Shooting Iron Man Once More!

A few weeks before Harbour Con-Fusion 2013 and just after Animaritime 2013 I did a second commissioned shoot with Phil Vautour, the Saint John Iron-Bat. Continuing off my experience from the premier of the suit  at the Iron Man 3 opening and then East Coast Comic Expo, we came into the new shoot loaded with neat ideas for images. Phil had some images in particular we wanted to achieve, most were based off cover art and other successful cosplay images around the net. We shot at the Saint John Art Centre, which had offered me space before when I was working on the calendar for Harbour Con-Fusion, sadly those shots were not up to par that time. This time I was highly successful in capturing pretty much exactly what we hoped.

Tales of Suspense

This was a suggestion I had when researching Iron Man images. We would attempt to make an update of the Tales of Suspense comic cover in Iron Man was first brought to life.

This required the making of 4 images of the suiting process, because of certain differences in the construction of the pieces of the suit, we had to change it up a bit, but the end result was fantastic. Here is the edited collection of images arranged on the page to match the comic.

After I had that laid out, I added in the graphics. Some cases I used elements from the original cover, and some I updated to more modern Marvel presentation. 

I still think it's one of my most successful images to date since I started cosplay photography. But wait it's not done. Phil had an idea too, based off one of Adi Granov's Extremis covers.

Extremis

We needed a model to play Maya Hansen, so I was lucky to get a good friend and one of the most professional models I have had the benefit of working with, Brandi Gray. There was no way to make this absolutely 1:1 perfect due to height and suit differences and the lack of a room like the one in the picture. Through painstaking hand compositing and piecing photographic plate elements together, I came out with this interpretation. 

It's pretty darn close and everyone was thrilled with the results in the end. From there we did some other original poses and images including a sequence of Iron Man ironing, just for fun. Here are the rest of the images including an original cover I designed.

All and all it was a highly enjoyable experience with two of the best professionals in this region. We had a goal in mind and met it head on and nailed it. Hopefully all my commission jobs progress like this. I've had one since this point and it was fantastic as well. That person I first met at my next post to go up, Harbour Con-Fusion. Only a few posts away from being caught up and then it should be very close to Hal-Con time. Till next post.

-Larry M. Holder