Kandy Apple Red Ironman Mark XLV (45) 3D Printed Build Thread

efarley

Active Member
Kandy Apple Red Ironman Mark XLV (45) 3D printed build thread.

Ironman Mark XLV (45) - Avengers: Age of Ultron

Hello all and welcome to my build thread. I have wanted to do my own Ironman armor since I saw the first movie. I've attempted a couple times a long time ago to create the mark 3 helmet from Pepakura but always gave up due to time conflicts. I had ruled out foam due to quality issues so that put the kibosh on my plans until I recently purchased a 3D printer (two actually)!

I've just started the build and I don't go very fast so expect this to be a slow thread. I'm hoping to have the suit done in time for Emerald City in Seattle (March), or at the latest for Wizard World in my hometown Portland (April).

So far I have "completed" the helmet. I put quotes around that because I intend to do some more finish work and re-paint or even re-print the helmet when I paint the rest of the suit. I don't plan to do that until after I have completed everything however due to the method of applying Kandy Apple Red. This will also allow me to complete the harness rigging, motors and electronics prior to paint which is great in case I need to do any drilling or modifications to the suit.

Kandy Apple Red turns out to be a very difficult color to capture in photographs. There is just so much depth that happens with the lights and darks and the way the light plays with the metallic flakes. These are the best photos I could capture, but trust me they don't do the color justice. If you're not familiar Kandy Apple Red is a color typically found in high end custom automotive applications that has a similar appearance as the coating on an actual candy apple but with added metallic flakes.


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The chest was cut into 26 individual pieces in order to print which I had to reassemble and finish. The sanding.... oh so much sanding...

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All together now!

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I originally painted the mask with the intent for it to have a gold painted look so it was finished smooth with a gloss finish.

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However after watching a video on the production of the movie suits I learned they went with a brushed metal look and that it's supposed to be a Gold Titanium Alloy so I did an experiment with a brushed matte finish and I like it much better. I'll be doing all of the gold and silver with this finish going forward. Although I might have gone a tiny bit too subtle, maybe not.

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Coming Soon!

Back (only about half of this will actually be visible in the completed suit until version 2)

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Collar pieces, mostly assembled but I needed to re-print one piece.

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Thank you.

I'm using MaxCrfts files. I've looked at the Do3D files and considered buying them also as they look nice but I don't see a price listed and already have the MaxCrft files which look equally nice. Also the files from MaxCrft were recently updated (June, '18).
 
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I didn't accomplish as much tonight as I'd have liked but I managed to weld the pieces together.

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Helmet looks great so far, if you don't mind, could you share the process for getting the finish correct with the Candy Apple paint? Did you apply a gloss black layer under? What brand is the paint? Thanks
 
Helmet looks great so far, if you don't mind, could you share the process for getting the finish correct with the Candy Apple paint? Did you apply a gloss black layer under? What brand is the paint? Thanks

Thank you.

For the current paint I did 3 coats of grey primer, 3 coats of a silver base coat with a nice metallic flake, then 5 coats of Kandy. I'm using House of Kolor, hence why it's spelled "Kandy" and not "Candy" :).

That said I'm still refining the process of the paint. Just last night I was experimenting with using a black gloss base coat followed by a chrome silver mid coat then the gold as I heard this gives the metallic a really nice effect. If it works (I'm finishing today) then I'll do a test spray out using the same approach for applying Kandy.
 
Been a while since I've updated, so here we go. I've had some highs and lows.

The low: I decided the back piece was cut into too many pieces and it would be too difficult to finish it to a quality I'd be happy with. So I decided to re-print it! I've cut it down from 13 pieces to 4 pieces. The new back is currently being printed, so I'll add some photos Wednesday when it's done (assuming none of the prints fail).

Here's the piece I'll be trashing... *sigh*

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The High: I got one of the parts that runs from the chest over the shoulder to the back completed and it's looking great.

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This is the right side, which I still need to finish but it reflects the starting point for both of these pieces and the finish work involved in the left side shown above.

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ugh these gaps...
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I've also gotten most of the pieces for both shoulders printed as well, I'll add some photos of those once the prints are completed.

Finally and I'm not sure if this is a high or a low; I've decided to completely re-approach how I'm applying the paint. I'll be purchasing an air compressor, spray gun, and air brush to apply the paints for the final product instead of using rattle cans. I'm making this change primarily to support switching to a new gold paint that should give me a much better finish.


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Finished the "Under Neck" pieces as well as the piece that surrounds the arc reactor.

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Starting to put everything together, I'll need to build an armature pretty soon.

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Up Next:

Shoulders

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Been a while since I've posted an update but I've got a fair amount done :)

Completed:

The shoulders, they came out really well.

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In Progress:

I'm making slow but good progress on the back piece, but man it's a labor intensive part.

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On Deck:

In addition to the back flaps shown above, I have the flaps printed for the right side, as well as a couple parts that go to the shoulders, and finally the top half of the right upper arm is printed as well. Lot's of finish work to do... I can't keep up with the printers

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Printing:

We have the rest of the upper arms. Upper half of the left upper arm on the left and lower half of the right upper arm on the right.

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Wrapped up the back piece today, it was a ton of work, but it looks fantastic IMHO.

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Fitment if really nice, much better than the last piece I scraped that I was using as a placeholder.

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I also got the left upper arm printed and glued together, I'll be finishing it some time in the future, so stay tuned for this one!

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I'll be working on a mannequin this week as well to start fitting the suit on, so keep and eye out for that as well! Once that's built I'll be able to post some photos with the shoulders attached.

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I completed the back flaps, and mocked them up to see how they fit. I have to say they're looking great!

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Figured I'd take a nice close up to show off the clean lines, nothing to hide :cool

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Here's another 180deg video since I think these are pretty cool.


Coming Soon

I'm still working on the upper arm pieces, haven't had as much time lately as I'd like, but they will be the next completed parts. I've also gotten the abs printed (front and rear) so they will be coming pretty soon. Oh and I still need to start that mannequin so I can start mocking the suit up better... Not.Enough.Time.

On The Printer

Forearms.


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Great progress. Mk45 isn't appreciated enough.

Agreed, it's the most beautiful suit IMHO. The designers said they wanted to go back to the idea of the suit being a wearable Ferrari and I think they nailed it. I do love the multiple small Arc reactors on the 46/47 though so I might make that suit someday also but I prefer 45.

I went back and watched avengers 2 for references and was shocked at how little screen time the 45 suit got. I think that's why it's so under appreciated. Plus it's only ever done in CGI, I could be wrong but I don't believe they ever made a physical suit for the mk 45.

I'm still curious why we don't see more candy apple red suits though.
 
Agreed, it's the most beautiful suit IMHO. The designers said they wanted to go back to the idea of the suit being a wearable Ferrari and I think they nailed it. I do love the multiple small Arc reactors on the 46/47 though so I might make that suit someday also but I prefer 45.

I went back and watched avengers 2 for references and was shocked at how little screen time the 45 suit got. I think that's why it's so under appreciated. Plus it's only ever done in CGI, I could be wrong but I don't believe they ever made a physical suit for the mk 45.
Y
I'm still curious why we don't see more candy apple red suits though.

I used Chrysler PRP Deep Cherry Red Crystal

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It's been a while but I'm finally back with another update and it's a big one! Lots has transpired, let's begin.

I needed a mannequin to do some rigging and test fitting so I built a PVC skeleton.

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He needed to bulk up so I bulked him up to scale with lots of newspapers and tape.

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I felt like some of the parts were lacking rigidity and would eventually break or crack causing major problems so I re-enforced these parts with fiberglass. It was my first time working with the stuff and god is it messy... but it did the job!

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After this I discovered Auto Primer which shows a lot of defects in my finish that I had previously missed so I spent A LOT of time doing fine detail work.

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I needed to re-print some parts that weren't working out and low and behold my hot-end is borked and needs to be replaced... Let's get that fixed.

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Finally I was ready to start mocking the suit up on the mannequin! Which I promptly dropped the chest piece onto a hard surface breaking it.....

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So yeah, I fixed that and was back to mock up...

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I wanted to use magnets to align the sides and keep the chest/back snapped together so I modeled and designed some clips to hold some magnets. My first design (left) was too bulky and would poke me in the sides so I re-designed it with a low profile design (right).

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Ultimately after some testing these little magnets just didn't have enough power for what I needed so I upgraded to bigger magnets. MORE POWER!

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Finally we get to some really exciting stuff, the test fit!

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The only issues I'm still having is with the piece that go's between the shoulder and neck pieces is causing the "under neck" piece to not line up correctly, so I'll figure that out.

I wanted to mock this up with the forearms as well but they fell off while I was taping them on and broke so FML I'll fix that too... sigh.
 
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