The Iron Man Cometh!

So last year I was dating a girl who got her 2nd DUI, so she had to stop drinking, which pretty much made me have to stop drinking (Pulp Fiction, anyone?).  Anyway, I found myself with a surprising amount of energy in the evenings and I wanted to do another epic costume (first one was a complete Jack Sparrow, including overcoat and goatee extensions).  One night a couple of years ago, my buddy and I were staying up late watching how-to videos on Youtube and we came across a guy who made an Iron Man costume out of craft foam.  Completely blown away by this, I did some research.  By September, it was time to start thinking about getting started on a costume, so I delved into an Iron Man MKIV.  For the Iron Man freaks out there, there's a whole world of difference between the different models, kinda like a Mustang or Camaro from the 60's vs. the 70's.  

Anyway, I downloaded the pepakura software and then grabbed all of the files from the various contributors at TheRPF.com and cleaned out both Michael's and Joann Fabric of 6mm craft foam (1/4" for those who aren't up to speed on the metric system).  Armed with a razor knife (break off tip style), a hot glue gun, a Sharpie, cutting mat and some patterns printed out after scaling them to my size (the designer was 5'6" and I'm 6'2", so the software lets you scale things so you don't look like you threw your armor in the dryer for too long).

Starting to look like a dead body...

Right arm finished with hinge installed...

Well, Halloween came and went and I didn't finish it.  I kept working on it diligently until the mess in the living room became too much for the ex (funny how I was so supportive of her stuff).  Now, a year later, after having moved on (literally), I'm back at it again.  I've refreshed my memory about where I was in the whole thing and am ready to dive back in.  Notice that this coincides rather nicely with the fact that I can't do anything outside on the boat project because of the friggin rain.  It was time to start thinking about epic costumes, and even though I'm a huge proponent of starting projects (not necessarily finishing them), I couldn't waste the hundreds of man hours and dollars already invested in the IM project.  So I dug the Hefty bags out of the storage unit that had all of the parts stuffed inside, stripped down to my briefs (sorry, no pics of that.  UGH...  I need to do some pushups), and started realizing that the numerous parts, made up of 288 individual pieces that have been hot-glued together, could be hot-glued together.  The strategy is that I'd rather have to strap on three large pieces than thirty small ones.  I also can see the quality of the seams of the joints of said parts improve as I progressed, so I'm going to get some paintable silicone and fair the seams.

Five separate pieces that will end up as one.  I think the sink drain arc reactor is a nice touch...

This assembly will probably end up hanging off of suspenders...

May not end up being all one piece, but you get the idea...

The brace and the back will definitely be glued together.  The spine will be glued at some point and probably velcroed the rest of the way...

After that, I'm going to use Styrospray 1000 from some friends in Houston to turn my mushy foam into stiff plastic armor.  I don't want to trash this thing wearing it one night.  I've got a lot of costume contests to win to make up for what I've already dumped in to this project.  I'm not Tony Stark for goodness sake!  One of the guys that does a tutorial on Youtube tried break dancing in his IM costume and the operative word there was definitely "break".

I probably need to mention that besides blowing some minds at work (my boss is a comic freak) and on Halloween night, I want to spend an afternoon wearing my costume down at Seattle Childrens with the kids who have cancer.  I'm always looking for karma points, and I can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon if it brightens some sick kids' day.  I'll get into my sailing circumnavigation for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society later...