First build WIP - Iron Man MK IV

[Ikras]

Alright then. Time to get things rolling.

So after a while lurking and reading up on all the tutorials I could find along with some assistance on early questions from Phixix (cheers again), I find myself here with my first attempts at some construction. Always thought that iron man is incredible so it had to be that.

So working off some foam templates that I tracked down online I started work on the arms. Thought it was as good a place as any to start and if things went horribly wrong then they weren't the biggest sections to redo either.

So here we have the first shots of my attempt at a bicep section.

Overall for my first attempt I can't argue with it. Came together not too badly in the end. Some bits didn't quite line up but I think that more due to working off paper templates rather than from some stiffer card. One issue I have found relates somewhat to the size but I'll come back to that later.

Forearm was on the cards next.

Felt that it turned out not too badly overall. Not too happy with the tube at the front, has more of an edge on it than I would like but couldn't quite work out how best to give it a smoother edge.

Back to what I was saying on the sizing though. From what I had measured before things were fine scaling wise and I feel that with the forearm there are no issues there. With the bicep though it's very tight around the bottom of it but at the same time too large to fit the edges behind the connecting points on the forearm.

It may just be the way that I put it together the first time and some slight errors in the tracing onto the foam but I'm not too sure.

My cunning plan had been to scale the forearm so the gap at the back was large enough to fit everything comfortably but then the length is off horribly.
So for now considering making a bicep again, same size but on card this time and see if it comes out better but I fear I may still have the same issues when it comes to connecting the parts at the elbow.

Any input on this would be most welcome but that's all for now.

Edit: Added some photos. Can't quite work out how to scale them down yet though. Any pointers appreciated on that.

 

[Ikras]

A quick update as well with some better angles on the sections so far. Hopefully I've fixed sizes a bit as well this time around.

I've decided to continue by scaling up the bicep slightly and give it a second try. See if the sizing comes out a bit better this time around. Adding 20 mm to the height of it I think I can deal with and it widens the bottom a bit too.

Will give it a try soon and see how it turns out this time.

 

[JayOneSeven]

Really nice neat foam work!! Impressive, you got yourself a sub :] Looking forward to the results from this!

 

[Ikras]

Thanks very much. Having a great time with it all so far.

Printed off my templates for the scaled up bicep now and will be aiming to make a start on it tonight. Hopefully comes out better this time around.

 

[Ikras]

So, nearly a year since my last update. That went fast.
As I said in the last update I decided to try out a larger bicep. Something that hadn't occurred to me with this though was that it also fattened the piece to the point where it looked ridiculously oversized. At that point I kind of left the project for a bit a bit disheartened with the prospect of having to redo a bicep yet again.

Some time passed and I came back to it and came up with a solution which I don't understand why I didn't think of before. I widened the elbow gap by slaying out the connecting tabs at the bottom and replaced the horizontal section with a wider part to match. It's still a touch on the tight side but a huge improvement on before.

Just to be sure I was happy with the sizing I made the shoulder as well for that side and it seemed to match well. Since then I have continued onwards and have done the other shoulder, the other bicep in the same way as the first and even had a quick shot at a hand.

I didn't get any shots in progress on most of these parts but I have finished off the assembly of a second forearm tonight. I have a few pics from earlier today of the various parts I have produced so far. There are some bits I'm not as sure about but overall I'm quite pleased with it all so far.

They don't match up quite perfectly just yet as I haven't connected any of them so far and this is something I'll need to have a think about. Having effectively done the arms apart from the hands I'm trying to decide what to make a start on next. I'm considering having a go at the helmet or possibly start from the waist/hips and start working up, we'll see. Any observations or advice on anything I've put up so far are very welcome.

Another thing on the cards is that I'm planning to pick myself up a dremel. Selected one but haven't ordered it yet. I've seen that it's better to have some kind of mask for dealing with the foam dust and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on which ones are good. I'm UK based which may limit things a bit.