Helmet will be molded later this week... As for the shrinkage... It looks as though you're just stuffing newspaper in the Ironman suit. I really foresee a shrinkage problem happening again with this, as newspaper stuffing probably isn't "firm" enough to support the shrinkage "pressure". I know you want to get rolling on this, but if I were you, I would at least take some old sweats, stuff them up fully, then duct tape them, in effect, sort of making a duct tape dummy. You're going to want the stuffing to be pretty firm. You'll especially want to stuff up the elbow and knee joints and the openings at the bottoms of the arms and legs. Not telling you how to do your own project, but I've done quite a few Mr. I pred suits and I just think you're underestimating the amount of shrinkage over a soft core. I'd just be very concerned that the latex will just suck the newspaper down to a point that it can't shrink anymore and will end up being too small again. Another advantage of a duct taped core is that it will be far easier to remove the suit from it. Anyway, just some food for thought before you get rolling on the latexing.

And by the way... It may be a blessing in disguise that the other one failed, as this one already looks MUCH better than the previous attempt, considering you're just adding plating rather than building up muscle groups. Good choice.

Thanks, but you see, that is exactly what I did with the first ninja suit. I used a duct tape dummy which was modeled directly on my form, stuffed it with a lot of newspaper, and basically, the suit shrank way too much on the dummy. Also, in terms of removing it from the duct tape dummy, it was very difficult overall and required a lot of prying and tearing.

For my first predator suit, I used a Mr. I costume and stuffed that with newspaper and it actually did not shrink as much as I would have expected. And I was able to wear that just fine. Also, removing the newspaper from the suit was A LOT easier than trying to get the lycra suit off the duct tape dummy. So due to the fact that this mark II suit is stuffed with a TON of newspaper, the shrinkage will be much less I believe just like my predator skin suit.

Anyways, this is going to be my final skin suit attempt, and I believe that in hindsight of what happened with the mark I suit, this should turn out fine.

i am working on a chest and back plate out of carbon fiber to stop rocks that are like bullets (im building a bunker) from blasting rock. im useing a fiber glass dummy (mostly cuz my frnds dad uses it at work all the time) i got all the fiber glass for free (thanks to the owner that said i could have some of it for free) but hey if news paper works for you grate

keep up the good work
at least you didnt have to stand there with a gas mask on for 2hrs drinking water from a canteen hooked up to a rubber hose wile the stuff dryed to finde out that the vasilean didnt work to well and it had to be cut with some tin snips

Yeah, I'm sure that is rough.

Anyways, the newspapers should be OK in spite of what you might think. At least they worked perfectly for my pred suit, so I can't imagine why they wouldn't here.

Tonight, I plan on doing that neat spinal column on the back of the suit and probably adding a few more armor plates here and there.

By the way, to build up the abs further, do any of you guys have suggestions as to what I could place on top of them?

Alright guys, I wasn't able to finish the back due to the fact I ran out of the upholstery foam, so I'm going to get some tomorrow. The only pieces I need to add to the back of the suit is the spinal column. Aside from that, the back is done. Today, I added a lower back piece, elbow pads, and an upper shoulder piece.

nice

Hey guys,

So I got a lot done tonight: I started with adhering the spinal column piece to the back of the suit, and then began latexing the front using 1/1 ratio of acrylics and latex base paint. As opposed to what I did with the mark I suit, I actually used acrylics to tint the latex base paint. I think of it as knocking out two birds with one stone- I get a base layer of blue paint down, and I latex the suit.

I was really impressed with the way the latex base paint tinted with the acrylics adhered to the suit, and if it dries this nicely, I should only need one more coat on the front for complete coverage. Tomorrow, I will apply another coat of latex to the front just as I did tonight:

looks good

Latexing is coming along pretty well, I currently have two layers of latex mixed in with acrylics on the front and I'm debating if I should go to three layers of latex for the front and back.

can't wait to see the finish look!!! Awesome dude!!

try for less you can alwase add more later

lookin sweet dude , hows the head coming along?

Head is coming along well, Mannowar is just molding it right now and is about to cast it. I should have it in the next week or two.

Man that sucks the other suit messed up. It was looking sweet. Hopefully this one works. Its funny how like every costume I plan on making someone else is doing. I cant wait to see the finished product. When I make the suit I plan on making a fiberglass helmet. I was going to have it open up into itself kinda like the game (or atleast thats what I recall) what made you decide you wanted it to flip upwards? of course I know this version will be latex and wont have that feature but I mean in terms of your next version if there is one. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Well, I thought, like the game, it would be a nice feature to have and having it flip up to me at least would make the most sense. It was more of a "nice to have" not "need to have" feature of the helmet.

It's a shame the other suit didn't work out, but now I know what works and what doesn't. I think I'll have a lot more luck with this suit.

Also, a note about what I'm going to do in terms of painting the details of the suit- I'll probably mask off areas for the orange sections and actually paint in some of the divisions you see in the suit that I previously modeled with the mark I costume. So, for example, I will mask off an orange area for the upper arm, and probably paint in the lines which you see that kind of divide the different sections of the arm.

sounds good

Hey guys,

I did some work on the suit tonight- I applied my third coat of latex on the suit, and so far, so good. For whatever reason, the shade of the blue came out a bit darker when mixed with the latex base paint, which shouldn't make a difference at any rate because I can go in with acrylics + adhesive and lighten it up to my desire.

At any rate, here are the pair of shoes I'm working on. These were cheap "Faded Glory" $15 shoes I picked up at Walmart which I feel resemble the boots in the Gray Fox suit pretty well. I used acrylics + rubber cement as an adhesive to paint.

Before:



After:



Note that the paint was very wet when taking a photo, hence why it almost looks like I applied latex on the shoes. It's actually a nice effect with rubber cement as that sort of texture should fit right in with my latex muscle suit.

I plan on adding a dry brush effect to the shoes with some black, so I'll probably have these finished tomorrow. Additionally, as the latex is drying on the back of the suit tomorrow, I will be painting the sword. So stay tuned!

i alwase am

cant wait

Hell at least you didnt give up! Yay for Mark 2!

any updates?

edit:
first on page 7

Here's a quick paint up I did on the first casting of the mask which is basically just used as a mold cleaning casting, so it's a little rough.... The seam line over the top of the head will dremmel up cleanly, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time working on detailing a mold cleaner, so I just trimmed it up and did a quickie paint-up so that George could finally see it.

man that looks amazing man, im so jelouse

Yeah, just saw this when I came to work today and what a nice surprise! That is a great paint up, and what I'll be going for when I get the raw version of this mask from you.

In other news, I applied the second coat of latex to the back of my suit yesterday and today, I will be doing the third. Depending on what kind of time I have tonight, I will apply the third coat of latex to the back and chrome the blade on my Japanese wooden bokken sword.

I'm hoping that Tuesday/Wednesday can be dedicated to fully painting up the suit.

great, post pics asap

absloutly badass

By the way guys, I've just been finishing up applying latex to the suit these past few days. Yesterday, I finished applying the final coat of latex to the back which means that tonight, I will be doing some real painting. I'm thinking of blocking in the orange sections on the front of the suit as well as lightening up the rest of the body with a bluish midtone.

The great thing is that, even though the tinted latex dried as a very dark blue color, I can go back in with a lighter blue midtone and just apply that color leaving the dark tone around the crevices and edges. Think of it as underpainting somewhat, as doing this will save me the time from having to dry brush a dark color on the suit.

looks good keep up the good work

Wow glad to see you haven't given! I've been through a similar experience in the past and it really was difficult for me to try and start from nothing once again. Your suit's looking far better than before! I love how the "plates" look much cleaner and that the muscles have already been built in. I can't wait to see the suit with the salmon pink shades in

The helmet looks awesome! I'm envious! I've always wanted one of those. Props to Mannowar for making such a stunning prop!

However I see that you've decided to go with the paint job in the action figure. Silver looks okay but it's not accurate. White is what I believe it really should be. Perhaps you might not like a flat out white color but something a tad bit warmer might suit your taste. Just a little bit of shading here and there with a light tan color might do the trick. You can probably go with this look:

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/assis...t11_071107a.jpg

But then again it's not my costume so feel free to do whatever you want with it ^^ Just giving a friendly suggestion

Can't wait to see the finished product! I check this thread almost everyday ^^

Yeah, that was a choice I have to make more or less- do I want porcelin white color, or a brushed gun metal look. Personally, I like grungy, so I'm probably going to go with a weather silvered look for the helmet and gauntlets.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions though, I'm just about to go to work on the suit for a few hours. Expect to see some pics tonight!

Manowar, that helmet is sweee-ta. How big is that? I'll call ya when I got the loot.
Should drill out the eye area and put some black dotted mesh in there.

Hey guys,

As promised, I worked on the suit a bit tonight and have some pics to share with you all.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the way this is turning out so far. It's a lot cleaner than my first suit, and the orange I was able to mix is absolutely perfect.

So before I even started, this is what the front of the suit looked like latexed. Even though I used a midtone blue color mixed in with the latex, it still dried as a near black color after applying multiple layers of latex. This was probably because of the fact that the base of the suit was red and naturally darkened the color of the latex altogether:



Next, as I said earlier, I wanted to block in the orange armored sections and mask off a section on the arms and shoulders just like the actual character's suit.



And finally, I use a light blue midtone color mixed in with pro-adhesive and began painting in sections of the body and pushing back the dark tone I had underneath to mostly the crevices and edges.



So that is what I have done tonight. Tomorrow, my plan is to go back with a dark blue/black color and begin painting those lines that divide up the sections of the suit. So for example, the legs have multiple sections divided as you can see in the reference image on the first page.

After I have painted in all of the lines for the blue sections on the front of the suit, I will start adding highlights to bring more depth to the suit. After the blue sections of the suit are complete, I'm going to move on to the orange armored sections and do the same.

looks sweet and much better

cool nice work iv bin waiting to see this

lookin tip top buddie, ever wonderd how raiden would look mgs1 style

Dang, that looks pretty cool Big Stuie. I could easily see that being some sort of texture variation if they decided to do a redux of MGS4 with extra features.

Anyways, I worked on the costume a bit tonight- I finished the blue areas on the front by painting in those divided sections and highlights. Tomorrow, I will be tackling the orange sections on the front of the suit as well as the silver gauntlets.

Also, I finished my shoes by adding some weathering/highlights and started to work on the blade of my sword:

Looking really good already. Good thing you didn't give up. Seem like this suit u even worked faster with all that trial and error knowledge you've gained. Reminds us all NOT to give up at first, even though it may cost us more material and $$$. Your perserverance is an inspiration to us all.

Thanks, my personal philosophy is that you only really fail at something when you choose to give up. From the beginning, I was committed to this project 100% and wanted to see it through no matter what. I'm glad that it is finally coming together.

Also Merky, your link doesn't seem to be working unfortunately.

But yeah, I'm going to a bachelor's party tonight, so I'm hoping that on Friday, I can work on the costume a bit and finish the orange sections on the front of the suit, and start painting the hilt on the sword gold (maybe add some weathering as well).

As a rough estimate at this point, I'm guessing that at the latest, by Tuesday/Wednesday of next week, the suit will be completely finished.

*previous post deleted*

Here's a better link with more photos (5 pages even): http://www.cosplay.com/gallery/37506/

Omi Gibson is just too awesome. One of my favorite cosplayers ^^ Though I wish she airbrushed the suit a little bit.

Her suit is pretty nice, the advantage of using fabric in her case is that you get maximum flexibility. The downside however is that it ceases to look like armor. That is precisely why I went with latexing a muscle suit because the material and texture of the suit appears a lot more tough and firm like you would see hypothetically in real-life in this sort of suit.

damn this looks alot better then the old one

any more updates?

Just been busy these past few days, I'll be working on it later today and probably have some pics to show then.

ok keep up the good work

Hey guys,

Had a chance to work on it for a few hours today, and I was able to finish the orange sections on the front of the suit. Tomorrow, with any luck, I'll be starting the back side and blocking in the orange areas on the suit and doing the same thing as I did with the front. I'll probably be doing the gauntlets last pretty much once the back is done, and then finally, applying perma-wet to both sides.

It's coming out very well!

looks very nice

My progress for today- blocking in the orange sections on the back of the suit. Tomorrow, I plan on switching to the blue areas and doing the same thing as I did the front in terms of applying a midtone color and pushing the darker tone to the edges and crevices. Then, I'll work in those line segments and apply highlights and such. Finally, I will go back to the orange areas and finish those and do the gauntlets.

Looking really cool

its comeing along nicely