Anton Maltsev, an ex-member of Russia’s Special Forces and a Kossovo War veteran, was recently pardoned for turning his Moscow apartment into a veritable forces chuck full of traps, firearms and even a DIY titanium exoskeleton he used to fight off debt collectors.

Maltsev’s unusual story first made news headlines in 2016, when military bomb disposal experts were called to break down his apartment door, after debt collectors failed and triggered a pepper-spray trap in their attempt. Inside the apartment, the experts found several tripwire traps, reinforced doors, an AK47, several semi-automatic firearms, numerous pistols, a grenade launched, and eight kilos of explosives. But the most startling discovery was a home-made exoskeleton made up of titanium plates, aluminum, and featuring a bullet-proof helmet and vest. It was this contraption that earned him the nickname “Russian Iron Man”.

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Wayan Sutawan is being hailed as Indonesia’s very own Iron Man after building a robotic device that he claims can read signals from his brain allowing him to control his paralyzed left arm.

This literally unbelievable story started six months ago, when Sutawan suffered a stroke that left him with a paralyzed arm. Having studied a bit of mechanical engineering in high school, the father-of-three spent the next couple of months working on a robotic arm using spare parts that were just lying around in his garage. He finally created a strap-on mechanism for his paralyzed limb connected to a headband that he claims reads his brainwaves and transmits commands.

In a video report by Indonesia’s Kompas TV, Sutawan is seen strapping the device on to his left arm and covering his left hand with a thick rubber glove. He then puts on the headband, and after a moment’s concentration, the arm miraculously jerks to life. He is then able to use the paralyzed hand to perform delicate tasks. He’s also able to lift up to 10 kilograms of weight with the device on his left arm.

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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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The title is a little misleading, so to make things clear, we’re talking about the face of Iron Man made of real urine, in a toilet bowl. This unusual artwork was actually considered better than 600 other entries in a popular art competition.

You don’t often get the chance to associate Iron Man with urine, but this is one of those rare occasions, and we only have a geeky Taiwanese guy to thank for it. But how does one get the crazy idea to paint a portrait of one of Marvel’s most popular superheroes with urine. Well, this particular art school graduate was taking care of business one day, in the bathroom, when he noticed blood in his urine. Now, most everyone else would have panicked and ran straight to the doctor, but not this fellow. Looking at the colors in his pee, he immediately thought of the colors of Iron Man’s suit, and felt inspired to create a portrait of the popular crime-fighter using his very own urine. Read More »

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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Two die-hard Iron Man fans chose the streets of London as the best place to show off the cool homemade costumes they worked so hard to complete.

32-year-old John Bekkensten, from Norway, is an established sculptor for the movie industry, with works featured in blockbuster hits like “Gladiator”. “Braveheart”, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and others. But John is also a big fan of Iron Man, so apart form his official projects, he spent over a year replicating the costumes of the popular hero and his sidekick, War Machine, out of fiberglass and plastic.

John ended up wearing the much cooler War Machine costume, while his buddy got the chance to be Iron Man. Together they got on double decker buses, took picture with London guards and managed to stun pretty much everyone they passed by.

If you’re interested in cool movie props, be sure to check out John Bekkensten official site.

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I’m a huge fan of cosplay, and although I’ve already featured a few home-made Iron Man costumes on OC, I just couldn’t help share the metal suit made by Ted Gorzkowski.

Ted is a carpenter by trade, but a talented blacksmith at heart. And since he’s always been a fan of superhero movies, he decided to put his blacksmith talents to the test and create a metal replica of Tony Stark’s famous suit. He spent months molding the pieces of metal, painting it in just the right colors and creating the arc reactors out of hundreds of LEDs, but the final result was totally worth the effort.

This Iron Man suit made by Ted Gorzkowski may not be as detailed as the War Machine replica created by cosplay master Anthony Le, but it’s definitely worthy of our praise. For more photos of this cosplay masterpiece, check out Ted’s MySpace profile.

Thanks a lot, Ted!

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Cromer is really big on lobsters, and the English coast town even host an annual lobster festival. This year, among the other funny lobster statues, a funny Iron-Man suit appeared.

Blogger Meimi132 recently traveled to Cromers, and during her sightseeing sessions, she managed to take a few photos of this ridiculous, lobster-shaped Iron-Man suit. I’m pretty sure you’d need to have a seriously curbed spine, to fit in that thing, but I must say, it’s pretty original.

And according to Meimi132’s reports, this is just one of 80 crazy lobster statues, scattered around Cromer. Among the coolest ones are the statues of a lobster Na’Vi, from the movie Lobatar, ant of Shreddthe villain of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. Although you couldn’t recogniold Shredder if you’re life depended on it.

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Gregory ‘Iron Guts’ Barlow holds the Guinness record for most Carolina reaper Peppers eaten in a single sitting, 160. The Carolina Reaper is the world’s hottest chili pepper, by far.

Melbourne-based Greg Barlow doesn’t even like eating chili peppers or hot sauce, but he loves the attention it earns him, and he’s willing to put his stomach on the line for it. After getting acquainted with the burning sensation of eating one or more Carolina Reapers, Barlow approached the League of Fire, an organization that ranks the most badass chili eaters on the planet in various categories. One of the toughest challenges any competitive hot pepper eater can undertake is eating the most Carolina Reaper peppers in one sitting, but Iron Guts Barlow went straight for it, in his quest to become world champion.

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Lino Tomasén, a 32-year-old street performer known as the ‘Cuban Ironman’, has allegedly been conditioning his body of iron by hitting himself with a heavy hammer around 1,000 times per day.

The so-called Cuban Ironman first garnered media attention in 2020 when a video showing him banging his fists and elbows against concrete walls went viral. Since then, his strongman reputation has been steadily growing. These days, he has an Instagram following of over 100,000 people and makes a living by putting on street performances in which he showcases his incredible strength. Most of the time he does pushups on his wrists with another person on his back, and uses a large hammer to hit his wrists, fists, and shins, or has someone else do it to prove it’s not fake.

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A Chinese man has been getting a lot of attention on Asian social media, because of his unique training regimen – walking with 150 kg of steel plates attached to his feet.

Zhang Enshun, a 42-year-old man from Yulin City, in China’s Guangxi province, has been training in the art of “iron shoes” for the last five months, and has already made significant progress. After seeing news reports of people working out by walking with heavy weights attached to their feet, and hearing them talk about the benefits of this training, Zhang decided to try it for himself. He began by attaching one steel plate, weighing around 18.75 kilograms, to each of his feet and trying to take a few steps with it. Today, he can walk around with four of these heavy plates attached to each foot, for a total weight of 150 kilograms.

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Vimal Govind Manikandan, an engineering student from Kerala, recently made international headlines after building a fully-functional exosuit inspired by Marvel superhero, Ironman.

People have been building their own Ironman suits for years, but while those are all just good-looking replicas, Vimal’s version actually works. The 100-kg-heavy suit doesn’t fly, or shoot energy beams like that of the actual Ironman, but it can move at a decent pace, perform basic actions and even lift up to 150 kg, thanks to battery-powered pressurized air chambers. And it only cost $750 to make.

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Heavy footwear is usually considered uncomfortable, but for Zhang Fuxing weight is definitely not a problem. The 51-year-old from Tangshan, China, spends every morning walking in a pair of iron shoes weighing 405 kilograms.

For over seven years, Zhang Fuxing has spent his morning exercising on a pair of impossible shoes made of heavy iron blocks. The factory worker designed and created the bizarre footwear himself by welding pieces of iron 30-cm-long and 20-cm-wide. At first, the shoes weighed only 70 kilograms, but as his workout intensified he kept adding more weight. Now his shoes are 40-cm-high and weigh a whopping 405 kg, about seven times his own body weight. It seems impossible that a person could even lift their feet off the ground wearing such weights, but Zhang says he usually manages to walk around a dozen meters in 20 minutes, every morning. He keeps the unusual shoes in his courtyard and says they are so heavy he isn’t even worried they might be stolen.

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Martha Mason was an extraordinary human being who spent over 60 years of her life in immobilized in an Iron Lung after becoming paralyzed in her childhood years as a result of polio. Despite her seemingly desperate situation, Martha lived a fulfilling life, graduating from high-school and college with the highest honors, hosting many dinner parties and even writing a book called  “Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung”, in which she portrayed the challenges and joys of her life.

Martha was born on May 31, 1937, in Lattimore, a small town about 50 miles from Charlotte. Her story took a tragic urn when she was only 11 years old, after the death of her brother Gaston who had suffered from a terrible condition which left him paralyzed before eventually killing him. After his burial, young Martha realized she had also contracted the dangerous viral illness but kept it to herself as not to distress her parents even more. “I knew that I had polio. I didn’t want anyone else to know,” she wrote in her book. “The day before I had heard Mother talking to a friend about the iron lung Gaston had been in. . . . I knew I wouldn’t have that difficulty because I had excellent lungs.” But soon she  too found herself  immobilized in the iron lung, dependent on it to do the breathing for her. “Iron lung” is only a colloquial term used to describe a pressure ventilator, a type of medical device which helps paralyzed people breathe by decreasing and increasing air pressure inside of a large iron tank. Ms. Mason has lived almost her entire life in such a tank with the pressure contracting and expanding her lungs when her weak muscles couldn’t. Doctors told Martha’s parents to take her home and make her happy for a year, as that was how long she had left to live. She outlived them both thanks to an avid curiosity and a desire to learn about the world.

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