There is a fantastic blog post titled “Why Make an Iron Man Suit? A 16-Year Old Artist’s Story…” over at the website for the Stan Winston School of Character Arts. In the post, Jackson Leverman describes in great detail the process of pepakura and sculpting a suit for himself. Jackson originally planned to build a Halo suit but changed his mind after seeing an Iron Man 2 trailer. It’s amazing how large an influence character design can have on young audiences, cosplayers commonly dress up to celebrate their favorites:
I started planning for the project in mid-December of 2009. Iron Man 2 released on May 7, 2010, and I wanted to wear the suit to my local theater on opening day.
Using designs from online forums, web tutorials, and with support from his parents Jackson was able to build a suit most people will only dream about owning. This is a great story that illustrates how we should be supporting kids to make the future one prototype at a time. Jackson summarizes it well:
This was about a sixteen-year-old guy learning, growing, developing, and realizing that if he truly wanted something, he could achieve it through hard work and perseverance.
