Comic Con at MCM Expo London

This is only the third comic con I've been to if my memory serves me right. My previous one was in Hong Kong and half the expo hall was without stalls, but filled with little girls in japanese school uniforms. My time before that was so long ago, that cosplay wasn't even that popular and the number of geeks like me were very few. The internet was also still lacking.

I've been following the 405th forum and I know that some of them will be there, so I was expecting some people to have some decent armour on like a number of people in Halo armour and at least one person in an Iron Man suit. Sadly, I didn't see anyone there like that.

The London Comic Con at Excel London. Lots of people

I was actually a little bit disappointed with the overall cosplay that was there. I saw people in the Naruto Akatsuki cloak and that was pretty much it. The people who did have a head band on, not all of them had a cross through the symbol. It was probably the cheapest and fastest way to get a cosplay suit without actually having to do much. Slap on a swirly orange mask and you're an instant hit. I actually wanted more Narutos. If there were enough Narutos (good or bad costumes) then it would look like a shadow clone jitsu. Shame there were only a handful.

Their storm trooper suits are great! ...... A little short ..... and fat for a storm trooper aren't you? But still freakishly good.

Great! armour! Now stop resisting

So cute! Where did they get these costumes?

 I wonder if these guys are from the 405th? Their armour is really good. I was temped to ask them about it, but I didn't have the guts to go up to them. I was trying to check out which route they used to make their armour. Was it foam, paper and fibre glass, or did they go through the whole make a silicon mould and create the armour. I'd better do some more research first.

 This guy is pretty cool. He was playing anime songs while we were queuing up waiting to buy a ticket. It's a little sad that I recognised a lot of the songs.

 A guy in a big and cool cosplay. I'm not sure what it's from but I'm wondering how much effort it was taking him to get around. I couldn't get one clean picture of him because everyone was always trying to look in though his mask even though you can see a number of camera trying to take a picture.

 Seriously cute Final Fantasy and super hot!

 These were really great cupcakes and I was wondering how she managed to get the picture onto the cupcakes. After speaking a little to them, they have a special machine that can print directly onto the fondant icing. My biggest regret is not buying one. Her website is here if you need to check it out.

 Another photo grabbing moment. I wonder how he sees out of it?

 This was weird. Was popeye making a comeback? They were giving out a cook book...... Not all of it was about spinach thankfully.

 This is a really cool darlek. People were pushing it around and I didn't see it move by itself, but when I wasn't looking, I heard it's voice with the typical "exterminate, exterminate" and then some funny and weird comments.

 A clean R2D2 just going around aimlessly. The remote control guy was right next to me.

 A dirty R2D2.

 Just a casual chat with Darth Vader. A typical everyday thing.

 Die rebel scum!!

 This is cool. So many storm troopers and they all look the same. You could even kneel in front of them and get shot.

 I'm a little disappointed with the robot wars. There were too many people and I couldn't see a thing. I couldn't even get close. I was just hearing a lot of banging and clashing sounds.

 The back to the future time machine. Pay 5 pounds and you could sit in it and get a picture taken.

 Day of the Tentacle! A classic game made by Lucas Arts. It's strange, but there haven't been many games similar to it.......there haven't been many decent games similar to it.

 A really cute girl in a kimono. They were going around taking a picture with everyone with a decent cosplay on..... Hmmm..... makes me want to get a decent cosplay costume on so that she would take a picture with me.

 This guys sword was pretty well done.

 I'm not sure what this is from but damn it's good.

 Cool ghost? zombie? white witch? This is going the extra mile with details.

 These guys costumes were pretty cool. I didn't realise that Ace was standing in the middle there with the Jedis and Darth.

They're so cute and small. Where did they get the costumes?

Overall, the comic con was okay. There weren't that many stalls that interested me. I wanted to have a go at Zelda - skyward sword, but there were too many people crowding around it. I managed to get close, but it was a pain trying to get out. I also wanted to take more pictures, but some of the people I wanted to take a picture of may have been needed a little more clothing .

What is with this free hugs business? The girls were cute, but I really don't understand why it's happening. Was there some sort of contest? or was it that they were secretly pickpocketing people?

I didn't know the celebrates that were there all except for the one guy with the longest queue. He was the original guy in the C3PO costume. I was temped to google the other people around but I was thinking it would take too much time for someone I'm not going to approach. I'm surprised there wasn't more info on them on the website to know that they were going to be there.

Iron Man helmet glueing together

 This is the chin, Everything was relatively easy except for the bottom middle part. The lowest part of the chin was easy to make, but the edge connecting it to the rest of the chin was a nightmare. In the end, I just used some masking tape to hold it into place. Once it get's fibre glassed, I shouldn't need to worry about it.

 This is the one of the side sections, the ear. There's another part that I can put on top of this. I believe it was designed like this to allow the ear part to be moved around however you'd like. I'm wondering if there's something I can hide in there or something special I can use it for...... or do I have to hollow it out.

 It doesn't like like it but this is the top of the head. The two open parts on the left and right look like rails for the mask to come up and down. It might be an idea.

 This is the back of the head. It looks like the back can fold up so if it's needed, I can somehow cut it up and push it up.

 Good god, this is the mask. The eyes are a nightmare.The eyes were the first thing I started with and I still haven't been able to complete it because I just can't see how it's all meant to fit together. What's even more annoying is that it requires the eyes to be able to fit together. The eyes also look completely sealed so I'm going to need to think of a way to see through them.

 This is like the forehead part. It doesn't look like anything and it was pretty fiddly to glue the middle part in. It might be an idea to glue them in a different order next time so that I can get in there.

As you can see in some of the pictures, I'm using pretstik to glue everything together. It looks a little crazy, but I seem to be making it work. I can put the pieces together and still move it around a bit to get the right position before holding it to glue together.

Starting of the Iron Man Project

I've been going thought a number of different sites and I've found the full set of armour for Iron Man and War Machine. I'll stick with Iron Man for the time being but it might be an idea to continue later with the War Machine for a side kick :)

I'm starting off with the helmet because it looks quite complicated and requires a little more time and detail. Looking at the rest of the armour, it seems relatively easy with large piece. The next piece I want to move onto is the glove and arm. Other then the helmet, the glove and arm would give the most visual impact and I can also see how big the palm is to see how big the lights I need to make.

 Here's a sample of the pepakura files printed out. As you can see, this one sheet is really really detailed and quite complicated.

I've used 160gsm paper because I don't know what card stock is and searching the web doesn't help. from what I've found, it can range from 130gsm to 260gsm.

This is mostly everything cut out. If you can see from this pic, I tryed to stay accurate where it's meant to be a solid side, but if there was a flap that was going to get glued, I allowed some more space. This was to allow me to speed up slightly because there was a lot to cut out.

First post of the project

I'm interested in cosplay and I've never been daring enough to do it because it does seem a little strange HOWEVER I've been a fan of Iron Man long before it came out as a movie.

The initial spark to start making armour was because my younger brother was asking if we should cosplay at the comic con that was coming up. He wanted to dress up as Kamen Rider RX, but a quick image search of what he looked like, it would be quite difficult to make a decent helmet.

As I carried on researching what cosplay costume I could do, I was thinking of making Link's Twilight Princess Hyrule shield and Master Sword...... and figure out a way to get pointy ears and a lot of green fabric to make a tunic..... and maybe tights. I found that pepakura files were available to make these out of paper instead of foam board.

I came across an Iron Man helmet pepakura file and I started to go into more detail. This really peaked my interest because I have the potential to make a full Iron Man costume. I haven't actually seen someone with a finished Iron Man costume made from pepakura except for the one kid who got onto the news for going thought all the step.

There is this really good site which helped a lot, but it looks like they've just moved and everything is still a little bit messy. Click here to go to the 405th website which helps people creating armour like costumes.

The iron man suit allows me to try out my skill in making pepakura files and also try out fibreglassing and polishing things off.

Here is the tester Iron Man helmet. I'm not really sure why this was needed, but it allowed my to try out making a model from pepakura files. I'm assuming it's for the scaling. This helmet feels a little too big for my head.

My aim is to make a full Iron Man suit and wear it to a comic con. However, I'd also like to have working lights for the palms, chest and eyes. The biggest problem I'm seeing is the face plate opening and closing. I'm not even sure where to start with that because I can't see the actual mechanics of other people's helmet. I might need to just keep it closed.