The Iron Man Oddysey, Part 1

So I saw Iron Man last night, and it kicked ass. I, uh, didn't stay for the coda though, so I guess I'll just have to see it again. In any event, this provides a perfect segue into the reason you're here - my homemade Iron Man costume adventure!

A while back Toyfare announced a build-your-own-Iron-Man-costume-contest. This provided me the proper motivation to get out of bed in the morning (no I wasn't depressed, I just have a really comfy bed) and do something constructive during the 10 hours that I'm awake each day.

An Iron Man costume is no easy undertaking. I don't have a whole lot of access to steel, and the steel that I do have access to isn't shaped like robot parts. Okay, well, I only needed to submit pictures for the contest, so it only needed to look like steel. So what to use? Then one day while I was relaxing in my bed, enjoying a delicious glass of ice tea, it hit me - titanium!

Five demolished G4 Powerbooks later, all I had to show for my efforts was a criminal record and something that vaguely resembled a bedpan.

So I drank some more ice tea. And then it hit me, again - copper! $300,000 worth of pennies and a smelting license later, and I had an exact replica of the movie Iron Man costume. But then I found out that pennies are actually 50% zinc, so I threw the thing out. I was building this thing
around a theme, dammit. I couldn't very well be copper Iron Man if I was 50% zinc. My kids would never respect me.

So I drank some more ice tea. And it hit me again - gold! That one didn't quite work out. Let's just say I'm no longer welcome in any area dentist offices or funeral parlors.

So I just said screw it I'll make the thing out of Arizona Ice Tea jugs.

And here is the result:


These are just the initial pics taken with my roommate's crappy camera in order to make the deadline, but I got an honorable mention:

(click to embiggen)

That's not the end of the story though, so check back here to learn more about the continuing oddyssey of making a kick-ass Iron Man costume out of the cheapest materials available.

I want to take some better pictures, but that requires me to put the thing back on, and that ain't easy. But I'll do it, as soon as I finish this bottle of TrimSpa.

And check back for more on the contest itself, including snarky comments about the winners (I should have at least made 2nd place).

PLUS, a special appearance by a mannequin! Really!