, detach the parts using the zipper icon and you’ll be able to get more parts cut out of less foam.

Another observation is that there are still several slits in the patterns which may or may not need to be there. A lot of those slits are possibly left over from the paper files (see the asymmetrical slits in the handplate file) and don’t need to be transferred to the foam because it’s heat formable. BTW, why are there asymmetrical slits in several of the files for symmetrical parts? However, there are some slits that at first glance might be eliminated, but then I realized they might be there for aesthetic reasons to give the curved surfaces a scaled (reptile scale not size scale)/faceted look that adds to the overall look of the part (e.g. back of shoulder bell).

One thing I’ve noticed with my Pepakura Designer setup is that I have to keep the parts well away from the bleed edges of the page in order for them to print completely. That’s been a bit frustrating, burning through 110# card stock because of missing edges.

While we’re on the subject of moving parts around in the pep file, make sure you don’t accidentally detach parts that really go together. I did this a couple of times before I realized what I’d done. The telltale is that there are missing lines that don’t complete the perimeter of the part(s). Also, I always save off edited/resized files in a separate folder from the original downloaded ones tagged with the scale factor (e.g. Scaled Pep/bicep_26-6.pdo).

My process is to cut out all of the printed parts on the card stock, cut them out with the xacto knife with a cutting board behind it and lightly tape them together to get a sense of how they’ll fit together in 3D. This gives you the added benefit of seeing which edges will need to be chamfered. I label on the “back” of my paper parts the part and the scale, in case I need to rescale later (e.g. “Bicep 26.6”). This gives the added advantage of easily being able to track tracing one face for a right bicep, and flip it for the left bicep. The Sharpie leaves ink on the edge of the side that was traced onto the foam so you know which was the “front” side.

I then trace the card stock onto my foam pieces strategically to optimize the parts fitting on the page and reduce waste. For right/left parts, I trace one face only and build the part in case it needs to be rescaled. Then I cut exactly on the inside edge of my Sharpie line and label the “back” of the part “I” for “Inside”. That way in the heat of battle with the glue gun, I don’t glue the wrong sides together.

My edge system is no chamfers for edges meeting square to create a continuous surface, one chamfer and one square for a slight mechanical edge bend (e.g. top of bicep), and two chamfers for two pieces that create a 90° angle. Each chamfer is cut at a 45° angle on the edge, using the traced line as a guide. That’s about as accurate as I can be with this medium and a sharp blade. When cutting chamfers, I extend the blade and lay the edge along the cut line and slice the chamfer off like I’m cutting thin slices of meat for a sandwich. JFCustom has a much better tutorial on this stuff, I just thought I’d mention here for completeness.

Regarding foam, I started with the white 6mm and bought out both Michael’s and Joann’s of black and red. I’ve noticed that the black is obviously very difficult to see anything traced with a black Sharpie, and both the black and red have a more velvety surface which is less resilient and they also get considerably more porous if you take the heat gun to them. As a result, even though I thought I might get away with building the entire suit out of red foam and just clear-coating it, I’m going to have to go with the rest of the build with white. As a bonus, it’s also about half the price of the other colors when purchased from Darice on Amazon.com.

For gluing, I make sure I don’t apply too much along a seam any longer than I can accurately hold it in place while it cools. It’s tempting to do a long seam, but you’ll regret it in the long run. I also wait for a few seconds for the freshly applied glue to cool to the tacky point before pressing the seam together. This also helps reduce glue squeeze-out on the “show” side. If you do get squeeze-out, let it cool completely until it’s as hard as it will get, then do two slices along the foam faces and pull the glue booger off with needle-nose pliers. There’s a little marring, but I’m hoping that it’ll either get annealed by the heat gun or during the PVA/paint process. After I’ve successfully attached two parts, I make sure to reinforce the seam on the inside with a large/long glob of glue that spans both parts. When cooled, the glued foam is surprisingly resilient. Other than places like the hinges, the costume is sufficiently sturdy for wearing all night to a costume party.

My seam lines aren’t nearly as nice as a lot of the builds I’ve seen on here, which has been a little frustrating because I thought I’d be able to achieve their level of precision. But I guess it could always be worse. I’m planning on doing a test part and fairing the seam with paintable caulk to see if that’s a workable solution with the ever-popular PVA sealant. I also thought about busting out my soldering iron to see if I could make the seams look welded by melting the seam strategically (once again, on a test piece).

NOTE : Be very strategic about what order you glue your parts together. For example, on the bicep, if I’d glued the major edges together to form the tube first, it would’ve been considerably more difficult to cut the required chamfer on the bottom edge. I waited until the very end after all of the other parts were connected to finally close the loop to form the bicep tube.

Caution: I’ve apparently developed an allergic reaction to the fumes of my hot glue gun. After about two hours of gluing (which means about one average part), my top lip swells up like somebody punched me. I’m normally not sensitive to things like that, so it was a bit of a surprise.

For the elbow hinge, I used Chicago screws and 1-1/4” nylon washers with an ID (inside diameter) just slightly larger than the OD (outside diameter) of the screw post. Obtaining these were an interesting trip to the local hardware store. After describing them to the guy that was helping me, he said he thought they were called “sex screws” because of the way they mate. At first, I thought that if I glued the screw to the washer, it would provide more rigidity. Upon further thought, it seems that it will reduce the articulation and increase the stress on the foam. The washer will get glued to the foam pivot point and the screw can float. The important thing is to distribute the stress over a larger, stronger area of the hinge. Once everything is painted it will look properly mechanical.

Here’s a pic of one arm. I didn’t realize I was wearing a red shirt until I posted this. I learned a lot about how the process goes and the intricacies/challenges of each part. I’m sure the other arm will be much nicer. I’m also concerned that it might be a bit too big. I’m 6’ 2” & 200#, so I scaled the armor up a tad because I thought the default scale might be for people a bit shorter. Now I feel a bit jammed up into it. I’ll wait until I get the hinges installed before I make any big decisions, but I might make the other arm the default scale and see how it fits, then I’ll obviously have to make a third arm at the correct scale. One serious concern is that I can’t bend my arm enough to take a drink. I made myself a vow after the Witch King of Angmar costume incident that I would never make a costume that would interfere with drinking. That pretty much makes a hinged faceplate a foregone conclusion.

On a side note, in preparation for wearing this costume, I’ve been doing 100 push-ups every day for the last couple of months, which has helped with my posture and build. I thought that it would be a good substructure for a cool costume to fit over. Plus my girlfriend seems to like the results. I think that an Under Armour base layer will be sufficient to wear under the suit and might help with the overheating issue.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll keep you folks updated on any other important info that needs to be shared. Please feel free to comment on any of the above.

Welcome bro!:cool

Best start of a thread ever... I am 6 foot and change, and i found the default scale worked well for the arms. Your insight serves you well, I would be happier with my third attempt at sizing.

Best of luck, I will be following and learning from you!

So last night I built a shoulder bell (and got my first 2nd degree burn from the hot glue gun). It’s pretty difficult to build the mirror image of the pepped part on the screen (especially if you’re drinking rum), so if you don’t have decent spatial reasoning, you might want to make sure you build the left arm first as shown in the pep files.

I’m still agonizing over the scaling issue. I may have to build a bicep with the default scale (25.4 vs. 26.6). I was very interested to see what the scale factor meant in real life, so I printed out the arc reactor recess page in both sizes. As you can see, the supposed 4.7% difference translates to a rather noticeable difference in the size of the actual part. As you can see, the arc housing is considerably larger. If I apply this to the arm I’ve already built, it just confuses the issue. My arm feels pretty large, but at least I can fit into one that’s too large. I may have to trim around the armpit of the bicep so it fits a bit better. If I build too small, then I won’t even be able to fit into it. I’ve looked into the whole measuring body parts and converting back and forth to millimeters, etc. but until you actually put on a part made from 6mm foam, you don’t really have a good way of predetermining the fit. Hopefully the right bicep at 25.4 will clear things up a bit. I should probably do that pretty soon to resolve this issue.

Another issue that I’ve had with my build is the size of the arc reactor. At 26.6, the arc reactor at about 4” is a bit large. At 25.4 it’s about 3.5” which looks much more appropriate. The interesting thing is that at Lowes/Home Depot, there are these really cool PVC fittings whose ID/OD mates. They also come in 3.5” and 4” sizes to help visualize the size of the arc reactor. That might mean that the housing and arc reactor will be built using the prefab parts. I'm taking the cut out to the hardware store to compare to the PVC, sink strainers, LED lights, etc. I can't wait to resolve my scaling issue so I can start working on the arc reactor!

To incorporate a 3.5” arc reactor based on a 25.4 scale factor into a chest scaled at 26.6, I superimposed the smaller ring onto the larger ring and traced the appropriate outlines to have the best of both worlds. Now I should have a ”properly” sized smaller arc reactor recess in the larger chest.

Here’s the entire 3-piece arm (looks like I forgot to flip the image). I’m already wondering about how to attach/articulate the shoulder bell. I'll probably go with the nylon web/Delrin buckle option because I'm used to that with boat projects. I think it’s a bit big, but better than not being able to fit into it at all, and I am working out… One thing about it being possibly a bit too large is that it definitely looks more heroic.

Quick couple of uploads in case it helps anyone. I drew up the angles of the arc reactor so that each of the 10 LED lit sections is 1.5x the arc of the wire wrapped parts, making each wrap 14.4° and each lit section 21.6°. Now I can print out the attached wheel and lay out my arc reactor parts on it to get the proper spacing. I plan on using LED's and white plastic refrigerator hose, a couple of sink strainers and possibly some custom parts made out of Sculpy oven bake clay. I'm amazed at how well off the shelf parts fit together to make this silly arc reactor. In an even more interesting twist, the whole assembly fits within the recess of the foam chest piece almost perfectly. I inserted the image into a Word document and scaled it to the paper width to maximize the image size. I guess we'll see tonight if it's a decent template to work on. I'm soldering all of my LEDs/resistors/jumpers tonight and going to see if I can bend the tubing into a perfect circle.

Ahh scaling, everyones enemy! Looks like youre off to a great start though!

I can say that those arms do look a little big. The wrist part of the forearm shouldn't really ovelap with your hand at all. It will interfere with the glove and restrict movement even further. I would definately try building an arm at default scale and see how that goes. The wrist part can be 'telescoped' to the right position before you glue it in place. Just remember, your height and weight doesnt have much bearing on the length of your arms, chest size etc! Whilst it may be tempting to bulid a bit big, on the assumption that itll make the suit look more 'bulky', you do risk having parts that overlap too much, restrict movement, and end up looking a bit chunky, rather than muscular

Thanks Dynofiend. My bare arm barely fits into the foam at this scale without any Under Armour base layer. I may trim off the end of the forearm following the original contour to address any clearance issues. I'm waiting to get the chest, brace, collar, neck, etc. foamed to see if I need to trim the armpit also. How many days left?

Hey folks! It's been a while since I posted because as you can see, I've been busy. I've finished all of making one side, except for a fail on the hands. As I expected, I'm a little less motivated to make the second side of the suit. The good news is that the builds are looking a little better. The even better news is that they're not so much better than the first side that I need to make anything a third time. I guess that means I was doing OK on the start of the first side. The scale (26.6/25.4) seems to be working OK for my body. Of course taking two months to build a costume, the body can change at my age (43). The only exception is the codpiece: it's super-snug, so I'm going to put expansion panels that will be where the velcro/buckles attach. The good news is that evidently it will be mostly covered by the back piece if my test fittings are accurate. I glued the abs together into a tube to get an idea of how they're supposed to fit/look. They're a bit snug pulling them over the hips, but they fit OK when in place.

I'm thinking about gluing a few pieces together (i.e. abs/cod and brace/chest/back/collar). I might need to add an additional ab because I've got a long torso and I don't want things to pop loose. I'm not terribly happy with the way the cod/abs line up. In some builds it looks like the flaps on the top of the cod line up with the side pieces of the abs, and in some it looks like the flaps cover the abs. Regardless, it is what it is now and I'll use velcro/buckles to force it into some semblance of order. I'm also looking at getting a red zentai suit to go under the armor for $29 on Amazon.com.

The only pieces that I'm really dealing with scaling issues is he boots. I made three sizes out of cardstock, but built the smallest 26.6 size out of foam. My toes go up into the tips of the boots like you would expect, but the sole is angled, so I'm actually stepping on foam. I may build another one a bit larger out of foam and see how it fits. I wanted to buy a pair of Crocs to hot glue the boots to permanently, but they don't really fit at the scale I'm at currently.

So far, the toughest piece to glue together was the thigh. I had a really tough time figuring out how the knee glued on. I looked at a bunch of other builds and I think I'm at least close. Speaking of which, I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out how to articulate the thigh/shin connection.

I took a day off from building the foam and started soldering my LEDs together. I'm doing 10 lights around the outside ring, three under the sink strainer, and one in the center, equaling 14 total. I used the online calculator and grabbed 100 ohm resistors. I was surprised to see how cheap soldering gear was at Harbor Freight vs. Radio Shack. The bad news is that I hot glued my solder joints together to help them survive the bending required to stuff them into the sink strainer. This actually caused some of my solder joints to bust apart and now they're all covered with glue. I'll either clean them up or make another run to Radio Shack. It'll be powered by 4x1.5V AA's = 6V in a covered case with a switch inside the chest. I also am wiring a soft push on/off switch into the circuit so I can turn it on/off from the exterior. The switch is red and might actually glow when hot, so I figure that will look cool on the exterior of the costume.

I'm saving the second helmet build for last, as I want to articulate the faceplate. That got me thinking about my four-bar mechanism class in collee and how I need to map out the open/closed positions and draw perpendicular bisectors connecting common mounting points to find the hinge position. Leander mentions that in his excellent thread (http://www.therpf.com/f24/leanders-iron-man-mark-iv-hinges-explained-96579/index4.html). I'll see if I can diagram it when I get to that stage. I'm looking forward to seeing if my second helmet is appreciably better than the first. I also had trouble with the nose bridge/foam bending over the knee issue that is being discussed on another thread.

I still need to buy the PVA glue to start coating the pieces I’ve already finished so I’m not having to do the whole suit at once. At worst, I’m hoping that by the time I’m done coating all the pieces, the first piece will be dry enough for another coat, thereby allowing me to do the whole process in an efficient series. Is the gallon of Elmer’s white glue at Home Depot the right stuff to get for $12?

I will definitely suggest that people starting their foam build the side shown in the 3D view first of the Designer software. I built the other side first and had to mentally flip everything while I was gluing it together the first round. It’s much easier just building to the 3D image on the screen of the little laptop I keep in front of me as I’m gluing up. I couldn’t find a way to flip the 3D view. BTW, I scale and rearrange parts to make my printouts more efficient in the Designer software and save it off, but I view the parts in the Viewer software while I’m gluing because it allows me to easily rotate pieces to see how they’re oriented with other parts. This has the additional benefit of helping me determine which edges need to be chamfered cuts. I’ve found that if I cut the undercut angle while I’m cutting the part out of the foam, I get a better cut than cutting the part out with square edges and then try to do the undercut.

I’ve got a test piece of glued foam that I’m going to do a few tests on. First, will using paintable caulk allow me to fair seams that didn’t come together very well at the beginning of my build. Second, using a soldering iron to fair seams to make the suit look welded and to also add decorative detail to places like the long, plain forearm piece. If I can “sculpt” the silicone prior to painting, it will really clean up my glue lines, gaps, etc.

I’m very tempted to look into the Styrospray 1000 option, considering how much effort expense this build is. It might be nice to make it a bit more durable, but I’m very impressed with the rigidity of just the foam. One benefit of hot glue over CA glue is that you can really build up structural reinforcement with globs of hot glue. I stitch the build together at first, then go back and reinforce. You have to be careful that the heat from the globs doesn’t melt your stitches, causing your pretty seam to fall apart.

Looks awesome. Great job.

Just a suggestion for your undersuit, this one is the best I've seen in use (someone else here has it, I forget who at the moment) and they're customizable for exact size if you add $10 and you can get the hood removed/zippers added however you like. If you have the hood taken off and a crotch zipper added it's still cheaper than the ones on Amazon.

And a question I had myself, do you know about how much foam you actually used? I was looking in to the Darice foamies as well but wasn't sure how many I will need. I have some already but can get the rest online cheaper than at the store and want to know about how much to order.

Thanks for the info Laurend! I was actually looking at metallicized suits, but was wondering if they were warmer. Everyone says their suits are so hot inside. I don't want to mess with CPU fans.

I originally intended to keep a full accounting of materials, cost & time, but that took away from my limited building time. It's also why I haven't posted a bunch of cool photos and tutorials like everyone else. Sigh... Anyway, to answer your questions the best I can from where I'm at, I usually grab 6-12 9"x12" sheets at a time (buy the store out). I've probably gone through at least 60-70 sheets and I'm probably only 2/3rds done with my build.

I "accidentally" bought some red foam for the arms and I'm seriously wondering if just a clear sealant and maybe a gloss coat might simplify things quite a bit when it comes to painting time. JFCustom builds his suits properly out of red and yellow foam and they look really cool prior to any painting. Oh, I also ordered what I thought was going to be four 10-packs of foam from Darice on Amazon and received four single sheets for $28. They made it right, but it was still disappointing. I'm using a Sharpie to trace the edges of my cardstock templates, so the Sharpie lines have to be visible, so no dark gray/black foam, which is usually what the exercise mats I've found are. Also, if they have a diamond tread patter on one side, it usually makes some kind of pattern on the other side, which I didn't want to show on my build. I wish I'd explored the http://www.foamorder.com option. Maybe for my Predator build...

I have one of those metallic zentai suits from Milanoo and I agree, I think it looks best. Take a look at my thread. I think in some places you can't even tell where the armor ends the undersuit begins.

Thanks Jeffrey! I did read that you had one on your thread. Any feedback on how warm they are? I know SF is not the warmest place to be strolling around in on Halloween...

I wore mine all night. Warm but not too warm.

New Photos: Making progress! Everything is done but the hands, a second boot (still trying to decide what size to go with), and another helmet with moveable faceplate. The cod piece at the standard scale I've been using was way too snug for me, so I installed a couple of expansion panels to make it easier to move around in. Now it fits like comfy shorts.

Foam Techniques: I've gotten a bit better at the foam stuff. Having the other side built as reference has really helped and didn't really even use the Pepakura Viewer to build the second side (although it does mean that I can repeat mistakes). Trying to make improvements as I go, but not make the first side look like crap. One thing I noticed that cutting the bevels out of the solid piece of foam works better than cutting the piece out, then trying to put the bevel on it. The down side of having crisp bevels is that the hot glue can warp the thin edge, so you get a wavy seam instead of crisp. If you apply the glue farther away from the thin edge, it helps, but then you risk holding the seam together. I guess this is where CA glue would come in handy, although I really like being able to build up a glob of hot glue to reinforce important seams.

Painting: I'm going to experiment with paintable caulk and spray vs. dip Plastidip. I bought a can of each. I'm thinking that the spray should adhere well to the raw foam and be relatively smooth and fill pores somewhat. The more I think about the white glue, the more concerned I am that I'd just be introducing another layer to peel. With the idea in mind that I'm going to be doing battle damage anyway, I'm not worried about going for a super shiny gloss coat, so if painting the Plastidip isn't the glossiest finish, I'm OK with that. I'm not even sure if I'm going to go for the red/gold paint job at this point, but probably will for recognition purposes and costume contests.

I'm also seriously thinking about plasticizing the foam so that it's a bit more durable (e.g. SmoothOn 65D or Styrospray 1000). This has been a lot of work, and the foam scratches/dents easily and they seem relatively permanent. I don't like the idea of heat gunning the exterior, because it results in a kind of cellulite look that I'm not keen about. Also, I'll probably be storing the suit in boxes instead of on a mannequin. The suit warps and gets dinged just sitting there while I'm building.

Assembly: One thing I'd like to address before painting the foam with anything is the webbing and buckles to attach it all together. I think that if I hot glue nylon webbing to raw foam, it will be a stronger connection than if there's layers of Plastidip/paint between them.

I'm going to attach the abs bottom to the codpiece to keep them aligned since that seems like a standard trouble spot. I'm going to attach the abs top to the brace. I'm going to attach the back to the brace because the back seems to slide around a bit and I want to positively locate how the brace sits on my shoulders, then I'll hang the shoulder bells from the back assembly. I also noticed that the back wraps around to connect to the chest. Ideally, I'd like to put on as much of the costume as one solid piece as a pullover, to reduce suit up time. I'll hang the thighs from the cod piece, which will in turn probably have some sort of over the shoulder harness to support all that weight, independent from the upper torso assembly. The forerarms/biceps are hinged with Chicago screws, and I'll probably do the same thing for the shins/thighs (with lots of reinforcement), but I'm not seeing the connection as clearly in the pep as with the arms. I thought about using surgical tubing or some other kind of flexible hinges for the legs. We'll see. That will be a high-stress connection, so I want to do it right.

It looks like I'll need to trim the thighs a bit for the clearance required so that the knees operate properly without binding and so the shins don't drag the ground so badly. The scaling turned out reasonably well for fitting my various body parts, but a 1" trim at the top of the thighs to follow the codpiece is a small price to pay. Even though I've been using a razor knife to cut out all my parts, I did a test cut with scissors on scrap foam, and that will work better for trimming the thighs. I don't want to cut myself open.

Knife Review: I originally bought a Kobalt knife with the break-off blades (9mm x 13) and it was very difficult to figure out how to replace blades. I lost that, so bought a Dewalt of the same style, and other than the blade being a little wobbly because I only have one blade in at a time, it's a whole lot better.