Iron Man and Rescue ~ WIP

[chwbcc1]

'Ello everyone the Wookie is back and gearing up to build this year's halloween costumes for my kids!

HOLY MACARONI BATMAN IT'S OCTOBER 22nd? Ok this is going to be another rapid build with limited resources and a limited budget.

This year I am going to take a page from my own book and not worry about amazing detail and absolute perfection! When I started Sophie's Master Chief I was too caught up in the accuracy and the detail that in the end I was really burnt out when it came to the chest piece I really didn't care anymore I just needed to get it done. Ugh it was no fun at all. The final suit was pretty cool but my son's Optimus was far more of a success than my MC. And I only spent 7 hours building it, it was more artistic than accurate, my imperfections didn't bother me as much and I really had fun making it... Tired but FUN!

So this year I am taking the "Run and Gun" approach to the costumes this year! Here it is, the WIP of the year for me, two costumes in less than 7 days using the foam method everyone is talking about.

Elijah is going to be Iron Man and Sophie is going to be Rescue. They are going to be generally similar so save time on the build but the painting and the chest pieces will be slightly different... Tony Stark doesn't have umm those things in the front... what are they called? :$

I am going to need some help the helmets are going to be my trouble spot. I would like to make them out of foam and I would like to have the visor be movable so they can flip it up and be comfortable. If anyone hase any ideas or photos of templates I can mimic that would be appreciated. I don't care to print the Pep and try to flatten, and work with but if it comes down to it I will.

Day one 8/22/10: Gathering Supplies

Today really started Tuesday when I purchased these foam mats from Lowes for $20 each.

They are very heavy and I don't have anything to actually cut them with. That is, I don't want to fatigue myself or really worry about trying to cut this really hard durable eva foam. So the $40 I spent on Tuesday was returned and used to purchase two bed mats from the local Bass Pro Shop for $9 each.

I've already saved $22 so I stopped a the local art store SAM FLAX and picked up some large chip board mats to use for templates and then back to Lowes for two small Tap Lights for my Arc Reactors.

Once I picked up the kids from Daycare/Aftercare I stripped them down to their skivvies and wrapped paper around them to measure thier arms legs and chest. These will be my base templates for each piece. I had to tape several sheets together together and so I could get the entire area covered then I would fold the paper in half and mack my cuts so bothe sides were close to identical.

So that is all for Day one Time to go play M:TG and I will be sure to post more as the week goes on!

HOLY MACARONI BATMAN IT'S OCTOBER 22nd... but I ain't scared... YET!

Tell me what you think and I'd love to hear any suggestions!

Peace,

Chwbcc

 

[Canadian42283]

Looks cool but why did you post this in the video forum?

 

[chwbcc1]

Grr I didn't mean to... I must have hit new topic in the wrong forum. Too many tabs open.

If a Mod could move this to the Creation Thread that would be cool. Or I could just post up some videos of the process.

 

[DarkBebi]

post videos!!!!!! I love videos so much more then pictures lol.

 

[cfh935]

Cannot wait to see this..... I want to make some armor for my nephews all ranging from 1 to 5

 

[chwbcc1]

Ok here is my first video let m eknow what you think!

 

[Cobbatron]

I'm not getting any audio? Anyone else have this problem?

 

[chwbcc1]

 

[DarkBebi]

Awesome job chwbcc1, I hope you get the suits done in time as I see you are working hard on it. I know your kids are going to love the suits as much as I do right now ^^. Every time I go on this site and see a video of progress I get so pumped up I try to get the sketches done on my costume for may. Keep up the good work and I know you can do it.

PS: I love your signature very creative and unique.

 

[ventrue]

I love the background music... What is that? I know it from somewhere, but can't quite place it...

Also, you asked for an alternative light for the hands. Below is a picture of the guts of a Dot-It Linear that should be similar to yours. As you can see, these things consist mostly of air, so you might be able to shrink it down a little if you take away the casing.

 

[chwbcc1]

Cool Thanks! I will look for those, but depending on time I'm not sure if I will get to it this year.

The music is from Digital Juice when they were giving away free tracks. You probably have heard it in a lot of independant films or low budget commercials and infomercials.

Thanks for the compliment on the esig. I guess I have to update it to include this thread! Well it's 8am here so it time to get at this and see how far I can get today.

 

[chwbcc1]

Final day: No time to say hello/good bye!

Here is a quick look at the progress today!

 

[chwbcc1]

Ok, Halloween day!

And I am finished! Everything is packed in a box and ready to goto Disney tonight! It was an epic effort on my part and the kids were extrememly patient and completely excited about this build this year.

Here is the break down:
Cost: $75 (this is a padded estimate 'cause I had some things on hand)
Build time: 12 hours (this is for two costumes that are really cool and completely inaccurate but did I mention that my kids LOVE THEM?)
Grief and aggrivations: This actually went together very easily. There were a few set backs becuse of the tape sticking to the foam but that actually was a life saver in the end. I could reinforce the insides of ever glued seam and this thing wont come apart. The second hinderence was the patterns. Yeah I though that making a template would help speed up the build but it actually didn't translate well when I went to cut out the pieces. This is because I was using the paper to fit properly and then cutting the foam to that size but the thickness of the pad would always come out short. This is because the paper really represents the inside diameter instead of the out side diameter. Luck me, I fitted my son first with the templates and these pieces were used for Sophie's suit. I knew I had two kids for a reason! The next problems I notices is while this is very durable the paint is not. The kids played in the chest pieces for about an hour last night and the paint starts to wear away on the edges and the corners. And it is very fragile if you say get hit 2 or three times with a stick... (SOPHIA! Put the stick down!) The good news is you can easily put another coat of paint on the piece to cover the dings and the sharpie marks still show through.

Assembly: I will say that I learned some things about assembly during this build. I will hopefully go into more detail later about this but to touch on it briefly:
Elijah's Cod piece is a fixed piece with shoulder straps to hold in in place. Works well however I tried to create a foam belt that easily velcros on so the piece is tight. This looks alot better. I also glued the upper thights to the cod piece on Sophie's Cod piece but on E's I used Velcro... IN the end Velcro is perfect for this material it just takes some thinking and planning... but no templates!!!

So on with some final build pictures: Let me know whay you think and I should have some better picks when my wife fixes Sophie's hair better!

Peace
chwbcc

 

[DarkBebi]

Awesome build chwbcc1! The suits look excellent and congrats on building them in time, I always believed in you!!! ^^

 

[ventrue]

I completely understand why your kids are excited ;-)
And I'd like to say that I think it's awesome that you go through all the trouble and build stuff like this them!

 

[chwbcc1]

Thanks for the great comments! They were so popular at Downtown Disney... Everyone loved them and asked where I bought them. I think I up sold the 405th half the night!

These are great one time use costumes that they can play with for weeks afterwards. Which means the paint rubs off and scuffs up but they held up until it got dark so buy that time no one could even tell the dents and digs.

Now they have worn play suits that might not have a perfect paint job but these will hold up being hit "SOPHIA PUT THE STICK DOWN!!!" at least a couple of more times.

I have some great ideas for some other play suits, parents can build with this stuff and if anyone want some tutorials on how I pulled this off let me know.

Now it's time to get back on my Space Marine and my Chewbacca costume.

And out of all the people we ran across only two people knew who Sophia was... Well one guy said, "Look it's Pepper Potts, cause she has red hair but I don't know why she is in an Iron Man suit." and one girl said "It was nice to see, Pepper Potts get an Iron Man suit."

Close enough

 

[AlexSpartan177]

Bro next Time come to Celebration, you get huge pieces of candy and peopel go crazy when you have awesome costumes.
I was earing my Deadmau5 head today, and people were taking pictures with, I saw some people poppong cameras out of no where, I pretty much as an attention whore today lol.
Great you enjoyed Halloween with you kids

Cheers
Alex

 

[Sutekhian]

They look awesome! Nice work

 

[chwbcc1]

After fighting Downtown Disney Chaos I might have to do that next year!. I have never seen DTD that packed in my life!!! It took us nearly an hour to go from west side to east side. It was a lot of fun and I did feel good that I didn't have to worry about traffic.