Hey all,

So tonight I bring you Tony Stark MECH TEST Iron Man. This will be a longer read than you're used to from me. I had picked up a few Angel figures online cheap, with the intent to make some Tony Stark's in various states, but THIS one is the one I always had in mind to tackle.

This custom was HARD TO MAKE. For me at least. It was extremely time consuming and required patience the likes of which I wasn't sure I had. The tedious amount of stuff scultped and glued, collectively, was gargantuan, even though it wasn't a huge quantity. So here's what I did:

I trimmed up the head and sculpted the hair and the goatee. I knew from my Black Sabbath shirt Tony that I needed to paint the face better, to achieve a better Downey Jr likeness, so it's been completely repainted. I sculpted the tank top shirt he had into the sweater, with a super thin layer across the top of his pants, as the sweater comes down his torso that far.

I sculpted the arms for the basic framework fo the armiture of exposed tech. The legs, below the knee required the same, sculpting process, but much heavier, covering the entire lower leg and foot completely. I cut away sections on the arm and leg sculpt to reveal the frames, and I pressed different pieces into the scultp in order to achieve texture that looked like 'tech'. Small gun tips, Halo stuff, etc.

After all those layers and cuts, taking over several days, I cut actual pieces of metal bendy craft wire, like I use for my capes, and glued them onto the arms and legs. I cut small pieces of colored non-bendy wires and did the same, ensuring that the wire could bend without breaking whether the arm was bent or straight. Lots of wires.

I sliced an ARC chestpeice from an Iron Man mark 3 take-apart figure to get just the top, and glued it to his chest, wrapping it in black bendy and non-bendy wires. Assorted straps, wires, and a belt from a Tomb Raider figure, and BAM! Instant Mech Test Tony Stark. God bless Hot Toys for making their 1/6 version--the pics of that were my reference.

On his hands are peices ofmetal craft fodder, and metla disc beadsare on his palms for the repulsors. Knee pads were WWE elbow pads.

It was a lot of work, but I love the result! I hope you all do too.

Critiques are welcome!! Thanks for looking!

- FITZ