I am Iron Man: a making of the glove

I promised this a very long time ago, but it is finally here.  Back in October, boyfriend and I went to NYC Comic Con as Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. But I’m the craft one, so it was my job to make sure we didn’t look ridiculous.

To start, I had already purchased this shirt for him from Think Geek.  Except it was the previous version that was the generation 1 reactor, not gen 2. But you get the idea.

While not purchased for the costume (you should all know I am a big giant nerd by now) it did the job and saved me some steps.

So my real challenge began when I decided he needed a light up Iron Man glove. Because I can’t do anything the easy way. And to prove that, now you get to see some of my failures before I got to something acceptable.

So when I first started, I decided that cardboard, card stock, and plaster was the way to go. For some reason. For anyone else looking to Cosplay Iron Man, or really any cosplay with armor, this method was an epic fail for me. But I will say it did allow me to plan my pattern, so there was that.

The next step was to do more research, which should have been the first. After reading many lovely tutorials, I settled on wonderflex, and a more heavy duty work glove to build on. I painted the glove red with fabric paint.

I was able to salvage some of my pattern, which lead me to this next picture.

This was a lot of trial and error. As you can see in the background, there were definitely some scrap finger pieces that just didn’t work. I drew out my pattern on regular computer paper, cut it out, and traced it on to my wonderflex. The biggest thing was to make sure all the pieces were labeled clearly. It’ll save you a headache later and you will be less inclined to rage quit. The wonderflex was very easy to use and I think I might love it. I used a heat gun to shape it, with a palette knife for fine tuning and edge work. I did have the glove on my left hand while doing this. Maybe not the smartest thing, but i was able to come through this unburnt. Or maybe I’m really Targaryan….

Anyway, I had another issue before I could move forward. I wanted to cannibalize those little touch lights you can get at stores like Target for the light. And then I thought about it, and realized there would be no way to change the batters. That would not work. Boyfriend saved the day with this one and found a little LED book light.

Isn’t it adorable?

We could slide this under the wondeflex and over the glove, and it stayed in place perfectly. The little touch light I got from Target was disassembled and I used the top plastic bit to contain the light.

 

You can still see my numbering on the pieces, too. Always label clearly. At this point, the test fit on Boyfriend’s hand ran into trouble. I tried making the glove large on me, but I didn’t make it large enough. So we hit it with the heat gun again and stretched the wonderflex until he could comfortably wear it, and then let it cool on his hand.

Next step was the paint. I should have gessoed the wonderflex, because now I’m getting some paint flakes (a year+ later). But I learned something knew. I went to our local hobby store and bought some model car paint: hot rod red and some other color that didn’t have as fun a name.

I think I put 3 or 4 layers of paint on this thing before I was happy. But it was worth it.

 

 

Questions? Let me hear ’em! I’d be more than happy to help, but I am by no means an expert. I just hope my mistakes and eventual success can help some one else out.