Ironmen made in Kokshetau

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KOKSHETAU. KAZINFORM - What Alexey Od does can hardly be called a hobby. Friends call him "the father of Ironman" for he has created more than 14 operated Ironman costumes. Alexey, 26, told Kazinform about his unusual occupation.

"Who are you, Ironman, without your costume? Genius, mechanic, philanthropist, creator and a humble guy!" - this is how we will describe the man of our story using the famous phrase from the movie. There is probably no such a guy who did not wish to be the Ironman for a moment. Or try his garment at least! Alexy Od does not just dream but makes this dream a reality.

"I have tried a lot of things. After the 9th grade I applied for a college to become a radio mechanic. Then I applied for musical program and quit it for hairdressing job. But I continued studying music. I played with a band, wrote songs. This continued until I found my calling," Alexey says.

What inspired the young man to assemble the costume? Of course it was the movie and passion.  

"I have always loved movies about superheroes. Four years ago I watched "The Ironman" and the high-tech costume of Tony Stark inspired me greatly. At that moment I wanted to do something like that. There was almost no information on how to make the costume and I did not have good internet at that time. I was working at an advertisement firm and wanted to make something similar to the helmet. But it turned out to be a bad copy of the original. By a chance I found a video of one guy from Kursk (Russia) who makes such costumes and helmets and explains in his video channel how to do it. I started with the helmet. It took off from there. At first it was just a hobby, but now it is my favorite business," Alexey shared.

His first costume Alexey made for himself. It was quite a long and difficult process for somone doing something for the first time. He made the upper body first using paper, which he fixed with resin and treated with plaster. His first creation wasn't the best, according to Alexey.  

"It took the whole summer to make the first costume. The shop was in a mess. Every day I would come from work and continue making the costume. Once I finished it I asked myself "What do I need it for?" So I sold it. I found a buyer from Ukraine quickly.  After a while I decided to take orders and treat it as business. There were two ironman costumes i had to make from plastic. Those were the hardest times for me and my mate. We learnt a lot in the process.  To make two costumes it took us half a year. We spent kilograms of plaster and a bunch of nerves. At times we were desperate. But we didn't want to quit. That work was not useless. Now I spend about a month and a half to make one costume having new material and experience. Our idea did not bring us profit though, but only debts. And it was a good lesson."

Two plastic costumes departed to Bulgaria. Alexey smiles as he recalls them. Later they were resold and appeared in an exhibition in Moscow.

"One friend of mine sent me a photo from the exhibition in Moscow and I saw my costumes there with somebody's name undersigned," Alexey laughed.

Superhero costumes turned out to be in demand. Alexey receives orders from almost around the world. Alexey's ironmen are now in Russia, Bulgaria and India. A couple of costumes travelled to Astana and one costume was sent to Almaty.

"I also made a costume for EXPO. It was a patriotic Ironman in blue and yellow colors with the inscription "EXPO". However there are no orders here in Kokshetau," Alexey said.

To assemble an ironman is only half of the work. I need to make it live. To do that I need to write a program code which would put in motion all other mechanisms such as details lighting, opening of flaps and others. My friend Pavel Plokhov helps with the programming part.  

"So far I have been making ironmen only because I haven't had a chance to do something else. People see the photos of ironmen and order them and I have to make them again and again. However I've just taken one order to make a transformer in order to learn something new. Now I'm studying 3-d modeling. The robot  is going to be tall - approximately 2,5 meters," Alexey adds.

Alexey says he is still working on a better version of his ironman and cherishes a dream to master bionic modeling.

"I have always had this idea but have neither time nor money to make an artificial limb for a human without a leg, for instance. But now that I have the knowledge I can make a functioning leg. It is quite real. It could help to make some people's life easier. It is also important that it should be inexpensive," Alexey stressed.

Alexey has not put on his costumes in public yet even though he says he wanted to see people's reaction.

"I would like to come out to the center of the city on June 1 and see how kids and adults react seeing my ironman. One needs to know that what he makes it for people," he added.

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?????????? ?? alex od (@alexironman_3) 19 ??? 2018 ? 6:08 PDT

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