A passionate Iron Man fan from the United Kingdom spent hundreds of hours creating a realistic-looking suit of the Marvel superhero from Eva foam, wood and other recycled items. Did I mention he’s only 17?

Reddit user Mafferick was so impressed with his 17-year-old friend’s home-made Iron Man costume that he decided to share it with the community. DIY fans obviously had a lot of questions about the materials he used and the time he spent working on it, so he gave the young creator the chance to reply via his account. It turns out the guy is a big fan or Iron Man, and he also likes making stuff, so this awesome wearable suit is a combination of two of his greatest passions. He used “lots and lots of foam, wood and various recycled bits and bobs (the boots are some old shoes with the cushions from some old roller blades to make them wearable)”, and spent “a few weeks if you add the hours together” sculpting all the various parts and making them look as realistic as possible. The rudimentary tools used to make this impressive piece of equipment include an industrial knife, a dremel, sandpaper and over 100 extra sharp blades for cutting the Eva foam. He painted the whole thing with automotive spray paint and now plans to give it a “damaged” effect. The price tag – around $540 worth of materials and a great deal of time.

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Mark Pearson, a 44-year-old repairman who loves comic books, has spent 14 months of his life creating an almost perfect replica of Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit, from sheets of cardboard covered in fiberglass.

Perason certainly isn’t the first one to build a replica of the famous Iron man suit, but his is definitely one of the most realistic looking, regardless of the materials during the build.  “I don’t know why I did it”, the repairman from Bradford, West Yorkshire, says, “I guess it was just a moment of madness. I decided on making the helmet then I said to my partner – I’m going to make the full suit.” The comics fan bought himself a 12ft cardboard model of Robert Downey Jr. in his iconic superhero suit, started work on the helmet, but simply couldn’t stop. He downloaded the templates from the Internet, and made them into cardboard moulds. Once those were all created, he was able to create the fiberglass parts of his magnificent Iron Man suit.

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Wang Kang, a 25-year-old office worker from Shanghai, China, surprised his colleagues a few days ago, when he came to work wearing a home-made Iron Man suit.

It happened on June 3rd, 2011. Kang walked into his office building wearing a metallic-looking costume and was immediately stopped by security. After explaining to them that he was actually an employee there they allowed him to go through to the office area where all his work mates stopped what they were doing and stared at the real-life Iron Man that just walked in. Everyone was speechless at first, but proceeded to congratulate Wang Kang for his incredible achievement, and started taking pictures. One of these ended up on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo, and the young self-taught costume maker became an internet sensation.

Wang Kang got the idea of making his own Iron Man costume after seeing the 2008 blockbuster starring Robert Downey Junior, but actually started working on it on February 26, 2011, right in the living room of his rented apartment. The costume is mainly made of high density foam, wires and tubes, for which he only paid 3,000 yuan ($460). It also features the famous arc reactor which he made from glass. The whole thing took him three months to finish, but the reactions on his colleagues’ faces were totally worth the time and effort. After the office test, Kang took to the streets where he left everyone stunned, as well.

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