Iron Man, details & extras..

In my last post, I gave a quick overview of how I built my 2012 Iron Man costume.. but it grew rather long, and I decided to leave a few bits to have their own post.. After all, much of the last post wouldn't be particularly new material to anyone who follows the RPF threads on foam armor builds.. but maybe some of this post may be useful.. 

Read on for more info on tasty costumey details =)

The 2012 Halloween Costume..

This years began when I found about pepakura, a neat little subculture making little models by paper folding.. which has been adopted by a different group that reused the approach to build replica armor from movies.. think Stormtrooper outfits, etc.

I thought about this way back in March or so, and started work on a test piece, to see how it might work out.. There were plenty of people discussing it over in the forums, but the main approach used fiberglass & resin, & required care not to poison yourself with fumes / dust.. I wasn't so keen on that part, as most of my work is done in an indoor living space.

I tried an alternate approach to strengthening.. with reasonable results, then found an approach using high density foam flooring tiles.. these just needed cutting, glueing, and painting.. surely I could do that.. right ? ;p

Well.. it's now October, and I'm done.. the build took around 3 months worth of weekends, with it getting quite busy toward the end, working most evenings as well.. I suspect starting a month earlier would have been a better idea ;p

So.. Here's the final result..

And now.. here's how it got to this stage..

Very Dotty Bird

My first attempt at drawing a LadyBird outfit didn't go too well..

Just because you can have red with black dots, and black with red dots, doesn't mean every surface should have both ;p

This design was useful though, just to help me realize I wasn't a fan of those Disney style puffball shoulders.

UFO ?

As an alternative to the Bumble Bee look, I drew up this 50s SciFi inspired UFO costume.

Aim here was to give that round elliptical UFO shape, and to continue it up into the body.. the shoulders & torso are given a puffed out shape.

The cuffs are intended to be just flat discs, like you'd see on the end of the Ray Gun, or Tesla lightning conductors.

Cuddly Bumble Bee!

This is Bumble Bee's soft & fuzzy look.. for not looking like a scary nasty thing with a pain causing tail ;p

Aim here was to avoid the 'sexy' Bumble Bee looks of costumes common for a Bumble Bee, and aim for something with a bit more humor.. and besides.. Bumble Bees are not Wasps.. they are sorta furry..

Fitted sheer short armed top, opera gloves, and a furry black & yellow padded torso, leading to super padded short shorts.. keeps the Bee part sorted, while the tights, and boots mean you've never gone too far from the costumes you promised to avoid ;p

Tavern Wench Harley

Well.. here we have Harley's outfit for when she's serving up beer down at the local ale house.

Peasant type puffy loose cotton top, with a corset over an almost indecently short skirt, and stockings attached to shorts via lacing.

Red / Black theme is maintained, with the crossover point occurring under the skirt, with the red/black reversing for the shorts underneath.

Corset kept simple, red one side, black on the other, with opposite contrasting piping/binding for highlights.

Lacing, eyelets and piping on the stockings & shorts reversing the red black theme on each leg to draw attention.

Office Harley

Here we have Office Harley, or should that be Casino Harley? I guess it depends if she wears a top under that jacket or not.

This one has the red/black split where it's expected, a straight skirt & jacket replaces the traditional cat suit, and the collar is shrunken so as not to overpower the jacket.

It's one of the few designs that don't involve gloves, and has no head piece.

The idea is for the jacket & skirt to be business like, but for the jacket to close with about an inch of so gap down the front center. Then either to wear a white t-shirt underneath, or not, depending on how daring Harley is trying to be.

Stockings nothing new, just keeping the color scheme going as expected.