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| Two heads are better than one... |
I dove back into the helmet pattern. The first thing they tell you on the forum is don't make the helmet first. Your foamy skills will drastically improve while you build the rest of the suit. But did I listen? They were right. I'm happy to say it because it's incontrovertible proof as to how much you improve. As you can see the second helmet is much less torqued and also happens to fit with enough room for the faceplate lifting mechanism (stay tuned). Ironically, you have to glue the whole thing together first so that all the parts are supported and are the correct shape while you apply your stiffener of choice, then you have to cut the faceplate away so that it's rigid and fits the helmet perfectly. Note, I also used contrasting foam colors for dramatic effect...;) The original helmet was done using the heat gun/form it over your knee technique that some members on the forum are able to so quite successfully. I, however, am not. I liked the lack of seams, but didn't like the randomness of the curve. I guess I was a phrenologist in a former life...;)
After an acceptable level of success with the helmet, I tackled the mind bending glove pattern (see below). Titled "easy" version on the forum, I was emboldened to give it a shot. HA! The pattern only looks like a glove after it's completely assembled. Along the way, it's a 3D Rorschach test. I used thin foam to build the practice glove (2mm?) and had to use all of the pics of the finished glove on the forum to put it together like so.
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| TA DAAA! Ugh... |
As I said, you can only see how it's supposed to look after it's all put together, so I had to glue the parts where I thought they should go. I was close. As you can see, I made several notes on the glove about where things really ought to go. I've also got a better idea as to where I should use the 6mm foam to beef things up and for the 12V LED repulsor housing. It's nice to work in a marine store...;)
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| Easy Peasy... |
I'm going to blow up the pattern by 5% and give it another go. Some folks use Velcro and some use rare earth magnets to hold the gloves together. It may be dependent on whether they leave their gloves foamy soft or harden them.
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I've also made a few boots, some out of card stock paper and at least one foam version. I'm trying to find the right size to fit over some cheap Crocs ripoff shoes at the local discount store so I can permanently glue the boots to the shoes and hope to be able to have some semblance of mobility. I find it rather funny that when I'm goofing around and do my "Iron Man" walk it's actually a "RoboCop" walk. I guess I'll have to work on my strutting. Once again, even at this stage in the game, the second boot came out better than the first one...
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| Das Boot! |
So now I'm down to some of the gory details. I've got to get the gloves ironed out, then all the damn finger pieces. BTW, one of the tutorials suggests you hot glue gun the parts to a glove while you're wearing it and warns that it's going to be hot! Actually, that is the best way to get everything to fit correctly. Sigh... Luckily, as a rigger, I'm pretty immune to hot stuff...:-\ Don't try this at home, kids!
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| My favorite hyperbolic paraboloid...;) |
So, last summer, and planning ahead as always, I saw that Pringles was giving away MP3 speakers that fit into the empty can if you sent in an obscene amount of Proofs of Purchase. Loving Pringles and thinking it would be a great gadget for the Iron Man costume, I plowed through several cans, which I think made my suit a bit tighter. Finally it came in the mail, and like Ralphie in Christmas Story, I raced into the house to open it up. Low and behold, it was even Iron Man red! How's that for a sign? Anyway, it's pretty cool cranking out a certain Black Sabbath tune from inside the chest piece!!! These are the kind of touches I'm hoping will help me win some contest ca$h...;)
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| Strap on! |
Oh, I forgot that I'm also assembling all of the parts to make the suit wearable, keeping in mind that some articulation will be required for me to freely move about the cabin. Here's a shot from inside the chest/abs assembly of how I positively locate the two parts so there are no gaps, the parts don't interfere with each other and the two pieces can move independently. Hot gluing 1" webbing and making it easy to disassemble with Delrin clips.
Today, I'm hanging the legs off the codpiece, which is permanently attached to the abs. Any articulation between those two pieces is problematic because the edges interfere, so I locked them in place, which surprisingly doesn't limit my movement because there's so much room between the codpiece and the thighs. NOTE: When shimmying into your costume in your skivvies, make sure to lower the blinds so your neighbors don't think you're a freak!
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