IRON MAN full-body maquette
After I finished the helmet, and it was sent off to Satan Winston's studio to be molded and cast, I moved on to this sculpture. They wanted a massive maquette of the full Iron Man mark-3 costume, and they wanted it to be over 3 feet tall. I argued against this for a bit as a statuette of this size is not only cumbersome and difficult to armature, it would also take much, much longer to complete, but they were paying me, so they got what they wanted in the end. I think I was given 3 weeks to a month to finish it, and I went over that by a week. Maybe I am a slow sculptor, but through all the fighting of the armature (revisions that require tearing the damn thing apart many times), and trying to work out the proportions and shapes and details, I never really got to take this thing to the finish I aspired to. It was ultimately a tight 'rough' concept sculpt.
They never molded this big boy, so I imagine that it is sitting somewhere in one of John Favreau's garages, crumbling...and crumbling.... This maquette was carefully kept out of all the making of books and documentaries. I am still not sure why. It was an inspirational piece that allowed everyone to walk around it and discuss it to see what worked, what didn't, and to suggest improvements.