Iron Man Hand Repulsors!

I wanted to make some repulsor lights for the palm of my Iron Man gloves.  I also wanted to do it on a tight budget.  What I found was a bike light at Big Lots for $2 a piece.  I got a bunch of them because they were fairly cheap, super compact, and bright.

I dismantled the lights to be even smaller and bent the lights to point the other way.  I wanted to have the button facing outward in my palm.

I found a chunk of nylon plastic that I cut and sanded into a pair of discs.  I drilled holes in the bottom for the LEDs.

The whole assembly fits comfortably into my falm with the glove in place.

On cosplay, physical appearance, and chainsaw disfigurement

I've got some time on my hands as I'm proctoring a state test, so I wanted to share a moment that I had a couple of weeks ago.  I was helping my father chop down parts of a tree that had been growing up and over the house over the past 25 years.  It was the kind of thing where we would look at the thing every couple years and say, "Yup. That'll have to come down some day."  Naturally, we waited until the tree was a monster and the process of removing it would be slightly on the side of lunacy.

I found myself balancing myself on a narrow rooftop, trying to start a chainsaw to hand to my father, who was dangling from a makeshift harness from a branch in the very tree we were trying to dismember.  As I pulled on the starter handle, I lost my balance, let go of the handle, and the chainsaw flew directly into my nose.  I immediately started bleeding everywhere.

My very first thought, before I worried about the tree or my personal health, was that I had done a Tyrion Lannister/Battle of the Blackwater facial modification to myself and that I would be cosplaying with a mask for the rest of my days.  The good news was that the wound wasn't as horrific as I estimated.  I'll have a small scar on my nose and I have since considered myself lucky not to have caught the saw with my eye socket or teeth.

In the past several months, I feel that I've gotten more in touch with my own personal appearance.  I've lost over 20 pounds and am now overly concerned with marring my face.  And it is all because of cosplay.  I lost weight to fit into a morph suit for my Mega Man costume and I've been more and more interested in portraying Tony Stark.  I am wondering if anyone else has had this kind of realization.

Foam Man!

It doesn't exactly have the same ring to it and it is certainly not as protective as the real thing, but I've finally decided to try my hand at making some Iron Man armor out of EVA foam.

I want to have a costume to wear for the opening of Iron Man 3 next week, so I decided on doing the boots and gloves for the shot of Tony standing with his suits of armor.  I don't have enough time to do a full suit, and this is my first real experience working with foam, so I thought this would be the right size of a project.

The pepakura files for this project came from the RPF user jackieisrockin and we designed to be used with EVA foam.  The main difference with normal pepakura files is that the tabs and pieces that add depth have been removed.

The only other thing to be careful of is the thickness of the foam.  I've actually got a sheet of foam that is closer to 3/8" thick and I think it is too thick.  Also, some of the parts are meant to lay over the top of others and I went with some 3mm craft foam.  The trade offs here are stability vs. thickness as an entire piece made of craft foam is too wobbly.  The glove parts, for example, are craft foam because of how small and articulated the parts are.

Thus far, I've got most of a boot, a forearm, and a bunch of glove parts.  I am also planning on making a helmet for my Pepper Potts (wife) to carry around.

Arc Reactor Upgrade!

I started with the Think Geek arc reactor.  I found an image of the new arc reactor and scaled it to the size of the one I already had.

The triangular section was printed and cut out in card stock.

I traced the design onto some plastic I had from a Thai food container.

The plastic from the old piece was trimmed and the new plastic was inserted behind it.

Assembled, no lights.

Powered up.

Hooray!  No more of that pesky palladium poisoning.  It's certainly not perfect.  The LEDs are spread out to accommodate the old piece, but there's a decent amount of light diffusing through the white portion to make it look good.