"The idea was that Tony's constructing the Mark I out of old shell casings and equipment, and everything had to look like found objects. Dirty, rough metal of different shades. Some of it had paint on it, some of it had decals to make it look like cut apart missiles. It had to have weld marks. It had to have a very handmade, hand-pounded kind of forged look to it." - Shane Mahan
The Mark I suit was originally planned as a completely digital suit, but the Stan Winston Studio made it their mission to create a real suit. Mission accomplished! Their Mark I costume would end up performing 80% of the shots in the final film.
The process began with Marvel's concept artist Ryan Meinerding coming up with the original design, an homage to Jack Kirby's original Iron Man armor in the comic books. From there the digital team for Stan Winston Studio created 3D models on the computer to help figure out how to make it work practically.
Pictured above: The original Mark I design by Ryan Meinerding.
After the 3D model was approved the team had to create a maquette. This was an extremely complicated project as it was more like three maquettes in one. They designed a body substructure underneath and then hung numerous armor shells to that frame.
"The digital team modeled the shells first and I said, 'Well you've gotta attach these shells to something if we're going to grow them.' And so they attached these frames, and then I said, 'Well you know you've really gotta have these things attached to a body so it won't fall apart.' So then they had to model a body inside as well," model shop supervisor Dave Merritt remembers.
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Shane Mahan: "The Mark I was going to be done entirely digitally, but we kept saying that this suit is perfect for having a performer inside and making it work. We were all a bit cocky about it. Our feeling was like, this is what we do. It's a guy in a suit, trying to escape. So let us make a guy in a suit, trying to escape. We would shoot our own internal tests with stuntman Mike Justice and he'd move around while we'd operate all the radio controlled engines and belt drives on the back of the suit."
Pictured above: SWS model maker hangs the epoxy armor shells onto the aluminum framework.
"So we showed up for the first Mark I film test at the cave interior set. They didn't know we were bringing a suit, they thought we were bringing a prop on a stand that they could roll in and roll out as a reference element," said Trevor Hensley. "So we uncover the Mark I and Mike Justice is inside it, but it was dark and they couldn't tell there was a guy in the suit. We lit him all up and there was a very brief moment where they were all looking at it, Favreau, the producers, and then suddenly Mike took a step forward and they were shocked. And then it was lots of hushed conversation and they started asking 'How much can he move?' Mike starts turning sideways, putting his arms out, moving all around, and they realized this was a suit that they could actually shoot with. We were so proud that we did it."
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