Sugru Iron Man Armor for You LEGO Minifigure

It was Sugru build night with the Decatur Makers in Decatur, Georgia. Armed with several packs of Sugru and a LEGO minifigure I embarked on the task of making an Iron Man suit... a small and lumpy Iron Man suit.

A word of warning before you proceed through this Instructable: I am not an artist. Enjoy!

There's not much for this one. All you're going to need is:

• 2 5g packs of red Sugru
• 1 5g pack of white Sugru
• 1 5g pack of yellow Sugru
• 1 LEGO minifigure
• X-acto knife

The very first thing you need to do is decapitate your minifigure. Sure this seems gruesome, but it is almost Halloween after all! Removing the head makes working on the helmet a lot easier.

Begin by taking a small amount of red Sugru and wrapping it around the head starting from the back and top. Stop when you're just shy of covering the minifigure's face like in the first image. If you use multiple pieces, be sure to blend the seams by gently rubbing your finger back and forth across the seam.

Now you'll want to grab your x-acto knife and cut/shape the Sugru so you have a shape similar to that shown in the second image.

Next grab the yellow Sugru and fill in all the spaces that don't have any Sugru. It should roughly be in the shape of the section you cut out earlier. Once you're happy with the yellow section, get the x-acto knife and remove some Sugru from the eye area.Don't worry about the shape too much here as you can go in and shape the eyes better when you add the white Sugru,

Finally, take two small balls of white Sugru and place them into the area you just cleared out. Use your finger and the x-acto knife to smooth and the shape the eyes to your satisfaction.

Before you start on building up the armor on the body, you may want to place your minifigure in some sort of pose. It will make the sculpting a lot easier.

After you've decided on a pose (I just put one arm out) start wrapping Sugru around the torso. Don't worry about the arms yet, we're about to get there. You only really need a thin layer, because if you put too much you much you'll end up with something resembling a red Michelin Man.

To give the shoulder area a bit of definition and to make them look like separate sections of armor, first make a small ball of red Sugru. Put the ball on a should and begin to blend in into the torso section. Try to maintain the shape of a the ball so you end up with a slight bulge like in the picture. Do this on both sides.

Begin by placing a small band of Sugru around the curved part of the upper legs to extend the Sugru from the torso. Then blend the that band into the torso.

Take your x-acto knife and make cuts into the Sugru at an angle starting at the top of the outer hip and going towards the groin area. You should now feel like a surgeon. Remove the sections of Sugru below the cut.

Next, wrap the Sugru around the rest of leg, leaving the section you just removed uncovered. You'll fill that in later.

You're just about finished! While you're working with the red Sugru, take a small amount and warp any exposed area on the arms. Then take some more and place it on the exposed areas on the feet. You can extend the front of the feet a little to give the appearance of boots.

Now take some yellow Sugru and press it into the exposed areas on the upper part of the legs. You might as well go ahead now and press some yellow Sugru near the inner arms even though my pictures show that happening as a later step.

Lastly,what would Iron Man be without his arc reactor? Make a small ball of white Sugru and press it flat into center of the minifigure's chest. You should now feel like Tony Stark. For some final touches, add some small stripes of white Sugru below along the stomach.

Just re-attach the head and you have yourself your very own LEGO Iron Man minifigure!

Now I know what you're thinking: didn't LEGO already do this? Yes they did, but let's compare (see image above). I think it's pretty clear which is better!